BHOPAL: Before the first Diwali lamp is lit, a quiet queue forms at the doors of two Goddess Laxmi temples in separate districts of western Madhya Pradesh. People stand with bundles of currency notes and trays of gold and silver jewellery, and they have come to hand them to the goddess for safekeeping.
In Ratlam’s Manak Chowk, devotees arrive days before the festival begins. Temple committee members and the priest receive each offering, note it in a register, and give it a place in the goddess’s court.
Then the temple is transformed. Bundles of notes are strung into garlands and curtains of cash, draped along the walls and across the ceiling, each design more elaborate than the last. Gold and silver ornaments glitter between them, and open chests brim with notes and jewellery.
On Dhanteras, the priest conducted a special puja over more than Rs 5 crore in cash and valuables. The belief behind it is simple and deeply held money that sits at the goddess’s feet on this day brings prosperity for the entire year.
According to the temple’s priest, Pandit Ashwin Pujari, people have held this faith since the days of the country’s Independence. Devotees now travel from across Madhya Pradesh and from other states to take part.
About 150 km away, in Dewas district, the Shri Yog Maya Mahalaxmi Temple in Shivaji Nagar told a similar story. This Dhanteras, its sanctum glowed with roughly Rs 5 crore in notes of Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50, Rs 100 and Rs 200 denominations. The temple is also preparing to add gold ornaments to the decoration.
What makes both temples unusual is that the offering is never kept. The money is lent to the goddess for the festival and is not a donation. After Bhai Dooj, every devotee gets back exactly what they brought. In Dewas, it comes home with a Kuber potli, a sacred pouch named after the god of wealth.
In Ratlam, many devotees also carry home a share of the decorated notes as prasad, a blessed gift from the goddess, in the belief that wealth blessed in her court never runs short.
For a few days, then, a mother’s savings, a shopkeeper’s earnings and a family’s jewellery hang on temple walls, adorned and worshipped. Then they go home, believed to carry the goddess’s blessing for the year ahead.
Trust of this scale needs protection. In Ratlam, CCTV cameras watch the temple and the surrounding market. The Manak Chowk police station is close by, and police are posted inside and around the shrine.
Additional SP (ASP-Ratlam) Vivek Kumar Lal said the arrangements include two additional SPs, one CSP and personnel from two police stations.
On the surface, these are two temples decorated with cash. Underneath, they are an example of faith working alongside transparency. Every offering is registered, guarded and returned.
For the devotees standing in line with notes in hand, handing over their savings feels less like a risk than like an act of faith, and they find the proof of that faith in their own hands again after Bhai Dooj.