A familiar part of the rural landscape in India are the village women going to the well with earthen pots held in the crook of the arms, to fetch drinking water. The provision of better wells nearer centres of population is one of the urgent tasks being tackled today under India's community development projects. (Government of India Photograph). could it be more beautiful, even it it showed the right time? But, for all that, we in Sattanur do not really live in a timeless world. It is only that we distrust watches and clocks. We like to live by the sun, the sun on high. And the temple bell gives us the time of day. Most of our villages, and some of our older cities are built around temples. And Sattanur is no exception. From the high arched tower of our temple the heavy bronze bell booms six times in the day. The caster who made this bell was a masterworker. His bell rings and reverberates now, hundreds of years after he cast it, and no villager escapes its haunting boom. We apportion our day's work to the temple bell's ringing. Nowadays, even in our villages, we wake up to morning coffee which the housewife is up and about preparing as the temple bell begins ringing. But the grandfather and grandmother have long been up, have had their bath, have lighted the lamp before the household shrine and have chanted their holy chants, generally wishing the world well. Such of the villagers as go to the temple early in the morning are happy, for they see the waking God and it makes the day happier for them. During some seasons, the temple provides good food in the morning, but only at certain periods of the month. The quantity is limited, and if all the village were suddenly to turn godly, there would hardly be enough prasadam to go round! In these more or less ungodly days, as our elders tend to call them on every possible occasion, most of the men of Sattanur, and almost all the women, manage to go to the temple at least once in the day. If you have to go to the bazaar, or the south and west streets, the shortest way is through the temple. Sometimes one of the elders will come and tell you that the flower arrangement in front of the shrine is excellent. You feel like rushing to see it. But when you do go, the flowers have been removed and the black statue is smeared with sacred ashes. This ash arrangement, too, is excellent, you have to confess. How deep the eyes darkly staring out at you, all-seeing, from the general greyness. Centuries-old Tamil poems