Two days before the Meenakshi Amman Temple's kumbabishekam, director Va Gowthaman walked into the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Commissioner's office in Nungambakkam and refused to leave.

The sit-in, which he described as sudden and unplanned, was built around one demand. Gowthaman wants Tamil hymns, and the Othuvars who sing them, given the same standing as Sanskrit rites and archakas during Friday's ceremony at the Madurai temple.

Speaking to reporters outside the office, Gowthaman invoked what he called Justice Kirubakaran's landmark verdict, which he says guarantees Tamil language equal footing in temple worship. That equality, he argued, has to show up everywhere the ritual moves. At the vel vi salai, inside the sanctum, and up on the gopuram where kalasams get their holy water, Thevaram, Thiruvasagam and Thirumandhiram should be recited alongside whatever else is chanted.

His sharpest line was about how Othuvars are actually used on the ground. "Just parking Othuvars at every spot without giving them a real role isn't respect for Tamil worship," he said. "They're not security guards." The law already promises Tamil archakas equal participation, he said, so why isn't that right being honoured in practice? Temples built by Tamil ancestors, in his telling, ought to have their kumbhabhishekam conducted in Tamil.

Gowthaman said the department's response so far has been noncommittal. An official has spoken to him three times, he claimed, without giving a concrete answer. His demand now has a deadline attached. He's asking Minister Ramesh to release, by Friday morning, full identity details of who exactly will pour the sanctifying water during the kumbabishekam and who will recite the Tamil hymns inside the sanctum.

He didn't hold back on the department either, asking pointedly who the ministry and the HR&CE actually serve if such basic details can't be shared. And he raised the stakes considerably, comparing a possible escalation to the Jallikattu protests. If there's no proper response by Friday morning, he said, Tamil people will turn out for Meenakshi Amman Temple's language rights the way they once did for Jallikattu.

Whether that comparison holds up is a separate question. The Jallikattu protests of January 2017 pulled in lakhs across Tamil Nadu over days, a scale nothing here has approached yet. What's confirmed is narrower: one filmmaker, one office, one specific ask about Friday's ceremony.

The HR&CE department hasn't put out a statement responding to Gowthaman's claims or his deadline. Friday's kumbabishekam goes ahead regardless. What changes, if anything, in who stands where and who sings what inside the sanctum should become clear only once the ceremony actually starts.