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I am not a churchgoer at home. You won’t catch me putting on my Sunday clothes to attend mass or preparing incense and candles for the living or dead. But as soon as I go beyond the border, I will go to any church, temple or wat and instantly become the most uptight devotee that religion has ever seen. If you can’t go in with bare shoulders or wearing shoes, may God Almighty keep you from disobeying the rules in front of me. If I have to do cartwheels while wearing a headscarf backwards, I will do it and I will do it better than any other tourist there.

Because I visited Bangalore with a group of colleagues, I did not have the usual time to sit back and observe all the rules and regulations before going to the Shiva temple on Old Airport Road. Forced by circumstances, I went in head first and hit a wall of duties and restrictions that my normally organized brain just could not process. Granted, I had landed for the first time in India just 8 hours prior and had slept just 4 hours after a 12 hours journey. I was a mess and found myself in the middle of foreign customs that none could calmly walk me through.

Shoes went off and were thrown into a basket, so my barefoot self started navigating a maze of metal bars and stairs and caves guarded by men with painted faces. I tried to skip the procession but I had no luck; in this place, you make your own luck. A bowl of coins was handed to me and off I went:

One coin per bowl, times a gazillion bowls later and I could finally move to the next method to please the Gods: break a coconut against a sacred rock to break all your misfortune:

I passed the opportunity, I had my mind set on climbing the ladder and getting on my way to the main event, the huge Shiva statue at the back of the temple. But I had not done all that was expected of me yet, I was still carrying worries and troubles so I got a thin orange thread and tied them to a pole.

Feeling much better for having left my problems behind, I grabbed onto the metal railing and made my way up to the pink elephant in the court. Surely they would let me pass this time around, I thought, as I climbed eagerly and sure enough, just after the gorgeous statue other wonders were waiting.

A fake network or caves, a replica of sacred places throughout India was next and by now I decided to relax and just enjoy the cultural labyrinth.

I let my colleagues closely follow the impromptu guide and muffled all my laughs for later. The lovely lady made sure that each of my mates stroked and covered their heads with the blessing of over 10 Ling statues. They did not know what a Ling is; I did. Can you guess what the following stone, ice and copper statues represent?

Yes, they are penises. So about 10 penis blessings later, we emerged from the cave. I need to be honest here, I did learn a little bit about Shiva and how some of his devotees became revered through history, I learned about all sorts of ways to connect to cosmic energy and where the most enchanting places in India are, but in the back of my head, one thought rested: I am going to tell everyone they thoroughly rubbed a couple of penises in a temple.

Outside the gypsum caves, more veneration awaited: a lovely Lingam statue, with both male and female symbols for fertility combined into one, adorned with bright yellow flowers and washed with coconut milk, delivered in three short spills from a copper glass.

But we were already too close to the main event for me to linger on any childish thoughts of penises anymore. We pushed on, behind the huge statue and out the other side, where we picked up a candle, a coin, and a flower.

With the new inventory, you step onto The Miracle Spot, you say a little prayer and then toss the coin into the water basin then you go around the basin and gently place the lit candle on the water and by this time there was no one around to tell you what to do with the flower.

If you’re already feeling tired from reading through all this (but thank you for your time nevertheless!) imagine having to do all these things while music is loudly playing, monks are loudly praying and 3-year-olds are running around laughing at your lack of knowledge. I was more than ready to move on when we entered the final stretch: an offering into the fire!

Each item was blessed and tossed into the smoky fire, one by one till the basket was empty and the prayers were spent: the wood, the expanded rice, the assorted seeds and perfumed oil, each followed by bell rings and whispered blessings.

I thought after that, I am free to go wherever I want, forever guarded against evil spirits and worldly problems. I was wrong. I had yet to hug the stone pillars and ring the bells three times… how could I forget about that?! Only after I hugged the pillars I could proceed to light the incense sticks that I was carrying since God knows when.

When it was all done and spent, my mind was spinning and I was eager to break away from the sacred traditions and just observe. I’d love to one day return and have the whole thing explained by a knowledgeable and patient guide.

In the meantime, keep your calm and respect the rules, as twisted and hard to comprehend as they are. It might not mean much to you, but it means a lot to the ones around you to see you put in the time and effort to follow their culture before you take your photographic souvenir and go on your merry way.