Charming Chennai holds many secrets

At the Kapaleeswarar Temple, I notice the solemn face of a small child as she is being carried by her grandmother in a clockwise circle around the shrine of the goddess Karpagambal, suddenly radiant as she spies a temple cat creeping amid the brightly coloured figures above...

Later, there is uproar in the house of a humourless Brahmin priest when a mischievous puppy steals the shoe of a travelling companion.

We visit the faded colonial majesty of Fort St George and George Town. And San Thome Cathedral, where rest the remains of St Thomas. A woman in a sari is praying as passionately to a statue of the Holy Virgin as those who pray to Shiva and Parvati beneath Kapaleeshwarar’s polychrome gopuram.

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