‘Fleshing the Bones’: Conducting Inter-Faith Dialogue in Fiction

Abstract

A minister of the Tamil Nadu Government, keen on reform, faced a dilemma when he visited his favourite temple. The temple stank from batdroppings; yet the minister could not eliminate the bats because he shared the local belief that the bats were temple officials of the past who had squandered the temple's wealth and were now serving their time as reincarnated temple bats. How can we chase them out? So the minister wavered.