Colombo's Pettah is a district of warehouses, hawkers and traffic, and rising out of it is a tower crowded with painted deities - the gopuram of one of the city's oldest and most important Hindu temples, dedicated to Shiva. The film examines that entrance tower in detail, reading the tiers of sculpted figures that make a South Indian temple façade a compendium of divine narrative, then moves through the enclosure to the shrines within. The heart of the programme is ritual: the daily cycle of puja, the offerings of flowers, fruit and fire, the sound of bell and drum, and the flow of worshippers who pass through between errands. Around the temple, the film records the streets that feed it, and the place of the Tamil Hindu community in the life of the capital. A vivid sacred-sites title for religion and Asian-culture strands.
