Ayodhya: Coming full circle

Contentious case: Hindu women devotees praying to the bricks reading ‘Shree Ram’ (Lord Ram), which are expected to be used in the construction of a Ram temple, in Ayodhya, India. The country’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of a Hindu temple on disputed religious ground in the country’s north and ordered that alternative land be given to Muslims to build a mosque. — AP

NEARLY 27 years to the day when as a raw 20-year-old political reporter for The Statesman I reached Ayodhya to cover the run-up to and, as it happened, the aftermath of the demolition of a medieval mosque on Dec 6,1992, my primary concern was to find out whether I would get eggs for breakfast. Information I had picked up on the drive down from the state capital Lucknow to Ayodhya was that the temple town, in keeping with its status as a holy city, did no “non-veg”.

Such things were important to me, then.