Paper short abstract:

The paper probes the crouching shrines on the roadside and middle of the roads in the Greater Hyderabad that often reflect the aspiration of becoming a temple. These shrines are vulnerable to ignite violence and register emotion and motion of the newly migrant dwellers and old inhabitants.

Paper long abstract:

The greater Hyderabad project of the government started with twelve municipalities and eight grams panchayats in 2007 that led entangled transformation of the natural heritage (Deccan rocky plateau), early local settlement and the emergent special economic zone (SEZ). What remained untouched in the budding landscape are the dwarf religious shrines. As a result, these stand either on the middle of the road or the roadside as 'urban totem'. However, the tiny religious shrines those were once frontiers of the early settlements start expanding with the pace of fast growing city. Thus, some quickly turn into massive religious architecture. Sometime, the religious shrines are also built over night to claim its existence since rear past. The local lords, such as political leader, real estate dealer, and influential local shopkeeper are the stakeholders of these religious shrines. These stakeholders are also responsible for the conversion of the city. These agencies control land, displaced people and migrated city dwellers.

In my paper I argue the emotion of the mass (devotees) and ambition of the mob create and regularize the shrines in the liquid city like Hyderabad. However the close encounter with the images and vernacular languages transmute the reception of the roadside shrine for daily commuters and drivers who often hold temporal conversation with such shrines in traffic. At the end I investigate my position as researcher and migrant dweller in the locus of rampant sentiment around the shrines that I address as 'anthropology of experience'.