Thursday the 18 th , may, nagaprathishta

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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.