Rameswaram: The Pilgrimage That Quietly Broke Me Open

I stepped off the train at Rameswaram station at 5:47 a.m. with my shirt already stuck to my back and the kind of headache that comes from sleeping upright for nine hours. The platform smelled like fish, incense, and wet concrete. I’d come because my grandmother kept texting me the same Ramayana story every time she got scared her health was failing. “Go to the place where Ram built the bridge,” she’d type in all caps. “Go for me.” So here I was, half convinced I was an idiot, half convinced I might actually feel something.

First thing I did was almost get run over by a cycle-rickshaw guy who screamed “Sami! Sami!” at me like I was already supposed to know what that meant. I didn’t. I just followed the crowd toward the Ramanathaswamy Temple because that’s what everyone else was doing and my brain wasn’t online yet.

The temple hits you before you even see it properly. You walk through this massive gopuram gate and suddenly you’re in the 1000-pillar corridor and it’s actually real — not some postcard thing, but this endless stone hallway that makes you feel like an ant. The pillars are all carved with weird little figures, some of them half worn away, some looking like they’re staring at you. My neck started hurting from looking up. I kept thinking, people built this with their hands. No cranes. Just devotion and probably a lot of yelling.

I was supposed to do the 22 theerthams. You know, the holy wells inside the temple complex. Each one is supposed to wash away a specific sin or something. The priests there are hustling you the second you walk in. This one guy in a saffron lungi basically attached himself to me. “Twenty-two wells, sir. Very important. You come.” I didn’t have the energy to argue. So I followed him like a lost puppy.

The water is freezing. And I mean *freezing*. First theertham, I dunked my head and came up gasping like I’d been punched. By the seventh one I was shivering so bad my teeth were chattering. The priest kept chanting and I kept thinking about how I’d told my boss I was taking “personal leave” when really I was doing this weird guilt pilgrimage for my grandma. By the 15th well I was half laughing, half crying because the whole thing felt ridiculous and sacred at the same time. My shorts were soaked. My dignity was gone. Some uncle next to me was belting out “Jai Shri Ram” so loud I thought his lungs would explode.

After the last theertham I sat on the stone floor dripping wet and just stared at the pillars. My skin was burning from the cold water and the Tamil Nadu sun that was already trying to cook me. I felt… small. Not in a cute spiritual way. Just small. Like whatever I thought was so important back home was actually nothing.

I changed into dry clothes behind a pillar like a criminal and then went to Agni Theertham, which is basically the beach right outside the temple. The sea was flat and angry-looking. Lots of people were doing pujas, throwing coconuts into the water, lighting lamps. I saw this one woman — maybe in her 70s — crying so hard her whole body was shaking while her daughter held her. I had to look away. Some things you’re not supposed to watch.

The next morning I woke up at 4 a.m. because my guesthouse had roosters that apparently never learned how to tell time. I decided to go to Dhanushkodi. Everyone told me not to. “Road is bad. Very bad.” They were right.

The taxi driver was this skinny guy named Mani who chain-smoked beedis and kept playing these old Ilaiyaraaja songs that made me feel feelings I wasn’t ready for. The road to Dhanushkodi is this narrow strip with ocean on both sides. At one point we had to stop because there were goats just chilling in the middle of the road like they pay rent. Mani laughed so hard he started coughing up a lung.

When we finally got there, the wind almost knocked me over. Dhanushkodi is… ruined. There’s this ghost town feeling to it. The old church, the railway station that got swallowed by the 1964 cyclone. Everything looks like it’s been chewed up and spit out by the sea. I walked out toward the point where the land just ends. They say this is where Ram shot an arrow into the sea to tell the gods where to build the bridge. Ram Setu. Adam’s Bridge. Whatever you want to call those chain of islands and sandbanks that stretch toward Sri Lanka.

I sat on a rock and ate the banana I’d stuffed in my bag. The wind was so loud I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts, which was probably the point. I tried to pray but mostly I just cried. Not pretty crying. The ugly kind where snot comes out and you make these weird noises. I kept thinking about my grandma’s hands — how they used to smell like turmeric and coconut oil. How she used to tell me the Ramayana while feeding me idlis. I’d rolled my eyes back then. Now I was sitting at the end of India ugly-crying like an asshole.

On the way back the taxi got a flat tire right on the bridge. Pamban Bridge. The famous one that swings open for ships. We were stuck there for almost two hours. Mani shrugged like this was normal. I ended up sitting on the side of the road watching these local kids play cricket with a plastic ball and a bat that was basically just a stick. One of them — maybe ten years old — came over and offered me half his packet of Parle-G biscuits. I almost started crying again. What is wrong with me?

We started talking. His name was Karthik. He told me in broken English that his father was a fisherman and that sometimes at night you can still see lights on the Sri Lankan side. I asked him if he believed in Ram Setu. He looked at me like I was stupid. “Of course, uncle. My grandfather saw it before they made it a national monument or whatever.” I don’t know if that’s true. The facts get fuzzy out here. People tell you stories like they’re facts and facts like they’re stories. After a while you stop caring about the difference.

That night I went back to the temple. The corridor looks completely different after dark. They light it with these yellow bulbs that make everything feel like an old photograph. I walked the whole length of the 1000-pillar hall at maybe 11 p.m. There were maybe ten other people there. Someone was singing bhajans somewhere in the distance. My feet hurt. My heart hurt. I kept touching the pillars like a weirdo, feeling the grooves where thousands of hands had been before mine.

I met this guy named Senthil sitting against one of the pillars. He was from Madurai, said he comes to Rameswaram every year since his wife died. “Cancer,” he said, like it was just another word. He offered me some vibhuti from the temple and I took it even though I don’t really do any of that. We didn’t talk much after that. Just sat there in the yellow light while moths banged against the bulbs.

The embarrassing part happened the next day.

I’d decided I was going to do the full Ram Setu thing — take a boat out to where you can see the actual chain of rocks. The boat was packed with pilgrims. I was trying to look all serious and spiritual when the boat hit a wave and I projectile vomited my entire breakfast into the sea. Not just a little. Like, exorcist level. Everyone stared. This old lady next to me started laughing so hard I thought she was going to fall overboard. The boat guy just handed me a bottle of water and said “first time, saar?” with this look that said he’d seen it all before.

I sat there with vomit on my shirt, smelling like regret and idli, watching the supposed remains of Ram’s bridge disappear behind us. And somehow that was the moment it all made sense. Not in some clean Instagram way. Just… yeah. This is it. This messy, embarrassing, slightly nauseating thing. This is what bringing your dead grandmother’s wishes to the ocean looks like.

On my last evening I walked across Pamban Bridge at sunset. The train was coming so they made everyone stand in these little safety zones. The wind was insane. The sea was roaring below us through the metal grates. I stood there with my hands gripping the railing while this massive train thundered past