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Miracle temple offers 'strength' to soldiers

You could miss Tanot in the blink of an eye as you drive down the road that cuts through the forbidding Thar Desert on the way to the border with Pakistan.

A few rickety wooden stalls selling an assortment of cheap snacks on the bend of the road, a collection of low sandstone buildings that house a detachment of paramilitary Border Security Force and Tanot is gone.

But on a slight rise in this tiny outpost, almost hidden from view to the uninitiated and nondescript from the outside, stands a small temple to goddess Durga.

The shrine to the deity has become a place of pilgrimage for Indian soldiers passing through Tanot to and from battle-ready positions facing Pakistani forces along the nearby frontier.

For, the soldiers say, a miracle they attribute to the powers of Durga took place in Tanot in 1965 during one of the three wars India has fought with Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947.

Outnumbered by Pakistani forces, who had Tanot pinned down from three sides, Indian troops holed up in the temple held out for three days until relief arrived from the air and over land from the city of Jaisalmer, 130 km to the southeast.

More wondrous than that, so the story goes, none of the 3,000 shells and mortars that the Pakistanis rained down on Tanot exploded within the temple confines and none did any damage except for one that clipped the tail of an unsuspecting camel.

The temple, with its red-painted inner walls, is maintained by the Border Security Force and has a powerful resonance for Indian soldiers deployed along Rajasthan.

"We derive strength from this," said one soldier visiting the sanctuary, where some of the artillery shells and mortar bombs that fell harmlessly into the soft sands around Tanot nearly 37 years ago are on display in a dusty glass case.

"We still feel that if something goes wrong and there is a war, we'll be safe here. God is always with the right people," said the man, a 41-year-old sergeant who declined to give his name on security grounds.

Soldiers in camouflage dress visit the temple in a steady stream, pausing after prayers to Durga to marvel at the unexploded ordnance and peer at fading black and white photographs of the battle of 1965.

Barefoot and wearing nothing of leather in temples in keeping with Hindu observance, many bring offerings to the deity of fresh coconut, incense sticks and small white sweets made from a sugary paste.

They ring brass bells that hang from the beams of the temple, donated by grateful devotees, and clasp their hands together in prayer, standing or prostrate before the shrine.

"Soldiers have had a lot of faith in this temple since what happened in 1965. Its history is that it saved the lives of Indian soldiers," said Sunil Bhatt, an artillery officer who visited the shrine to pray with a friend. "That faith will continue irrespective of what happens."

Reuters

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