11 A PG for the Gods

It is difficult to find a temple in Salt Lake. That is ironic considering the Bengali love for culture and their reverence for Kali.Somehow my experience of Kali puja in Kolkata was more about the food, glamourous show pieces and dancing and less about spirituality. I have always been enamored by their love for music and dance but sometimes I suspect that perhaps the Bengali love for culture is more hedonistic and less about God.
Findind a temple was never difficult in Bombay. Bombay ( I prefer calling it Bombay as it was in my childhood) is considered cosmopolitan but you would always find a Ganesh temple in one corner by a banyan tree or on a side street next to the shops. I wonder if it is the Shiv Sena is to thank for that.The city may be driven and the people ambitious and you would think that people never have time for visiting God's home. But somehow in the same practical way that most Mumbaikars approach things, many do find a way to schedule a temple visit and a simple puja into their organizers.
Chennai has many temples which is not too surprising since the South is known for temples. However cosmopolitan the city becomes, the Chennai people seem to remain protective of their way of life in a down to earth way which I have always admire and wish will always remain.
I heard a rumor that there was a temple in AE block .I wondered which of the innumerable Indian deities would it host. So on a Saturday night after watching the miracle conjured at Perth and the narrow escapes of Federer and Venus Williams , I finally decided to go and have a look. I walked to the right of CRP camp island for the first time looking around to see if I could see it. I heard it before I saw it - a chant of Narayana and I saw a small marble building on the right side of the road. I removed my slippers in the clay like sand outside and approached the entrance. It was a small 8 by 8 feet enclosure. Their were two entrances on either side and I took the one on the left. To my surprise there were more deities than I had hoped for. There was a Hanuman on the right painted with a Shiv Sena colored red paste. There was a Shiva Tridev in the center and a Shiv ling in front of it. There was a female diety which I assume to be Lakshmi to the right. A tri headed Vishnu in the right most corner. There was a big OM painted on the center wall. I wondered why they had two side entrances than one central entrance. I managed to squeeze myself to sit down in front of the Hanuman, silently listening to the chants from a speaker somewhere in that room.
It was a PG for the Gods, all of them living together without complaint in a place where property rates were going through the roof even for them. Nevertheless in that clamped space, I felt happy. I am not into idol worship in the sense I dont need to have an object in front of me to pray to or talk to God. I have always felt that you can and should look for the God within you and demonstrate it with a sense of purpose and duty in my life. So I have always wondered about the strange happiness I felt on entering a temple even when wasnt praying. Was it the ambience? the ringing of the bell? the silent chant? was it seeing the idols and finding a physical embodiment of my hope in life?
Or is simply that God DOES reside there I dont know. I guess I never will? Some things you simply got to believe. Which is what I guess they call Faith.
PG or no PG.