A temple for tourists

Kannadasan once wrote that temples hold secrets only devotion reveals. Today, watching tourists photograph sacred spaces, I remembered my grandfather's hands trembling during prayer, his lips moving with centuries of whispered faith. The temple gleamed, polished for visitors' eyes. Yet somewhere between the Instagram angles and souvenir stalls, I glimpsed what mattered: an elderly woman lighting oil lamps with the same ritual her mother taught her. Social rewards meant nothing compared to that continuity. Our heritage lives not in perfect photographs, but in hands passing flame to hands, stories breathing through generations, keeping something precious alive together.