Diary – 12 January 2008 | 12 January 2008

Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas.

Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Inevitably, come Boxing Day, I was whey-faced with fatigue and singularly lacking in ‘ho-ho-ho’. Subsequent Christmases have been spent in far-flung places and this year I have just returned from visiting Tamil Nadu and its myriad temples. Getting to grips with Indian gods is not easy. There are over 3,000 of them. But on this visit I came across a particularly fascinating one — Ardhanareshwara. It seems the god Siva in one of his earliest incarnations declared man and woman were equal, so Ardhanareshwara was given the human form of half man, half woman. Grotesque as it may sound, the figure is really very beautiful.