The town without doors
Nanasahib Bankar, a prosperous farmer and entrepreneur in this small temple town, worries about a lot of things: sugar cane prices, the health of his cattle, the success of his son’s new hotel.
One thing he doesn’t worry about is losing his keys. His house, like nearly all others here, doesn’t have a door. Standing under the bare door frame of the red-brick house he shares with 12 family members, the 64-year-old patriarch says simply, “This is the way we have always lived.”
Legend has it that Shani, the Hindu deity to whom the local temple is dedicated, watches over Shani Shinganapur, a town of about15,000 in western India, preventing crime and punishing thieves.
To install a door with a latch or a cupboard with locks, devotees say, would be to question Lord Shani’s powers and invite his wrath. Some older residents opt for curtains and most residents don’t lock their cars or motorbikes. Shopkeepers say they sometimes leave cash in their drawers overnight. The only bank in town has a Plexiglas front door but, apart from a safe-deposit box, remains unlocked day and night.
In a land filled with all manner of Hindu shrines, Shani Shinganapur’s peculiar niche has brought it a small measure of fame on India’s temple circuit, drawing thousands of visitors daily.
The origins of the temple are as much a part of local legend as the crime-free image.
Hundreds of years ago — no one knows exactly when — the river running through the village coughed up a 1.5-metre block of black stone. When the stone was tapped, the story goes, blood oozed from its surface.
Residents say no one dared to move the slab until, one night, a farmer dreamed that the stone spoke to him and identified itself as Shani. “I want to remain here,” the apparition said and, the next day, farmers heaved the stone up to dry land.
When villagers sought to construct an edifice to house the stone, however, there were mishaps. Walls collapsed. Construction workers suffered injuries. The residents decided that no traditional temple could house Shani, so the shrine consists of a simple open-air platform on which the slab now sits. Then the villagers followed suit by doing away with doors.
“Why should we also be under the shadows and hidden behind barriers?” says Nitin S. Shete, an engineer and temple trustee. “Our belief is so strong that even when I leave home for weddings or holidays, I leave my house open without any security. If anyone does anything, Shani will punish them.”
One recent afternoon in the centre of town, where lines snake around the stone trapezoid that forms the entrance to the shrine, a pickpocket tried to snatch money from a pilgrim but was apprehended. The suspect, police said, was from out of town.
Finally, in September, came an unmistakable sign that reality had pierced the town’s gauzy myth: A police station opened for the first time.
Two weeks after the ceremonial opening, a shred of cheap pink ribbon, held in place by two strips of masking tape, is still affixed to the door frame of Assistant Police Inspector Prashant Mandale’s office. Yes, Mandale says, the station has doors, but out of respect for local traditions they do not have locks.