Rough Ideas

Every full moon, pilgrims come in their thousands - between 20′000 and 100′ooo that is, according to what I heard - to walk around the mountain.

So it was full of anticipation that we boarded the bus back to Tiruvannamalai on Sunday, ready for the small big event - the biggest festival being held in December.

I started the week by bumping into my ‘old’ friend William with whom I’d arrived here the first time. He’d gone somewhere and had just come back. It’s like that here, you keep bumping into the same people.

So later that day we went swimming in the lake and walked around the mountain, and bumped into Laxman again. We decide to visit him in his new house the next morning, the other side of the mountain, and go swimming nearby.

And that’s how the full moon started, walking half way round the mountain already, to find a wonderful little house hidden in a clump of trees, behind a quarry.
Some of the quarries are full of the most wonderful green water. More arrive, and later we set off to do the full moon walk.

It starts relatively quietly, as it’s still daylight.
By the time we’re half way round, back in town - our normal starting point - the place is heaving. The traffic is diverted, buses can’t enter town anymore.
The best way to describe it is a river of people, peaceful, just walking all in the same direction. Most of them are bare foot, so there is no sound but the soft patting of feet on the tarmac and a little talking.