The city threshold: Mushroom temples and magic remains in Ahmedabad

Abstract

This article describes quotidian practices that make use of urban flows in the city of Ahmedabad: erecting roadside structures such as temples and performing urban expiation rituals at crossroads. Both are exemplary for how intimate division relates to vernacular spatial configuration, the former by inscribing religious markers into areas, the latter by expulsion of individual misfortune. While roadside structures become sites of communal identification, conversion, and violent incorporation, expiatory practices displace an unwanted element onto an anonymous resident who carries it away.

Making Informal Sacred Geographies: Spiritual Presence, Sensual Engagement, and Wayside Shrines in Urban India

“…They are enlivened by human agency, suggests Appadurai, a thesis that underwent thorough revision from the 1990s onward. Gell (1998) pioneers the idea that agency is distributed and, rather than resting in humans, is an effect of a relation between people and things. Invested with indexical value, objects are empowered to invite engaged viewers to abduct meaning from them, or in Thomas's words, "actions and their effects are .…”

“…At the very least, they will prevent people from spitting and urinating. More positively, they provide busy denizens with opportunities to fulfill daily religious duties through a polite namaste as they pass by (Ghassem-Fachandi, 2012;Henn, 2008;Larios, 2018), something Larios (2018, p. 10) calls "drive thru" darshan:…”

“…At the very least, they will prevent people from spitting and urinating. More positively, they provide busy denizens with opportunities to fulfill daily religious duties through a polite namaste as they pass by (Ghassem-Fachandi, 2012; Henn, 2008; Larios, 2018), something Larios (2018, p. 10) calls “drive thru” darshan :This street mandir [shrine], it may not look as important as Malaxmi Mandir [one of Mumbai’s most famous temples]. But to me it is even more important.…”