If Shiva doesn't mind nakedness, why should Kashi Vishwanath Temple?

India's 5,000-year-old city of temples, Varanasi, is once again in the news. The critical talking point right now is who can visit the Lord of Kashi, Vishwanath, and how.

At the centre of a fierce debate are foreign tourists, who were found wandering around the labyrinthine gullies, dressed in scanty clothes on November 21, just when Varanasi divisional commissioner Nitin Ramesh Gokaran was visiting the temple. Promptly, a dress code was imposed: all non-Indians will henceforth have to be decently-wrapped in traditional Indian attire - sari, dhoti or at least an anga vastram - if they wish to enter the temple, especially the garbha griha.

Fair enough. My castle, my rules. I remember being thrown out of a Jewish synagogue in a foreign country - possibly for being a dark-skinned foreigner in weird clothes. No offence taken. Religion is, after all, the private domain of every culture-marked by an organised system of beliefs, ceremonies, practices and worship, defined by a broad sense of who belongs together and who doesn't.

But somehow, something about the news just doesn't sound right. I have been to Varanasi, and to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, many times. And I have never seen foreigners entering the temple. Like most Hindu temples, the Vishwanath temple follows strict guidelines on who can worship and who can't. Everybody knows that no one but Hindus can enter the temple. In fact, a local rickshaw-puller once told me that he had never entered the temple ("I am a Mullah," he had said, a Dalit belonging to the boatman caste) although he ferried pilgrims to and from the temple every day of his life. He obviously did not know that the temple was opened up to Dalits in 1954 (do read The Sacred Complex of Kashi: A Microcosm of Indian Civilization by anthropologist Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi).

It's not easy to get into the temple: There's always an overwhelming stream of the devout and the curious (Hindus) inside. And a large contingent of armed police. On a normal day, unless you manage to go to the temple very early in the morning, you will have to be prepared to stand in a long restless queues (people wait for eight-nine hours on special days), go through numerous check posts, get frisked, prove your identity, and enter sans cell phone, camera or bags. And all this, in bare feet. The grounds may or may not be clean, but are always sopping wet: the dangers of slipping and falling are very real. Foreigners will have to be seriously foolhardy to dare to venture there.

Varanasi is a sartorial paradise. In the heart of the city, at Dashashwamedh Ghat, amidst chants of prayers and floating candles, sadhus in loincloth walk elbow-to-elbow with pandas in dhoti-kurta and city-slickers in Ts and jeans. Women crowd around the evening Ganga aarti decks in simple salwars to billowy saris, sleek trousers to traditional lehengas. "Foreigners" flock to the Ghat every evening in droves. In the glare of the floodlights, you can see them: some in loose cotton kurta, some draped in dupatta or anga-vastram, some in sarees, some sporting tattoos and saffron robes - making an effort to experience the magic of Varanasi, the Indian way.

It's amusing that scanty clothes should be an issue in this city of Shiva. According to a woman who sells garlands and prayer boats on the steps of the Ghat, the Lord of Kashi used to wander around the place as a naked ascetic, begging bowl in hand. So attractive was the sight that the wives of saints in the vicinity lost interest in their daily chores and started following him around. Lost in meditation, he never noticed them. But the husbands, alarmed, requested Shiva to cover his nakedness. Shiva killed a tiger, tore off its skin and draped it around his body.

Would it matter to him if the hemline is long or short? The laws of gods and men. Let's just say Om.