"For local people, this is no less than a fast-track court," says Dr G.P. Pandey of the Uttarakhand Sewa Nidhi, an Almora-based NGO. "The sentiment is so strong you can't ignore it, even if you're not a believer." Sometimes, just invoking Golu's name works, says Pandey. The principal of a local school couldn't get villagers to stop letting their cows eat the newly planted oak saplings on his campus. Only when he threatened to petition the folk god did the cows disappear.
Believers sacrifice goats at the temple. The temple is more inclusive than many of its mainstream Hindu counterparts in allowing scheduled caste marriages. "Anyone can get married here, there is no restriction," says one of the temple's pandits, Harishchand Dalakoti.
Underpinning the appeal of Golu is a story as riveting as any Gothic fairy tale. Writes Jagdishwari Prasad, in his book Kumaon Ke Devalay, Golu was the son of a king from Champawat, the ancient capital of Kumaon. Spirited away at birth, behind his father's unknowing back by wicked stepmothers, he knows what it is to suffer injustice. He fights, and wins. The stepmothers are tossed into boiling oil. Golu goes on to wear a crown, rule, become a god. And dispenser of justice in a land where a lifetime can pass before the courts deliver it.
