Taamul

By Allwin Jesudasan & Rajkamal Goswami An edited version of this article appears in the print edition of  Down To Earth, July 15, 2013 “Varsham muluka naa TV paathutu beedi suthitte irrupen. Varshathulle inthe oru vaaram oru kavalai illaame na inge thanguven.” (All year I sit in front of the TV, rolling beedis. In the one week that I spend here, I just relax and enjoy my stay here without worrying about anything else in the world) remarked a middle-aged woman ‘pilgrim’ from a small hamlet of Alangulam Taluk of Tirunelveli District of Southern Tamil Nadu.  She was replying to our query as to why she came to visit the the Sorimuthu Iyyanar Temple inside the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) during the annual Adi-amavasya festival. We had asked this question because to us, it was difficult to understand the motivations that drove hundreds of thousands of people to travel and camp inside forests. During this festival a large area of the forest around the temple gets i