the road to kanyakumari

After having breakfast at Rameswaram, we started for kanyakumari at about 10 or 10 .30 on that morning....The breakfast was a chaotic affair.Every restaurant at Rameswaram seemed full or could not accomodate a ten member party like us.The one ,we found at last,was already running out of supplies at ten in the morning.The harrassed looking bearers trying to cope up without success,.... If the puri was ready, curry was not...the dosai was ready ,the chutney was"nt...I was amused to see the manager smiling to himself as he gave up on bringing a second helping of chutney to my husband.Obviously,it was a rush season,being summer,but i could not help wondering why they did not prepare themselves beforehand...well... they had their own problems i daresay...Quite simply it could have been impossible., the popullation being what it was..Infact it is almost the same routene everywhere....the hotels are full... the gold shops are full, notwithstanding the rsing prices,..the steel shops are full...the trains are full..the temples are full.


Kanyakumari was almost a five hour drive,from rameswaram ..Sundaram informed us...he was unwinding at last..We came back on the same road we travelled earlier,up till manamadurai,then passed the towns of Aruppukottai(can it be called a town?),a place called virudhnagar,...bypassed the town of Tirunelveli and then over a small village called Valliyoor,...straight to Kanyakumari.

We had lunch at Aruppukottai and it amazed me the way they served perfect vegetarian food in T.N ,at such small places too ,They were also very hospitable...seeing Anasuya who was not eating anything..--.she said she was feeling nauseous..--,.(here i was doing prayers for her health,and the girl says she got a throat infection and developing a fever)..the servers kindly brought her a sweet and buttermilk ,pressing her to have something...I mean,... one could find it difficult to get good food at remote places in A. P, like say ..interior telangana,...ceded districts or up east at vizag and vizianagaram..


It was a lovely stretch of journey especially from Valliyoor onwards to kanyakumari...Palm groves sidelining the road and... WINDMILLS....hundreds of windmills were there...whirling and dancing...As we drove along ,dusk seemed to be running too, trying to overtake us.Srinivas and the kids were so set on seeing the sunset in arabian sea,,but unfortunately we seemed to have taken too much time,somehow got delayed and ,now it seemed we could not make it in time to the cape.Sundaram did his level best, even contacting someone at Kanyakumari for the latest forecast... Alas,even if we somehow managed to reach there,....there was no sunset visible on that evening at cape camorin on 18 may,2006, clouds having come in the way.Prasanna shook her head in frustration,,,,"we were not lucky enough".
As evening closed in,we reached cape and drove straight to the shores.....may be we hoped to catch a glimpse.but there was not even that and we turned in to the courtyard of HOTEL MANICKAM, a multi storeyed affair by the seaside,where from the fourth floor(i think so), (the lift was under repair too)we peeped in from the balconies , breathing in the sea,and enjoying the sounds as the waves rolled back and forth.The night had already fallen.

reminiscenes of rameswaram and the morning cuppa

Ofcource i can not put into words the beauty and grandeur of this magnificent temple of Ramanatheswar...With the advent of visual media,it is not even required.for,just one image on a net link could tell you all,bring in the sights, ,the lights and shades,more vividly than what one could write pages in a positive bout of verbal diarrhoea. So i would just set about describing some reminiscences of how it struck me on that beautiful sunny morning......


One was the feeling that the temple could do with some repairs and better upkeep .yes... it was a massive structure and will soak in huge funds like a sponge. it WAS being maintained very well considering the facts, how so many people visit it daily, and how our customs like breaking coconuts, lighting lamps,the bathing that was peculiar to this particular temple make it difficult to keep it ship shape.Yes.. they were doing yeoman" service. but still... you feel...ammavari mukhamantapam and some other small ones could do with some repair,etc etc


The pictures could give you an idea of the place,... but scents?... touch?...One was a funny experience... like you feel as if you never could get the sand out of your feet. you see... it was so near the beach, and all those devotees bringing in the sand...It is a local hazard as only coastal people could tell you...Another funny thing was the smell of that salt water..As hundreds of people come in after bathing and again do it on the premises,the beautiful corridors of Rameswaram seem to be perpetually smelling of ,wet clothes, water,and yes... fish.

Another quite disturbing thing(for me personally, ofcource) happened as we went for our early morning darshan....There was"nt a single hotel, or roadside vendor offering COFFEE...that was not too bad by itself...considering,4.oo A.M was such an ungodly hour,even in Rameswaram,but the worst of all scenarios was happening here..They were offering TEA........TEA,making inroads to the fag end of good old tamilnadu.?.. Has the last bastion for that elixir of all drinks,namely filter coffee ,fallen? In fact,filter coffee seemed to be hard to get at almost all places on our trip,as i have observed.They were offering only instant BRU cofee...yuck .I shook my head at this sad state of affairs.....whither my beloved south India?. This body, albeit 47 year old ,had been nurtured on that king of all beverages and would not go on without the fuel...well..ofcource i drank the tea....see... back at home even my little shiva drinks hot coffee i regularly offer him,....not the oily, ghee laden chakkera pongal,these priests are in the habit of serving him, at such an early hour.... you see.... i adhere to the advice given to someone like me,by the great saint Ramakrishna Paramhamsa."offer whatever you eat or drink first to god without worrying about whether you have bathed or not " .... well... that seemed eminently practicable for me, while my aunt at Bandar went a step still further. She keeps an image og saibaba on her dining table and every item on the menu is automatically offered as naivedyam at all times.... Once ,at shirdi,.. i observed some people serving tea to the numerous mendicants and poor,as free service.. I must say, i liked the concept...while some people may denigrate this practice of drinking coffee, tea..as unhealthy ,personally i was touched by this kindness in bearing with and satisfying harmless human weaknesses.


Well....so much on this morning cup of coffee.

Anasuya used to watch a show called "crystal maze"...yes..that was it"s name,during her school days, and would raise hell if we ever tried to change the channel.She was nuts on that show, ....A clean shaven(head too)anchor, used to host it, i remember,...who collected a bunch of youngsters around him and all of them would run from one maze to another,.... to find the crystal.

I think that was exactly what came to my mind as me and the husband almost ran alongside a sixty plus man, who dragged his left leg ,-- which never quite recovered after a paralytic attack,he informed us,-- as he took us across the twenty two wells in the Ramanath temple.He accosted us on our way back from the beach,...He was a haqdaar,...or you could say...someone who had rights over drawing water from the temple wells,having bought them at an auction and only he and some other persons, who also bought those rights were entitled to draw water from the wells. So all the people who had to take those holy baths necessarily had to pay him for each bucket he drew up.

So, what do u say?,he asked us?.

My husband and he haggled for sometime over the fees , finally agreeing at a mutually acceptable point.Then like Pete..or was it mike? "o"Brien or whoever it was,in crystal maze,he raced us , through the queues,with a speed that was amazing for a man handicapped by both age and disability.He would draw two buckets ,up the wells painstakingly,pour them over us...would not even hear when we , feeling ashamed to be served by an older man ,told him that one bicket was enough.He seemed to think it would compromise his code of work ethics if he did that.


Now to have an idea of the topography of these wells...The temple, which was a huge one,had massive prakarams skirting it on four sides..,and within them there were many inner prakarams and corridors,many other smaller temples,courtyards....the wells were situated among them.,at different places ..well only twenty were wells.. One was a pond, the other one was a sort of pipe through which holy water flowed and emptied into a container ot a sort of tub...The wells never dry up, though it was no surprise because after all they were almost in the sea bed,...the sea being just a quarter of furlong away...They were not too deep either..ofcource you need not go deep in coastal areas...you dig up three feet,,and the water would start filling up.They were pleasantly cool,and my husband who even tasted them, vouch faced to be varying. in taste.some were quite salty,,some not so salty.


At the beginning, i felt a bit diffident about this public bathing...I never did it, i protested.."who do u think u are?" my husband, was amused to ask me.."certainly no Elizabeth Taylor"i remarked, but nevertheless felt very shy .If it were not for the ritual, i would have done with just a sprinkling of some on my head, but once i entered the game...so to speak,..it was fun to play with water under the pleasant open skies, and air..just like my childhood.


We went in,sometime later,for the darshan , and bowed before the lord and his consort, where my forefathers once bowed,and went back with their supplications fulfilled.Unlike at the meenakshi temple,here i was...under oath, to be back again.

Thursday the 18 th , may, nagaprathishta

<
My seventy year old mother has been at my throat for a long time-the reason-..she wants me to go to Rameswaram and do nagaprathishta...well.. I had a bad gyaenic history,with a couple of miscarriages and a prematurely born baby whom we have lost.. Though we now have anasuya , mother was rattled when she fell ill last year.So when we broke her the news that we were planning to go on a south tour she immediately decided that to Rameswaram,we must head for.I tried telling her that nobody ever suggested this for me,we might not have time for it,and we may not even go on this tour after all .. all this to no avail.She would not be convinced.well..mothers are like that i suppose... My aunt jellthai used to say mothers are the only people who have no qualms about taking you down however old you may grow up in years...You see after certain age even fathers tend to leave you to your selves ,but ..mothers...they cant bring themselves to believe you can look after yourself.,and they are not afraid of saying this, and many more things to your face..So to appease her ,i said o.k we would really make a try and see ,though i still warned her we had to have time.

It seems,my paternal grandparents,who were childless even after ten years of marriage,( i take this with a pinch of salt...well ..my grandmother was just ten year old at that time.). went on a pilgrimage to Rameswaram, did nagaprathishta there , and got my father as gift from the lord,whom they named RAMANATHAM.ofcource they had got six other sisters and brothers too for him laterand i think this was the thing what weighed behind my mother"s insistence.


So, that was why and how me and my husband came about to be sitting on wooden chairs in a narrow ,small room of an antique old house,..on the street opposite the main entrance of the Ramanatheswar temple ,that led to the beach,.. around five or five thirty in the morning....It was the office of the noted karivena choultry as it was called, and the manager of it,,,,a very fair,big gentleman,possibly in his sixties,.....promised to call for us a brahmin priest who would then initiate us to the proceedings.

We two got up at three "o "clock that day,,,...trying not to disturb other sleepers ,hurriedly finished our shampooing and got out into the still dark streets to have the darshan of the sphatika lingam of ramanathaswami...That, the local people informed us, was a very important early morning service ,conducted to the lord, and must be attended.Srinivas ,and others elected to to get up a little later, ..you see ..the kids had to have enough sleep as we still had a lot of touring to do.

The sphatika lingam was lovely.. It might not have been more than one foot,..very likely not even that...looked like it had been made of delicate glass and was beautiful.

The manager of karivena choultry, kindly gave us tea,and as we sat acquainting ourselves, the priest we were waiting for came in.He was a fair, big, burly man in his late thirties or so i thought,..and after the initial pleasantries,and enquiries ,on where we were coming from , and on how he came from andhra stock himself, his forefathers having migrated here long back,he asked us why we wanted to perform nagaprathishta?....Usually an astrologer prescribes it,.. he said. Had we been so suggested?

No..we had to confess.

Did we have , problems?he meant not having children or difficulties in conceiving probably?

No. we have a 20 year old daughter, we explained,

O. k perhaps u want to have a son?

No ,no ,we hastened, to clear it once for all.we do not want children..sons or otherwise, at this age.

You see, he explained patiently,..nagaprathishta, is usually resorted to, when, people go childless, or, when the children are not healthy,short lived, when people lose health and contact hopeless diseases, and also when marriage gets inordinately delayed.

This was when i and the manager took matters into our hands and explained to the priest, that we did not have any problems, but would like to do it all the same for the health and general well being of our daughter.

He brightened visibly at this, and offered us the choice of some package deals.
The first package , he said ,was like this...he would take us to his own house,perform all the homams etc...he provides the materials himself,...it would involve almost half a day and cost 16 thousand rupees.

We did not have either that much of time,or were prepared to shell out that much money, we said.

O. k. then u go for a 2,500 rs package, he said.it would mean we would perform it on seaside,he would still provide the materials,but the statue would be smaller,and this one would take just 2 hours.

We heaved a sigh of relief.yes.this was what we wanted.

O. k. i will go home and bring the materials,he said, He had to arrange for the statue too,because all statues would not do for all purposes,he explained, the usual statues where entwined serpents are engraved were meant for hastening up marriages.There were specific kinds for specific purposes.

Then he fidgeted for sometime,and finally said" if someone happens to question u on the seafront , about what it costs u have to firmly tell them it is for 1500rs only...u see..there are troublemakers here."....

I and my husband exchanged glances.

Yes, ofcource..we were not going to announce to the world we were being taken for a right royal ride.

Then we went up to the seaside.

The sea at the beach, or agniteertham at Rameswaram was a very calm one.You could almost call it a lake,, the waters were so placid,waves so gentle.The day was slowly dawning.Already ,quite a few people were bathing,and going about the rituals busily.We were asked to take three dips first before commencing pooja.for this we had to go a good deal in to the sea, it being, as i said before, a very shallow beach...in fact, u could go quite a bit of distance in to the sea at Rameswaram.Then we were asked to sit at someplace and start.At first i was a bit discomfited,the waters were none too clean i felt,..and where to sit?....I looked at others...everybody seemed to be enjoying ..bathing,washing,some were arranging their pooja materials neatly. Even some cows ambling about ..suddenly i felt..what the hell?

So we sat in half inch deep water,facing the sea and it was as if i was a child again,playing in sand.We were asked to prepare a sivalingam out of sand which you may bet we did with great enthusiasm,patting and making it smooth.(how long has it been)..my husband even decorated it with a fower.So, the pooja went on almost for one and half hours,the priest chanting mantras..we obeying him,doing nyasas,looking at the enchanting scene before us ,and enjoying ourselves...The priest brought a two or two and half feet high stone emblem on which was engraved a five(was it?..not too sure)hooded snake and under the hood, a figure (torso) of a human being...it was none too clear,as the stone was still too white (might be from the chiseling,i suppose)..,We bathed it in milk, rosewater ,honey, ghee,sandal paste, the usual panchamritam,coconutmilk,adorned it with flowers, invoked the god,and offered aarthi and finally the priest asked my husband to carry it in his hands up to an enclosure under the shadow of ravi and neem trees .Here he made him install the image with a "for the udvaham of your daughter"on to the earth.Hearing this for a while me and husband were amused..."Did we ask for this? I thought i was seeking her health," i said.
Chalo, this is good too,"..he joked.. ,Marriage comes under the general well being category...Then the priest who made us pay 150 rs (towards the daily offering of dhupam,deepam ,naivedyam for the lord) told us that we had to come back for darshan again once our daughter married, this time with our son.in.law.This led to further jokes with me saying,we would ,though we could not answer for the son. in. law.The priest who got his fees ,then instructed us to go and bathe at the twenty two wells of the temple,have darshan of the lord and his consort,only then the installation would be complete.

Going back i took a look at the enclosure.Hundreds of the naga images were there, under the great tree,,nestling in the sand...contemplating the sea eternally.....it made an eerie scene.

dhanushkodi

Few lines on Dhanushkodi...no we did not go up there,...It was already getting dark,by the time we went up to the sandy stretch between Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi....and even if we wanted, we could not make it for a very sinple reason...You need special vehicles to navigate on that sand,,sundaram"s qualis would just be not competent.But one word about the road and the place."the end of the world" would describe it in nutshell...The silent, sultry casuarina groves along the way would make you think that any thing could happen there without anybody getting the wiser...The wikepedia desribed the place as " entire 15 KM stretch is very lonely and the place is notorious for drug peddling, trafficking, rape, waylaying and robbery after dark ".yup... We did not read it at that time, but it was exactly how it struck us....It seemed a fit place for two sets of contrasting characters....mafia men and philosophers out to contemplate on nature, the other set is failed lovers or honeymooners,who are so wrapped up in themselves...
But the sea was a delight...pure, wild and choppy it sprayed foam and sand so much that those of us, who had spectacles had to remove them or else they were going all misty.the playful mood was so infectious that even urs truly who usually would not join in,went in and wetted her toes

towards rameswaram

We started for Rameswaram at about 2.30 or so... i think, in the afternoon,after having our lunch. We were a party of seven adults and that included the driver of the qualis,sundaram,.. a slim fair middle aged man of few words,or it might be because, he could not speak telugu fluently, though he could understand it quite well.Ofcource there were srinivas "s srujana and jyotsna..both under 10 years of age .Rameswaram is 170 km away from madurai,..sundaram told us,,it could take almost two and half to three hours of driving, allowing for stopovers for tea, coffee etc,so we could hope to reach it around 5 .30 in the evening.... and because it was summer, a lot of time would be there for local visits.


The road to rameswaram runs along , almost parallel to , the vaigai, as it flows towards sea,..though "flow" is a wrong word to use here.It was never more than a stream, sometimes just a trickle, and sometimes not even that.
There were few banana plantations about,i observed,and not too many fields,..this area or atleast most of it belongs to Ramnad district,i believe, and is a or one of the most backward districts of tamilnad , infact i remember reading somewhere,that in early seventies when a famine of sorts broke out ,this district had borne the brunt of it, driving some unfortunate people even to eating leaves and earth.
wWll, now it looked quite normal,the soil giving in to sandy stretches once we passed the towns of Manamadurai, and Ramanathapuram,the vegetation now is,more coconuts and casuarina groves.,air turning slightly sultry.


Rameswaram, is actually an island (the bridge at dhanushkodi being washed away in to the sea) and you cross the sea over the pamban bridge to enter the island.Sundaram stopped the qualis here on the bridge for sometime, allowing us to stretch our, cramped legs, get down to take a look and it was so lovely...The emerald green sea extending endlessly on the right side,and to the right again stretching up to horizon, but now cut intermittently by some small islets here and there.One had to see the faces of the children..they were going mad at the sight of all that sea and beaming from ear to ear(poor kids...those of us ,inland people only know what it is look at the wonder of the nature that is sea.)We spent sometime here..enjoying the heavy breeze as it knocked us back,looking over the railings at the sea ,as it spr ayed us playfully... Later we had to cajole the kids into the qualis,they refused to leave the place.


From ,pamban bridge it was at the most a twenty minutes drive to Rameswaram, and as we drove in i had a strong sense of deja vu,and for one moment thought i was back at Bandar,.worse..not even Bandar..i thought i was in Pedana or Chilakalapudi,,,,well ...the scene was just like that....... old tiled houses in urgent need of repair,..quaint little houses looking like they just were formed that way..never been planned,..wide pillared buildings that seemed to be sinking into the earth,...coconut trees,standing stubbornly high into the air,..narrow dusty streets with open drains,and neatly drawn rangolis just by their side, and when you come past all this,to the end of the land ,stood the mammoth temple with its long prakaram ,massive towers going up in the air, facing away from us (,it has a gateway at the back too)
and brooding over the sprawling sea.Large and sombre though it was, the temple was quite lively inside however,with a constant namahsivayah, chanting, the usual hawkers peddling their wares ,people floating through,. thronging the streets.
Amidst this we looked about and checked into Hotel Saravana,the only hotel with a sea view.. as its name board boasted.

Check this link....You will have literally gone through the whole journey....
http://sss.vn.ua/india/tamilnadu/rameshwaram/indexen.htm

Reams have been written and reels have been taken depicting the magnificence , and grandeur of the meenakshi temple,how it"s length and breadth straddle almost four bazaars,it's splendid architectural wealth,sprawling mantapams,cool stone corridors,I really can not describe it nor should dare to make an attempt at it, for quite frankly lay people like me can not understand the intricate aspects of it except appreciating the beauties peripherally.

What i mean is you have to be a historian or an architect to savour it"s significance., For unprepared visitors like us,who start out just on a short notice(alas we only looked for hotel accommodations,package tours,and distance maps on net) the vast temple would be a bit confusing, excepting the landmark points like chokkanathar temple etc ,which anybody could show you (no need even for that,there are directions)...Without a proper guide,you could end up seeing everything, but nothing.I think even a guide would be of so much help that is all,for instance, suppose the guide starts by saying"this temple was built by kulasekhara pandyan" you wisely nod ur head "yeah .pandyan..ofcource...great chap..btw was he the one a sivaji starrer was made on?" If u are a serious visitor, bent on appreciating the sculpture of the temple you should know a bit of silpam, a bit of temple vastu, at least some rudimentary knowledge of temple rituals and come prepared , after having done your homework,and catching up with your history lessons.


On our part,the driver, assigned to us ,dropped us at the south west corners of the temple, swung his hand both ways and said we could start from whichever direction we wanted..So we walked on ...and entered the temple through it"s massive southern gates,passed into a vast wide pillared corridor(no,it is too wide to be called a corridor) portico....It was flanked by a lake on it"s left,...must be where theppotsavam is conducted....where there was a golden lotus....to seat the deities, i suppose...

There was a miniature model temple complex on a glass topped table....from there we were directed to the meenakshi temple which was quite nearby...after the darshan we floundered a bit searching for the sundareswar temple,.could find it soon...and then had his darshan too.... Usually for people undergoing mercury major periods,malefic or even otherwise too...astrologers routenely prescribe a darshan of sundareswaraswami ,,, As my husband was then going through one ... i was particularly happy at seeing him,it being a wednesday too, though we had not really planned it that way.


Recollecting all those events now ,it all looks like a blur... a dream.... I could remember strolling across temple.., Srinivas"s kids had a field day running around, they went up to the temple elephant, who would lift it"s trunk to shower blessings and a bit of spew too,only when u put a rupee coin in it"s mouth...Ran around and pointed places where the film "arjun"was taken...this is where that fight took place.... this was where they danced....I could remember me and Prasanna (srinivas"s wife) going gaga over the variety of flowers at the stalls....jasmines, roses,kanakambarams,above all...lotuses,..both white and red.... thickly braided garlands for the deities and at nominal rates tooo... In Hyderabad they were charging 5 rs per moora...

I could remember inspecting various items that were being sold in an arch under the easterntowers,..sivalingams,japamalas,rudrakshas..It was a veritable bazaaar over there..Then the kids started to complain a bit,,.and the harried parents had to recharge them with goodies,.. from the prasadam stalls..well... The elders too have joined in.. and i have this one thing to say.....o kay ,,i had been to Thirupathi,,, i had been to Sri sailam,,,,,Shirdi..Okay..it might not be an impressive list...but ,,nowhere had i seen as many prasadams as at Madurai...You could believe me or leave me...ofcource,all of them had to be bought..but ...still..it was so awesome that i blashemously wondered if really all these had been offered to the gods.Then when little Jyotsna squatted on the floor and declared she could not walk anymore,we realized we had been there at the temple for four hours already and turned back agreeing in unison it could not be covered like this in one day,,, we would come back again(yeah..may be next year?.yeah..why not?..all u have to do is to book train tickets in advance..that is all ..hey ...now we know all the ropes..what"s there?)


http://www.pbase.com/rlankenau/madurai

meenaksheem pranathosmin

During my childhood....that was in early sixties of the last century, i used to sit back in our poooja room at Bandar,watching my grandfather performing his daily prayers,and staring at the portraits and little statues of deities...There used to be two photo frames of both kamakshi of kanchi and meenaakshi of madurai hanging to the walls of altar, only that i used to pronounce it as madhura(in telugu, even now it is generally written just like that),always mistaking it for krishna"s madhura.In fact until i was around 15 r 16 years of age, i laboured under this misconception.We used to be like that i suppose , people our generation....slow learners... not like today"s kids who tire of of their toys after playing for five minutes......we .... we played for hours together with just a plain round stone...gundu rayi tho ganta sepu.


Coming back to the topic,of the two photos, i found the meenakshi one was prettier.I could remember it vividly ...in a beautiful wheatish silk sari with a bottle green jari border, with resplendent vibhuthi and kumkum, a parrot on her right shoulder,she used to be so lovely.THAT could be called my first acquaintance with her...but it was just that.nothing more.Though mother goddess is worshipped by all of us hindus she could be reached everywhere locally,....as kanakadurga,at the local temple, as bhramarambika. Me on my part saw her in the form of holy mother of jillellamudi,was content with it.Also being a person with travel phobia i never even wanted to go anywhere else,much less to madurai.But ofcource there was a great reverence for her,having heard stories about her magnificence.

One, was used to be told by my uncle, who recounted an experience oh his ,when he went to Madurai, as a student on an excursion.He was standing in the queue,intending to perform pooja in his father"s name and time was running out for his departure.Then an old woman came near him ,asked what he wanted to do,took his basket of pooja material ,and as he kept seeing ,went directly into the sanctum sanctorum,passing the long queues and after a few minutes came back with the prasadam which she placed in his hands . Now ... there might be umpteen kinds of explanations for this ,and all of them might be true.but it was a pleasant experience no doubt.My uncle also told me ,that one day when he was in the gracious presence of the mother of jillellamudi somehow a topic on Madurai was being discussed, and she turned and looking at him said..."yes... i saw u at Madurai". no no no... i am not going into a discussion over this .i only say "i believe ".


Some years back ...may be in 95 or 96 ..my husband went to Madurai to attend a workshop that was being conducted regarding autonomous colleges(i don't know the details ofcource),and i asked him to get me a miniature statuette of parvathi from Madurai....i thought since it was a pilgrim centre it could be easily available.The reason being i had a sivalingam ,someone presented me with,(it has been 4 r 5 years since) i put him in with other gods of my gallery.....
not withstanding warnings some people gave me of women being tabooed to perform sivapooja etc.... and i wanted a partner for him(like a mother who wants a bride for her son i suppose).
So on return, my husband brought for me a beautiful statuette of meenakshi of brass,and ever since i kept it beside my siva though she is almost three times taller than him, and i always worry if she is going to topple him someday... I even started reciting meenakshi panchratnams every mondays and fridays....But still i was not an ardent devotee or any thing of that sort,never even entertained ideas about a pilgrimage.......very probably because of my journey phobia i suppose.......and was content to do my token pooja at home,.....did not even feel like visiting either.

But as they say, time moves mysteriously ...and it came about i was standing before the mother on that 17 th may morning..... there was "nt much of a rush...,not many people were about there...... the sanctum sanctorum was dimly lit with oil lamps......there were the hanging chain lamps,just like the photos,, attired in a parrot green silk sari with classic magenta border,stood the mother ,she was not tall,...around four feet or less..,.....her ornaments twinkling and flashing now and then.
Her image was not clearly visible from the queue lines,..so we bought special darshan tickets and were taken to an ante room almost up to the sanctum from where we could see her better as aarthi lighted up now ,her eyes , now ,her bejewelled ears,and her hands,.......we stood there for few minutes,.It was stuffy in there...fragrance of flowers ,sandal paste,aromatic kumkum,strong peppermint curiously mixed with scents of burning wicks and oil wafting across...the priests were offering teertham ,sathagopam,.....another one took off a thick woven mallimala around her crown and placed it in my hands........Then it was time to move on.......we made our final bows.....It took me forty seven years to come and present myself at her feet ,on this auspicious day in my life...... Coming out i thought it was very unlikely i could see her again in this lifetime again....victory to thee ,mother of universe

wednesday,17 may

we were all up and early that morning,having completed bathing in record time,..... no mean task considering we were a party of 8 adults n two kids...... in a fit of rare discipline....very fortunately for us a car rental agency was there just before yasoda"s residence, who agreed to provide us with an A/c qualis for our ramblings.so,.. we started forth...n just before that we had great fun at the expense of the unmarried girls of the party, cautioning them to take care at the temples ..... That is where boys and girls are most likely to fall in love.....In how many movies we have seen this?....you take a dip in the temple tank and be careful or the person who is rising out of all that water with a splash before you may be HE.......They were asked to hang tight to their vonis and chunnies ... whatever they might be,lest they are going to fly away and land on someone"s face....once u take off the veil ..lo ...it is HE...The most dangerous siuation , ..we all agreed would be when the girl is running (i dont know why heroines start to run in crowded temples with jingling anklets)with a garland in her hands..and it slips and falls round HIS neck(how they achieve this in movies with different heights,is albeit too complicated for me).,...all this before and in the presence of the deity.... a deadly combo of romance and sentiment.....even we the elders could do nothing in this case,we informed the girls. They were also under strict instructions not to pick up brass chembus dropped by strange boys ... la ...sankarabharanam., and ofcource we should not send the girls for getting tickets etc.....

varanda madurai

On that day ... the 16 of may,as we got down from vaigai... around 8.30 or so of a warm night, Madurai threw me a pleasant surprise.It was quite , quite cooler than Hyderabad ( which we left fuming).In fact that previous night on train was easily the sultriest one i ever spent,...the stuffy compartment making me think a Mongolian torture chamber must be something like this. I directed meaningful glances at my husband...no need to say out anything..How are we going to suffer another week of travel in this weather?

But ... Madurai was a relief...a little bit hot...but quite bearable.The city seemed busy ofcource,..but after Hyderabad i think every place looks comparatively peaceful.You have to be a hyderabadi i think, to appreciate the comparatively lesser incidence of radiation...atleast ...that was how it struck me on that day..
Yasoda"s living quarters were on the upstairs of a slightly older looking house...in a neat residential locality.... some bank colony i think..... A pleasant sunny and somewhat piquant construcion...It had no balcony....if you want to hang your washed clothes you had to go to the back garden down stairs... We were pleased to see Srinivas, a nephew of ours ....actually her brother ...with his wife and two cute daughters.Srinivas was certainly happy to see us.Both of us would be company to each other for you see though we would not say it...journeying in a new place where we do not know the language, was a bit daunting...


So we had a nice home made dinner,caught up with the latest family news,enjoyed playing with the kids and slept peacefully....Tomorrow we would start our visits..

the vaigai express

just few lines on the vaigai express.i have never seen another train which served so many food items as vaigai.(this on the authority of my husband who was a no mean travellor, having covered almost all parts of india through attending his conferences-he is a proffessor of physics) from the moment we boarded the train,altogether another train(food) of sorts seemed to be running simultaneously.from biryani packets, pongal, n other rice items , a steady flow of snacks raanging from pakodas to to cutlets even down to swets like polis....it was a veritable buffet party.
a very well run train

our grand south tour(planning)

it was the 2006 summer... april i think it was.... when we had this bright idea of a south tour. to be sure it was not a very new one.....my husband always planned summer tours,and we were planning to go to bangalore every summer without fail for the past five years.something or other always turned up every time and last year we changed madurai for bangalore thinking it was becoming jinxed.but in the end even madurai trip was jinxed too ,my sister had to drop out on account of her sons exams...,anothr sister had to come back earlier than planned,...i my self was not too keen on a mid summer trip(anasuya was recovering from her encephalitis attack..doc has cautioned us to see that she did not get high fevers.)

so this time we thought we will go ourselves and all the three of us had a council of war like meeting....i had great misgivings of summer tour as usual and expressed them qiute vocally.last year madurai was recording 46 n 47 centigrade consistently,i told them,what r we going to do in that heat?....my husband offered to hire an a c car.but i was not convinced.a c cars can do do just that much.also in t n they dont open their temples during mid day ,the time one can usually use up for visiting.we had an idea of making madurai as a base camp to cover nearby places.my husband and daughter sent baleful looks at my objections and both of them had some objectionable things to say about what they considered as my comfort mongering.

then we had another hitch.my brother in law s daughter was then staying at madurai ,she was inviting us every year to visit herand my husband said we would stay with her. on my part i heard of water problems of t n and was afraid we might be causing yasoda trouble if we stayed with her.my husband cleared this problem immediately by calling up yasoda,who said this summer was no problem since tamilnad has got unprecedented good rains that year and we are more than welcome to stay with her,since her two daughters r coming in for holidays as well and anasuya would get good company too.
so it was all decided,..we were booked on madras express n then on vaigai to and fro .on 15 th of mid may .

performing the marriage of an only daughter

yes....we have performed the marriage of our only daughter..... just recently .. on jan28 ..2007 to be precise. the event we were looking forward to ... since the day she was born(now u start saving my sister in law told my husband.u have a daughter now).and there were the usual match fixings(how about ramu? or anil?rani>s son?)as she grew up there were the usual dark warnings too. watch out ratna.these days are bad. u have to keep a careful eye on her.and i shivered in pleasant anticipation of all of it,girding myself to the onerous task.
Well having an only child is like that. u dont have too many choices to divert ur mind .so here i made my brother who was at bandar at that time (practicing law as an apprentice to our uncle himself)to go to the family astrologer and draw her birth chart .sadly it said her marriage will be a late one and all the rigamarole about saturn and mars sitting somewhere and eyeing each other like they do in feudal films.
so anasuya grew up and i was carefully watching overand preparing my self for all the eventualities exept that nothing of the foreseen happened(by gods grace).she was a normal kid ...did not cause me too many sleepless nights..(though one or two times i thuuought ..this it .. a love affair ..but they turned about to be nothing but my imagination) studied well and agreed to the charming boy we arranged for her.and belieng the astrological predictions was married at 22. (thank u saturn and mars ..we misunderstood u)
the marriage went well too..ofcource we forgot to invite her friend down the lane(just a row away), and few realclose friends , her paedeatrician, her schoo principal... remembered few things we could have done.only after the d day.
one thing ironically..or is this the norm today?....neither me or her father shed a tear during the whole thingto the chagrin of our son in law who it seems betted 100 dollars with anasuya(she told us later) that we would cry copiously at the parting scene.disappointed, he wondered if he was the one who should cry.
so that is how it went...it was not thatdifficult as has been said or that heart breaking to see off an only daughter. sure ..we have spent a lot of our savings..sure we felt a great deal foot sore afterwards... sure we are missing our anasuya...but it compensates a lot to know she is with her lifemate...the only draw back seems to be that i am left with a lot of time in my hands..... i have lenghthened my pooja timings... decided to to some charitable work(i dont have a foggiest ideaof what it is).....made a vow to do ramanamam all the time(it is as slippery as an eel)AND having seen anasuya tinkering with her system decided i too will enter the great computer revolution and be a menace to all the good netizens of this world with my blogging.