Reach here when all is over! But this means quiet time with the deity, and the priests. We’re asking about this detail or that, and the priest mentions the Balatripurasundari temple – Oh, is that where the Melmalayanoor Angalamman stays when she comes for Masi Maham? We ask – and he replies that that practice isn’t at all ancient, it’s just from a few years ago and is largely a monetary exercise. What he says is continued by another man (devotee) present who explains how it feels to go to that temple, when it is so focused on money. Another woman comes by and says: I thought you must be talking about Tirupati since I head “kaasu koyil”! But they affirm that temples in Pondicherry are generally not this way, and that you can go to most of them without hesitation. Manakkula Vinayaka used to be very bad, they say. Someone who worked there would put some long tweezer-like apparatus into the hundi and get money out all the time. He’s gone, so the problem is gone, but the damage done to the temple and its reputation–well, that stays. In general, temples here don’t function this way.
There’s also some talk about how the renovations were done for the Mutthumariamman koyil, and how they changed many things but never the main sannadhi which still retains its old uneven stone floor.
The take-home for us was that some of these integrative traditions may not be so old at all, and that some (though not all) are driven by modern monetary concerns. Angalamman temples in general seem to be plagued by this? The conflict between the town Angalamman and the one in Angalanagar which we’re following was over money collection issues in the main market area, too.