A Quiet Evening at the Temple

I visited the temple in the early evening, just before the lamps were lit. The sky was that uncertain colour between grey and gold, and the courtyard had cooled enough that the stone felt kind under my feet.

I had brought a small thali — a coconut, two bananas, a few flowers. Nothing elaborate. I have learned, slowly, that the offering matters less than the attention you bring with it. The priest smiled, took the plate, and for a moment I forgot about everything waiting outside the gate.

There is a particular silence inside a temple that is not really silence. Bells, footsteps, a child laughing somewhere behind a pillar, the soft sound of someone praying. It is the sound of many people being quiet together, and it is one of my favourite sounds in the world.

I sat for a long time afterwards on the cool floor near the pillar. I did not ask for anything specific. I just wanted to remember how to be still. That, I think, is what I always come for — not answers, but a pause long enough that the questions stop feeling so loud.

I left as the lamps were being lit. The garland around my neck still smelled of jasmine. On the walk back, the city felt softer than it had on the way in. Maybe nothing had changed. Maybe I had.