Maa Tarini Temple, Ghatagaon

01Mother of the roads

Maa Tarini is a rough stone face with large eyes, painted vermilion, in a grove at Ghatagaon. She is the Devi people call on before setting out on the road, before a job or an examination, and her blessing is sought with a coconut. Across Odisha small wooden boxes marked with her name stand at road junctions and on temple verandas. Buses and lorries stop, a coconut goes in, and the collected coconuts are taken to Ghatagaon, where they are piled in hills in the temple yard and broken in their thousands each day.

02Festivals

Chaitra Sankranti and the Navaratri of Ashvin are her great days, when the road from Kendujhar is lined with pilgrims. The temple keeps a large kitchen, and the coconut flesh goes into the prasad. Many families bring a new vehicle here first, and the priests tie a red cloth on it in the Devi’s name. The temple stands among sal forest on the Kendujhar plateau, and pilgrims often go on from here to the Bhima Kund on the Baitarani.