We climbed the stone stairs of Osian Mataji Mandir in hard morning sun, three of us in a grey sweatshirt, a floral shawl, and an orange shirt, a steel rail underfoot. The reddish sandstone rose in stacked, carved toranas; Devanagari ran the lintels, a blue board hung on the wall, and blue-and-yellow sheeting threw shade over the dark doors. Inside a tiled niche an older Ganesha sat cross-legged, trunk stained with ve…
