ABSTRACT
The heat from rat lamps in the temple, the smoke and smell from camphor ames, the fresh colourful owers, coconuts and bananas, priests and male devotees naked above the waist dressed for the warm climate of Sri Lanka, and the bright colours of the saris contrasted dramatically with the colourless and bitterly cold Norwegian winter outside. The sounds of bells and the joyful greeting of the gods by the congregation as they moved around the inside of the temple for the evening pj, following behind the priests who removed the curtain at one shrine after the other, bore witness of a Tami Hindu religious world – a Tami Hindu diasporic home away from home.
