On the tight, steep, winding road heading back down the mountain from the hill station town of Kodaikanal, our driver, Ramki, is praying again. My partner and I spent the last two days enjoying the fresh air and extraordinary views from 7,000ft. in the Western Ghat mountains of Tamil Nadu, South India.  We hiked local trails, skidding downslope alongside cascading waterfalls where village boys bathed; climbing up along stone walls topped with bands of steely eyed macaques heading out to forage.  We bent low and whispered while searching for the elusive and massive gaur, or Indian Bison, which negotiates its precipitous mountainside terrain with a grace belying its size.  We learned about the unique and fragile habitat known as the Shola, the sub-tropical montane evergreen forest, which houses not only the gaur (“gauer”) but also elephants, the grizzled giant squirrel, and a flower that blooms once in twelve years.  In the mountains we found respite both from the heat of the lowlands, and from the stunning sensory overload that is urban India.  We must return to the city, however, and this two-hour drive down the mountain is the first order of business.

Driving in India – even on straight, level roads – is total madness.  Traffic rules, such as those pertaining to signaling, stopping, passing, staying at a particular speed or keeping to a given lane, either don’t exist or are ignored. So I appreciate Ramki’s requests for divine intervention.  He is a devotee of Shiva, and although we did survive the drive up the mountain two days ago, I still have some doubts about the inclination of a God who goes by “the Destroyer” to keep us from hurtling off a cliff at any given bend. My partner and I duck involuntarily as we nearly collide with one of the jam-packed, fume-spewing buses that tilt and bounce along the narrow, pot-holed pavement. We cringe as the projectile vomit of one of its ashen-faced occupants bursts out of a barred window and arcs momentarily before splattering into the valley far below.  Ramki is unfazed. He seems to harbor no doubts at all about Shiva’s intentions. He drives with his head stuck out the window now, because the windshield has fogged up completely, and for some reason that we can’t fathom he doesn’t want to use the wipers or stop the car to clean the windshield. Instead, he leans way out and twists his head around the side of the car so that he can, presumably, see where we’re going. Ramki’s hands, at least, are still firmly holding onto the wheel … and he prays.

He prays aloud each time we pass another tiny roadside temple, complete with multi-colored gopuram, the typically South Indian tower marking a temple gateway.  Carved with minutely detailed scenes from Hindu mythology featuring that particular temple’s presiding god or goddess, the tower rises in progressively smaller layers, like a fantastical wedding cake.  Such vividly colored scenes also decorate the Shiva postcards Ramki has clipped to his sun-visor. Just in case Shiva decides to take an unannounced vacation day, however, Ramki has a miniature statue of the Virgin Mary stuck onto the car’s dashboard, and topping it all off there is Jesus, swinging serenely from the rear-view mirror.   I notice that Ramki has wound a garland of jasmine flowers around Mary’s feet for the drive down.  (As it turns out, the owner of the company he drives for is an Indian Christian, so perhaps Ramki feels obligated to acknowledge his boss’s religion.)  At the large south Indian Hindu temples we recently visited, just such fresh, fragrant jasmine garlands adorned the hair of many female pilgrims, who often have the garlands blessed by a temple priest.  I’m moved that the Christian Mary rates this lovely and traditional adornment in Ramki’s view, and impressed that these diverse religious trappings share Ramki’s physical and spiritual space so comfortably.

As we round a bend and another sheer drop-off comes into view, I set my camera to video-mode and settle in, pleased that Jesus, Mary and Shiva are all on board for the ride.