Meanwhile, the town’s moral temperature rose and fell like a tide. Devotees arrived for darshan with more muted faces; some refused to look the priest in the eye. Others came in greater numbers, determined to hold the temple steady through prayer, convinced that faith could outlast gossip. At night, under a canopy of electric bulbs, conversations ranged from the theological—what forgiveness looks like—to the pragmatic—how to prevent such recordings in the future.