“These are from Woodlands. Look at how nice the leather is. Some beggar will steal them and won’t even know what they’re worth,” Mr. Jha said. “Gods or God, Bindu? Which one is the right term?”
“I don’t know, Anil. I suppose it’s the collective idea of God in many different representations and forms, so you can say either. And if you’re so worried about your shoes, don’t leave them out here, go and deposit them—they have a shoe check-in. You would know if you came a bit more often,” Mrs. Jha said, dropping a ten-rupee note into a small metal can belonging to a man with leprosy, who was sitting in his wheelchair at the entrance to the temple.
“Ten rupees?” Mr. Jha said. “That’s what beggars get these days? While the world is in recession. Absurd.”
He wandered off to find the shoe deposit. The summer heat was getting on his nerves. The heat in Delhi summers did not just come from the air; it radiated up from the ground and came off the walls of the buildings and pushed you from every direction, making it difficult to move. What was the point of all this new money if he couldn’t escape the blistering midday temperatures? It should be possible, Mr. Jha thought, to have a small portable air-conditioned Plexiglas cubicle built to walk around in. After all, he had had a shower installed in the Gurgaon bathrooms so he would no longer have to use a bucket filled with water and a mug to pour it over his body. So maybe he could have a similar contraption—completely sealed and cooled—to take everywhere with him. It would make life a lot more pleasant. Maybe something with wheels. But then that would just be a car.
“Sir, twenty rupees for the bin and fifty rupees for the individual,” the bare-chested man with a red tika was saying to him. The shoe handler, who was sitting behind a counter, with burning incense and loud ragas, looked like God’s own guard.
“Fifty rupees to store my shoes for twenty minutes?”
Mr. Jha walked away. He hadn’t made his money by being cheated out of small amounts. He saw his wife standing near the entrance with her fair feet naked against the hot, dirty asphalt.
“They’re robbing people blind with the shoe check-in,” he said. “I’ll leave one shoe outside the temple and keep one in my back pocket—nobody will steal a single shoe.”
“You can’t carry a leather shoe into the temple, Anil,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Why not? You’re carrying a leather purse.”
They entered the main foyer of the temple, and the sudden oasis of peace and quiet silenced them both. It was built in a way to maximize the cross-breeze, and the air smelled of incense. Templegoers all chimed the large bell that hung on the main door to announce their arrival to the gods. A few priests sat scattered on the ground around the periphery, wearing white dhotis with the Brahmin thread crossing against their bare chests. Everyone was barefoot and quiet.
“Where is the temple in Gurgaon?” Mr. Jha whispered. He realized that he had never seen one there. Did rich people not need temples anymore? Or maybe it was more fashionable to go to church these days.
“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Jha said. “But more and more people have prayer rooms in their own homes. And you can all a pujari home, depending on what you’re praying for. I was reading about how some of these rich industrialists have puja parties in their homes that would put the biggest temples to shame. With gold-embossed invitations and return gifts for a Ganesh Puja. Just imagine.”
“Interesting,” Mr. Jha said. “Maybe we should do that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even like coming to the temple,” Mrs. Jha said. “We don’t need to copy everything other people in Gurgaon do.”
Mr. Jha had never heard of a puja party, but now he was intrigued. You could probably be as lavish and show off as much as you wanted if you used God as an excuse. He followed his wife in toward the sanctum sanctorum.
“It’s so nice and cool in here,” Mrs. Jha said. “Even without air-conditioning.”
She was relieved to feel the cool clean temple floor that felt like silk beneath her feet.
“Doesn’t look like God is doing any of these people much good. Any of the gods,” Mr. Jha whispered to his wife as a man with a white bandage covering one eye walked past them.
“Well, you don’t know what state he’d be in if he didn’t come to the temple,” Mrs. Jha said.
Maybe she was right, Mr. Jha thought. He had been very fortunate so far; it was risky to offend the gods. Maybe he should have left the shoes with the Brahmin shoe attendant after all. He certainly shouldn’t have a leather shoe in his back pocket right now. He would put some extra money into the donation bowl when his wife wasn’t looking. When nobody was looking—the gods would notice that he hadn’t done it for any kind of human credit and would be particularly appreciative.
The silence seemed to get louder as they got closer to Lord Krishna’s shrine. You could tell this was the main god because the blue idol was nearly six feet tall and stood gracefully in his signature pose with one foot bent in front of the other and his flute raised to his lips. His pedestal was a deep red, and the yellow of his dhoti matched the yellow of the flute. It was the busiest part of the temple but also the most peaceful. The priest’s assistant was carrying the lit diya through the crowd of believers, all of whom were passing their hands over the flame and then over their own heads to receive God’s light. Mr. Jha waited his turn. He wanted God’s light, but because he hadn’t done this in years, he moved his hand too close to the flame and then screamed in pain as the flame licked his hand. Everyone turned to look.
“Why must you always make a scene? You don’t take anything seriously,” Mrs. Jha said, smiling. Her husband was a self-made man. Relying on God was a comfort, not a career. She put her hands together, closed her eyes, bowed her head, and thanked God for finding her a good husband.
At the same time, Mr. Jha, with his hands pressed together, eyes closed and head bowed, was also thanking God for finding him a good spouse. He rarely visited temples, he never followed rituals, he had a leather shoe in his back pocket, and he regularly ate beef—although, in his defense, he’d heard that the beef in India was actually buffalo and those aren’t sacred—but thanks to having a wife who truly believed and prayed for him, he had managed to find success. Maybe it hadn’t all been just a result of hard work and good luck; maybe it had been because of his wife’s prayers.
“Do we ask the pujari to bless the keys here?” Mr. Jha whispered.