Guard God

We were travelling in the highway-bypass connecting Tanjore and Trichy and we were rushing along as it was already late, when suddenly our driver careened to the shoulder of the road and stopped behind a lorry.

"Oh God! Not another flat tyre..." was the frantic thought in all our minds.
We had just got a flat tyre a half hour back and so did not have any spare and we were in a big hurry.
The driver hopped out and went running around the lorry parked in front of us..Curious by his behaviour we all got out and peeked around the lorry ... and there was a tiny temple.
A rather frightening looking guy, with holy ash all over and huge mushtache and red eyes sitting on the temple step,was giving away more holy ash...guess he was the priest there.

The driver prostrated in front of the deity, got some ash and came rushing back. We all dutifully piled back into the car again only to find that our driver had still not got in. He was busy applying it on all the four tyres, the bonnet etc. He then jumped in , applied some more on the steering wheel and started the car.
By this time we were obviously bursting with curiousity. Turns out the temple is for a "Kaval dhaivam" or a Guard God :-) and all vehicles stop there and pay homage before continuing.It is believed that the God there saved the vehicles from accidents, and He expected the drivers to pay their homage or else...

Skeptical that people would actually believe this, We turned back to see the temple... and true enough there was a queue of vehicles... each stopping before the temple before continuing.

Funny how like the sheep, we are in so many aspects of life, blindly following wherever the person in front of us go. But still it was kinda sweet.