Saturday, March 31, 2007

The all encompassing eye



"WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IS NOT REALLY WHAT IT IS.THAT WAS NOT IT"S FORM BEFORE YOU SAW IT, NOR WILL IT BE SO AFTERWARDS.. FOR ALL THINGS ARE MUTABLE"

I read this somewhere and found it to be very true and quite eminently practicable."Let"s start practicing it", i told, myself.....May be i will start getting wiser,.. After all, i am getting on in years and it is time i caught up with some enlightenment of the soul,and at least at this age should find out what is what.

One has to develop a comprehensive view to to understand this factor of mutability....i read...... just like the bird"s eye view,we used to study about in our childhood.One has to view the front,sides and even the back of our noses.. an improvement on the winged creature.

I tried to follow this golden maxim and found out the result a bit startling....Now i can not look at a new sari without picturing mentally how it is going to look in few more days,......faded, crumpling at the hems ,and in tatters..worse...thrown into a rag bin........

Now i take up a glass of water, stare into it as i remember how all the water molecules in the earth"s atmosphere do not decrease or increase in volume ..... just get recycled and recirculated......The liquid in this tumbler may very well be the same molecules someone drank ages ago, ..or..is the raindrops in a forest,..the roof of an igloo,...the tear drop of a mother,...the perspiration of a labourer,...or..yuck ....the piss of an animal.....

But ,the weirdest thing happens as you look at people"s faces....You get to see a, young , nubile girl and foresee the lovely curls going grey,...bags forming under the bright eyes,,and she turning out to be just like her mother or grand mother.....a young boy changing.....hair receding,..pot bellied...... into a tottering, senile old fellow...

I see a bright new painted building, looking all crisp and shiny like a new currency note,and know exactly where it is going to show it"s ugly side in a few more years.....the railings are going to be grubby.....the windows are the first to take rust.....the corners of the landings....ugh..

You walk about a place,..and it has a history...Once i went to Alampur in Kurnool district and they told me it was a bustling city during chalukya period. Today it is only a very dry, hot,little hamlet....Another time i was at Pedavegi,,,and it seems it was a capital city for the vengi kings just few hundred years back.Now there is not even a standing remnant of it....Once the bay was supposed to be reaching the Thirumala hills, and now it receded back till Nellore and Madras.

Well......yes...this type of philosophical, bird"s eye viewing was quite awesome..and unnerving.....but did not seem to deter me for long....Just a few moments of introspection......I continue to wear new sarees, drink lots of water , appreciate the good looks of others, and take joy in the present....Just shows that by itself KNOWLEDGE (jnanam) is not going to influence our reaction to our urges and feelings.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

WWF.CRICKET



"People should stop watching cricket" my husband declared as he shook his head reading the HINDU..."it is this too much attention we give it that is spoiling the game.", he continued in an injured tone.." and the lure of easy money...u just bet and expect bucks to roll in"...He was plainly disappointed, and even though would not admit it,was chafing because just two days back he laughed,. nay, pooh poohed the idea that our Bermuda match was fixed when seshu and maruthi(my bro n sis)proposed that theory...Now,comes the news that woolmer was murdered and it might very well have something to do with match fixing. Plainly he did not like the way things are going on.

I, myself was not too much perturbed. My cricket watching days were over...that was when Gavaskar and Viswanath were in their prime, and arguments regularly broke out in our household over who was the better classicist,,.with suri babai rooting for vishy and others campaigning for Gavaskar,..while, dad ,always a maverick, liked Madan lal orSsolkar or Chauhan.....yeah....those were the days...India hardly ever won any match and when it did win one, a severe drought followed for quite some years later....I remember what happened after the famous KAPIL"DEVILS cup.......The most funny thing happened when those players, who retired just then reappeared as commentators... clucked their tongues,.gravely shook their heads, and reprimanded the present ones for being hasty,.....should not go for hooks, late cuts,.should not be lax in running in between wickets,......I got to wonder why they did not do all that when THEY played. ....i kept it till late eighties and gradually lost interest.

This match fixing concept started from Azharuddin days,i think...My brother and uncle used to bring in all sorts of veranda rumours....that Azhar"s brother himself was a bookie,...Azhar used to change caps to indicate a coded signal to the bookies.i mean, he wears a red cap and it meant one thing.,..he wears a green cap and it means some other thing.......Seshu was sure the test we lost to Pakistan, where Sachin scored a 90+,got out and a procession of sorts followed with all the others getting out for a mere handful of runs was fixed.So also was the Pakistani loss to Bangladesh in the last world cup .

"why don"t you first stop watching for starters?" i asked my husband.

"It is not watching" he readily backtracked. "it is the betting that is the chief culprit.the filthy lucre of easy money."

" ok.so,how is one going to stop this?"i led him on.

"yeah,..that is tough" he conceded."no way one can really put a lid on it.even the altu faltu matches between Bandar hindu college and Edepalli cricket club (btw, has anyone ever heard of "em?)are betted upon."

"when u can"t beat"em, join"em. that is my motto" i declared.

"give u one idea. why don"t we have wwf cricket matches from now on?" i suggested.

"left to my self i liked those fixed matches immensely.there was color,..suspense,thrills,heart stopping catches,and even one or two miracles(that was how it struck watchers)"i reasoned. "just like the wwf fisticuffs.as if an astute script writer , who has got the pulse of the people, wrote down a taut screen play....one knows it is fixed but still can"t stay away and goes through all the thrills".I warmed up to the idea." you see.one can call in the best of script writers, pack in the most stunning sequences and make a huge hit".

"what do you say?"i interrupted my husband as he sat immersed in watching the Australia , west indies match on telly.

He merely glowered at me.

Monday, March 26, 2007

tuesday, the twenty third, may



We started our journey, back to Hyderabad,this day,..again on the good old VAIGAI.
The previous day evening SRINIVAS"S family went back to khammam, their own place, and we had to bid farewell to the two cuties, SRUJANA and, JYOTSNA,without whose cooperation,as they say in speeches,.. none of us could have done this trip. They never made a complaint where even the elder people would throw tantrums, bore with tough schedules, kept up their spirits cheerful and by god"s grace,..their health too.The younger one demanded we pack our bags to go with them to khammam.We were sorry to part with them.

That night we had a relaxed dinner and tasted some of madurai"s,hot and spicy pulao.and curries..sat gossiping late into the night and said our hearty thanks to Yasoda and her lovely Alekhya and Anupama...and in the middle of the night,....i woke up with a dream where i saw a pair of tiny snakes.As i lay there wondering about this latest dream,Anasuya too woke up and peevishly enquired why i was not sleeping and spoiling her sleep as well...When i narrated my dream to her, she kindly patted my head with ...."ratnamani...dont bother ur little brains too much...as it is, they are better than ghazni"s,work only for two minutes".....so, i took her suggestion and promptly went back to sleep.

THE MARVEL THAT IS SOUTH INDIA







Cool hill stations,.. sultry beaches,...dense forests ,...large, modern cities,...villages with barest mimimum facilities,...powerful holy places........all of these within just two or three hours drive........Both punyam and purushartham.....That is the marvel of south india.....you go up beautiful thirumala mountains,have a darshan of venkateswara, the most benefic of lords(KALIYUGA DEIVAM, as they say,)and within two or three hours you can come down to the beach resorts at Nellore or Chennai, or enjoy watching the migrating birds at sullurpet in case it was january...or you can choose to vanish into the nearby forests.........
So also is the case with north coastal andhra pradesh.lovely beaches at Bheemlee, Narsipatnam, Vizag,...araku and even hither to unexplored hill stations, and the densest dandakaaranyam..


You can visit the grand shrine of meenakshi at madurai, as we did, and opt for a two and half hour drive to the sea......or go up the kodai mountains,....in the same time span...and watch and wonder at the magnetic charm of these two elements...water and earth,...in their stark ,extensive forms, and feel your own humbleness.
Anasuya left for her M.S soon after our return from this trip...and we were glad to have shown her, at least a part of this great land, where gods reside.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

pazhamudhircholai


Pazhamudhircholai was very near to azhagar kovil,...I think it took not more than fifteen minutes of driving....Set in some picturesque woods,it stood at the foot of a low lying hill.Our driver pointed to it as the temple, and drove on further without stopping,,,...As we were wondering over what happened, he explained, there were some waterfalls further up on the hillside and we must take a bath under them first before we go over to the temple. We were not intent on bathing, but wanted to see those falls. Later we came to know that this place was called NUPURA GANGAI.


When you go further up on the hill,through a pleasant forest full of bustling monkeys, after 5 to 10 minutes of driving,you reach the steps that take you to the falls...They were a good many, and we puffed up there dragging our cramped legs...A kind of big temple like structure was at the summit,with a square shaped open space, at the center of it, and from a wall of it , were jetting out some slender streams of water...They were more like the feeble rushes of water we are used to seeing from our municipal taps.Some people were bathing under those, and we stood there for sometime watching the scene....some people were filling up cans and carrying them back. They were said to be of medicinal values...might be like mineral water springs......The place was stinking, very dark, dirty too,and wet all over.....At an alcove like place,a statue of kamakshi was receiving poojas...After a few minutes there, we did a stiff climb down,..watched the antics of those monkeys for sometime and started for pazhamudhir...


The temple was a bit surprising....because, unlike the other ones, which were very ancient, this one looked very much new...just like a modern day temple....The flooring,the built,....not a very large one either....We do have such temples almost in all places....might be the earlier ancient one went into decay.
but the lord, with his consorts at his sides was a beautiful one,as ever.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Azhagar kovil


I liked azhagar kovil...might be bacause of the fact that it was less crowded...When we went in there, there were not more than just five or six people . I think calmer surroundings did help to set our mood in a more receptive frame,...We could leisurely look around us and appreciate it.


It was very much near madurai, not more than 30 km or just about that....situated a bit back,..away from the main road, in a sprawling enclosure, the giant temple stood silent and dignified....It had some huge, stonemade out houses and smaller temples in it"s foregrounds....To the right side of the temple, was a huge, archway, with strong, closed wooden doors...A bored looking preist sat before it with some pooja materials by his side.for a stipulated amount of money, (i dont remember how much),he would prepare a potful of sandal wood water,which the devotes had to splash on those doors. Then he would open the gates for a few seconds, allowing us to have a peep in....To my surprise, i found nothing there,...just a open place and big bee-hives.this act was supposed to be beneficial for the well-being of children. ...Well...ofcource we did it.

Inside, the temple was peaceful, large,and rambling.and exept around the sanctum,seemed in want of repairs too..One can easily see that though it was empty and falling into disrepair now, it had the look of a busy and well kept place in a bygone period.One can roam around the place and get lost.....Huge pillared corridors, dark,hallways,and hard stone floors,it strangely,raked up a feeling of awe and had an air of mystery around it,....that for a moment i wondered what it would be like to be caught, locked up in this massive, dark temple for a night....


The main sanctum was on an elevated platform,..The deity standing on a higher inner chamber,...and one look at him,...you would know why he was called AZHAGAR...He was a rare, beautiful idol,..tall for normal images,...It IS unusual to find tall images...exeptions being the lord balaji"s images and some others....With large ,resplendent NAMAMS,and glittering ornaments,....i just had to imagine how it would be if this image appeared and moved among us, ...with his elongated,bright large eyes,..his green tulasimalas, colorful garlands, and silks.... say, ..on a road....Without doubt, everybody would have no eyes for anything else. Here i remembered a description of lord ram, when he entered MITHILA, along with saint VISWAMITRA and his brother,...such was the magnetic beauty of HIM,...the poet says,...that the people of mithila kept staring at him throughout his walk.He was so beautiful (i purposefully use this word in stead of handsome)that whoever happened to notice his feet first, kept staring at them all through,..while those who caught his eyes,kept seeing them alone, as if mesmerised.

ramuni andam makarandam
rasamayamainadi prathi dendam
ramuni charanam aravindam
kolichina chalu aanandam

So it was not for nothing, he was called AZHAGAR.


coming out , we were amused by the fact, that this was the first VISHNUSTALAM, we were seeing on the entire trip.

Monday, March 19, 2007

monday, the 22nd ,may


this morning, we, ..meaning me and my husband got up early and went out for a morning walk,( an unusual custom for me,) around yasoda"s house....just a street or two,...enjoying and savouring the scenes and scents of a madurai morning....and soaking in the atmosphere..i always found roaming in a new place a very delightful expierience...
we were in a pretty relaxed mood that day, nursing our still sore feet, and sympathising with each other.. our trip has almost come to an end,..only two places near madurai were to be covered now...both srujana and jyotsna unequivocally stated they were not going on visits any longer.,they said, they preffered to stay with their aunt.so we called for an ambassdor from the car rentals,and leisurely started for thiruppurankundram(the name itself is difficult to write.i still dont know if this is correct spelling) after breakfast.


it was not far..., infact , it could be called a part or suburb of madurai.the temple looked like it had been carved out of a small hill.or to say plainly, a big rock. the mukha mantapams and entry halls were wide, huge and cool,... beautiful sculptures adorning the walls.. the actual sanctum was on a higher plane.and was kind of unusual...three figures, murugan, parvathi and ganesh , the mother in the middle....were carved out of a wall of rock...all the three were of same size and not regular idols....i mean, in this place, the swami seemed to be sharing the dais, so to speak,not being an exclusive deity.

downstairs there were the two divine consorts too , and some other gods. as we the came out of the temple ,we saw ,in the mukhamantapam, to a side of the low roof was a carved figure of godess kali and a man stood nearby selling tiny balls of butter.it seemed there was this funny custom of making a wish and throwing a butter ball up at the godess on the roof. if it stuck it meant your wish was fulfilled. if it did"nt, it meant otherwise... anasuya, made her father buy one for her and threw the ball. it stuck.,but she would not tell us what she wished for.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

vallisanatha mama dehin karaavalambam

OH;THE LORD OF VALLI, LEND ME THE SUPPORT OF YOUR HAND;

That was the prayer on our lips,... on the mid afternoon of a mid-summer day, as we stood looking up at the steep, sacred hill of palani , with two ten year old kids in our party.... We just then got out of the qualis, a bit shaken after having travelled down the precarious ghat section from kodai to Palani....
..The day was a hot one, but the breeze thankfully, was cool...The scene before us was pretty chaotic...There were huge pandals at the foot of left side of the hill, where literally, hundreds of people,were standing in queues.Those were supposed to be waiting for the rope way, the easier mode of travel to climb up the hill.Even with an optimistic estimate, it would take four hours before our turn came.

To out right was the threshold,...the entrance gates to the flight of stairs,that would lead us up to the shrine at the top...They were high,hewn out of rock.. .with intermittent archways lending shelter to the pilgrims,for every fifteen steps or so .Some more hundreds of people seemed to be milling around these gates.Some were coming down, some were climbing up., Others were busy lighting up balls of camphor on some steps,or plainly resting..... Families, loners, mendicants,old people,an old man with a walking stick, a man with an only leg, kids,women and young girls with their freshly washed hair let loose,and big kumkum and udhi on foreheads...,every one was busy doing their own thing...

We stood on the road for sometime, watching, and debating.We could not take the rope way... simply could not wait in those queues with kids for four hours in the sun....the pandals being no effective shelter...If we were to go by the stairs?...we did not know how many steps were there,or just how long it would take and if the kids could make it....There was no office or any devasthanam counter downstairs ,we could go enquiring to....All the information we could glean was from fellow pilgrims, or local people ..Some body said it would not take more than half an hour, some body else said that even if we went up,darshan would not be easy...might take up till nightfall...
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5taZBoJz0xkSmGWoLb68f86aanjwA1HkfaM0tE3P74I70eBrBsAgKJSoknmTcoHYt6-7NzPvZpTrCXwhG3nI1eGIWMMCcJDrfPNpbm4HqMeAbamjqZ10h3-Yglm9ZTDeZz7ShV6jVwCYN/s1600-h/palanigold.jpg">


More than any thing, we were afraid for the two kids,....They might get sun struck,....they might not make the climb after all,....worse,....what if we were caught in the middle?...could not either go up or down?... They did not have any food after break fast and who knows how much time the darshan would take? ...I suggested that srinivas and family might go to a hotel and take rest while we three,made an attempt and see for ourselves....Srinivas and his wife vetoed the idea....At one point , we decided to beg pardon and call it off...we were not really on an oath to do this visit.Anyway srinivas and wife were not as keen as us....They admitted they never planned this ,but we could see they were too polite,...did not like to be seen as backing off....So to ease this situation, we said"let us make our bows and retreat"...Anasuya, who , i knew ,was very keen to visit palani, looked resigned,having realised the piquancy of the situation.but, strangely. the kids themselves would not hear of this...They wanted to go up...may be they thought it was going to be adventurous...

So, we found ourselves going up the hill,at 1"o" clock in the afternoon, on naked feet(slippers are tabooed on palani)which otherwise would be a near fire walk. , .It surely WAS hot,..the climb WAS arduous,..specially for me, who led a sedentary life all through. but as i said before, the cool breeze was comforting. If we looked upwards the temple was looking temptingly near,yet just that far,,,the scene down ward was exciting too, as the town and it"s,bazaars, surrounding plains,fields, hills, lakes came in to view gradually.....It was an enchanting view....

It took 25 to 30 minutes for us to reach the top, and the scene that unfolded there was pretty chaotic too..... Hundreds of people were bustling about,...Some were sitting in groups,eating or just lolling on the floor,...Some were actually sleeping wherever they can...,...The queues were so lengthy,that any thought of a quick darshan looked remote.But as usual, the special darshan tickets were available,and within fifteen to twenty minutes we were ushered into the main hall before the sanctum sanctorum.....we had few moments of darshan and were able to see the lord.,who was said to be made of NAVAPASHANAMS,....For just a moment of whose darshan,...hundreds would wait,.. come from all parts of the world, and prostrate before his feet ....The darshan was was much better than at Thiruchendur....



In about fifteen minutes after this we were again at the stairs,..this time descending,...Legs slightly shaking with exertion,the downward momentum sometime taking our feet pretty near the burning camphor balls,...When we stopped at the foot gates and looked back up at the hill ,,,there was a slightly weird .,incredulous feeling...Did we really go there?.. Did we really see the lord?.. Was it all over?..It all looked like a conjuror"s trick.

There is a lovely picture of palanimalai before dawn,..in one of these links, which is a must see.


http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/India
http://www.pbase.com/oochappan/palani

Try this link for an interesting insight on the moola vigraham of palani

http://www.murugan.org/research/saravanan.htm

This link shows a delightful slide show en route pazhani

http://www.imagestation.com/album/slideshow.html?id=2118317036/South/Tamil_Nadu/Palani/

Thursday, March 15, 2007



on that mid - summer afteroon, kodai was as cold as a very wintry day at hyderabad.that was how it struck us.tolerable during day, and definitely freezing at nights.
after inspecting the cottage gleefully, kids running all over the place,and some freshening up,we went into the town....ofcource the first thing we did was to head for a restaurant. curiously even after binging on all those fruits and chaats, we seemed to be quite hungry.
then we took a boat ride in the kodai lake.(meaning,all others except myself,i preffered to stay back on the shore and watch).it was said to be a man made one, and was really a treat,....i would try to give you a link or two to some excellent photographs of these places. only they can do justice to what words can not describe.
when they returned, everybody seemed to be in high spirits and we shopped around some more...trinkets, tea shirts, shells, and all useless things...it is a virus...the shopping bug..and photos.everybody took photos of everybody ,in twos ,in threes,in groups....
next we visited bryant gardens. they were just adjascent to the lake and very beautiful. some more photography followed...as the kids went to town snapping at everything with their cameras and cells. sadly none of us had any knowledge of botany to appreciate the floral wealth of kodai(infact,we realised this quite early)we wished we had.the gardens had a variety of orchids and also to my layman"observation, had quite a good collection of cactii.

from there, we went to the coaker"s walk.. it was a narrow strip of walk, hewn out of the rock ,on a side of a small summit,looking down a steep valley,and also commanding a comprehensive view of the nearby hills , valleys, roads,...after the lake, it struck me as the best scenic spot. the walk itself was ofcource,quite safe, but also slightly precarious enough to whet our appetites for adventure,...at least for kids and women like me...we had a panoramic view ,from the telescopes arranged there,of the rolling hills, the serpentine roads and the distant PERIAKULAM town and it"s lake.

next, britto took us to suicide point and a view of pillar rock.these two places were so full of milling crowds, we wondered how anybody could attemt suicide there. the only chance of a mishap seemed to be with some enterprising young men, who thought it a bright idea to experiment walking about on those steep and rough rocks.then we went to another site called upper valley view,from where we could look on an enchanting scenery of kodai lake and woods .
we surely enjoyed visiting kodai, but in the end we could not miss noticing few points....
one was.....we selected a wrong day for it. saturdays and sundays, coupled with summer rush were making kodai burst at the seams and it was plainly showing. the chaos at restaraunts and markets were quite irksome.
secondly, it was a small town with nescessarily narrow roads, being a hilly region,....so the traffic jams were a nuisance.we encountered two such jams and it took no less than full one hour to come out of it both times.
thirdly a cottage is good only if you took a cook or provisions with you ,else, one has to go long distances even for a cup of coffee.but not withstanding all these,we had a whale of a time.
we returned to the cottage at about 4.30 or 5 and relaxed ,sitting together,resting our weary legs,chatting and watching, through the french windows , as the evening fell with thousand lovely hues,over the upper valley point and one by one feeble lights started to shed tiny glows.

http://www.mykodaitrip.blogspot.com/

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/India/South/Tamil_Nadu/Kodaikanal/photo471662.htm

http://prabssouthtrip.tripod.com/

Monday, March 12, 2007

on road to kodai and some vintage music



SATURDAY, THE 20 TH, MAY

It was a cool morning at madurai,on that saturday,..... Looked like there were few summer showers during the dead of the night...and we woke up to a slightly chilly breeze turning in the early hours......Seemed as if the weather was determined to be pleasant to us through out the day, kodai or not.


Over the morning coffee, , we took stock of the situation...In spite of two days of hectic travel , untimely meals and ruptured sleep schedules, none of us seemed really the worse for it.Anasuya was nursing a massive cold, but announced herself fit for the journey again.Srinivas too was sneezing now and then, but was game too.
However,there were going to be few changes to the party.Sundaram"s a/c qualis was giving way to a non a/c one, the travel agent ,himself having decided we did not need one at kodai...Britto,a dark ,stocky,bulldog of a man, in his late thirtees,was taking the place of sundaram...we were sorry to him go....he was such a safe driver....Now anupama joined in as alekhya dropped out,strictly adhering to their gentlemen"s code.

We started a bit late, aroud 9 "o"clock or 9.30...We saw another part of madurai that day as we drove past the kamaraj university,and hotel tamilnad.The day was cool, the way was pleasant, shady with trees .

The kid"s faces brightened as britto put on some hindi music. you see...sundaram had only very old tamil melodies to his collection, that too those which have never been heard of,.. really... not even some old hits..not that i knew any...My knowledge of tamil oldies started and ended with ...PARTHA JNAPAGAMILLAYYO ..As a six year kid, i saw the dubbed version of that film....It was called SINGAPORE C.I.D...I still can remember sowcar janaki looking stunning in a stylish black sequinned chiffon, singing that song, and looking supercilious ....well,... well...and,some other mgr and b. saroja(?)number which started like ORU PENNAI PATHU ....i only remember the lalalalala bit that went with it...sung by soundararajan., .Some thing about a girl and her eyes....you see, i had an uncle, my dad" brother , who used to sing them way back in my childhood. He did his b.sc at madras, though i could not for the life of me understand why he went aaaal that way to madras for a mere b.sc...He used to flaunt his newly acquired tamil skills by singing these numbers as he leisurely bathed at the pump head in our open courtyard. Men never bathed in closed doors those days....that was for women...tcha.. Men bathed in open air, under the stars, listening to the birds and carrying on conversations....My uncle who used to be young ,handsome and unmarried at that time,, was in the habit of gathering all of us,(his little nieces and nephews)...(.ofcource,out of the earshot of his elder brothers and sisters.).. around him... would sigh , shake his head and say that girls swooned over him when he sang these, particularly the latter number, and would not leave him alone....all of us gaped and tended to believe him .

Coming back to our trip, bored with sundaram"s oldies, the kids quickly took up their own anthaksharis, and games and worst of all...their own singing... We were treated to srujana"s sudden out bursts as she belted out A DEVA DEVA DEVA DEVUDA in intermittent jerks, just when we seemed to be slipping into a nice stupor,. Poor me , having never followed current musical trends had no clue as to what this "deva deva devuda." was.Later they told me it was a popular number from POKIRI,a recently released hit. Now, they perked up at this familiar sort of music, even though the songs were as old as DULHE KE SAALIYON, HARE DUPPATTEWALIYON..

We started ascending the ghat section very soon,...just an hour or half from madurai... and it was not a very frightening or hair raising sort of one..No doubt there were the usual hairpin bends etc, but the road was quite wide enough and comfortable.The greenery on both sides was..oh...sooo eye pleasing,,,The mountain rocks looking wet ,cold....The ghat section itself covered fifty km or so i believe. The kids were excited and alternately gasped and ooohed and aaaahed as the vehicle lumbered round one bend, to reveal another beautiful scene.

There was a big traffic jam just on the spot of silver cascade falls,so we got out of the qualis, stretched our legs , went and admired the falls.Then within ten minutes , with the typical tourist mentality,ignored the falls, shopped around with the numerous hawkers ,...Anasuya said she forgot to pack her sweater, and her dad bought her a new one...Srinivas and Prasanna inspected other items., and we ate every thing in sight....The luscious baby carrots of kodai are a must buy...we bought them in kilos...alubakaras too...how juicy?..some other new looking fruits,,my husband, ever a connossieur of fruits, could not help buying...Then jyotsna wanted fresh peanuts boiled in salted water steam....so ofcource all of us ate them , to give her company.....Then i looked at a name board which announced HOME MADE CHOCOLATES, and just when i was heading there, my huband shoved me into the qualis, saying that since traffic was moving we must hurry in.....so,i regretfully abandoned the chockies, making a mental note to look for it at kodai.All this when we did not even step into the place, so to speak.


We reached the place, and after slightly fumbling around,checked in to the cottage,yasoda"s husband, a bank officer, kindly arranged for us to stay.It was a neat ,compact three bed roomed affair, of duplex type...standing on a slightly elevated position,surrounded by perfectly kept lawns, and we immediately fell in love with it.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

the balasubramanyam of thiruchendur



Thiruchendur was an after thought. It was not on our agenda initially..when we drew our journey plan,we had only madurai, rameswaram , palani and kodaikanal on our lists.We only had a week, and anasuya was aggressively campaigning for three days at kodai."what are u going to do there for three days?"her father , much mystified , asked her."How long can we keep looking at trees?". you see,.. my husband believed in quantity...He was that type of tourist to whom the more number of placec you see, the better.so, when srinivas "s family also joined us, we changed our plans, much to anasuya"s disgust allotted only one day for kodai, fitted in the cape and because it was on the way, thiruchendur got into the schedule.

On our return ,sundaram drove his qualis just after three km or so from kanyakumari ,veered slightly to the right and stopped before what looked like the ramparts of a ruined fort, said it was VATTAKOTTAI FORT and told us to go in..ItWAS an old fort,....only parts of it"s basement still standing there..... lawns were neatly kept ....and a party of school children were being marched out by their teachers as we went in.when you climb the rather wide large stone steps(set at the inner most side of the fort) you reach the upper terraces from where you get a breathtaking view of the sea.To the both sides of us,seeming to extend to infinity, lay the palm lined shoreline.....It was interesting how beaches seemed to vary, though on the face of it it was all just sea and shores......the one at dhanushkodi was wiiiiild, at cape it was just touristy,....here at vattakottai, it had a luxurious look, almost like a carefully preserved private beach.We inwardly thanked sundaram for bringing us there.Otherwise we could have missed it.It was lovely ,and we wished we coud go and play with the waves.

To go to thiruchendur, we had to go back the way we came the previous day, till the town of thirunelveli,wherefrom we took a diversion to the right.We had lunch at thirunelveli at RAMPRASAD"S,.sundaram recommended it as the best for veggies, and Sure enough, we found it was.I thought i had seen many eateries,but this one took the cake as far as numbers go,..It served a record no of almost twenty items, i wondered if anybody could really do justice to such meals.


Compared to the other roads we have travelled previously,the one to thiruchendur was more eye pleasing,.greener,..It went through some fine orchards, and banana plantations that i wondered if they had better water resources there.

Thiruchendur itself, dry and dusty ,looked like a big village or a smaller town,whichever way you chose.The temple,s location was beautiful.Just on the edges of the sea,one felt the waves would come in and touch the feet of the lord, if a really gusty wind came in. It had a large, outer prakaram, and very dark interiors.There was a heavy rush of pilgrims too on that day at 4.30 or so in the afternoon. People in hundreds were waiting in the queues,while hundreds were bathing outside in the sea.


As usual we went for the special darshan,and as usual we were handed over to someone,...this time ,he was very young priest,a frail looking young man with handsome features... Only he looked as if he needed some vitamin injections..He insisted on speaking english...and hurried us through the queues,to the sanctum,and then asked us to climb a railing...yes...really....From there we caught a glimpse of the lord...for few seconds i suppose....then again to the right....another moorthi....this one was better visible,..the lord, even for those few seconds made us feel it was worth it. .....he was so resplendent....with the vibhuthirekhas,..with his lovely ornaments, and the goodhumoured smile..He is said to be in a generous mood here, still flush with his victory over the demons...and before one can say JACK ROBINSON,..the darshan was over..well ..well... The rush was so heavy...we felt we were fortunate enough for this at least.The young priest then took us outside and repeatedly enquired if we were happy.We assured him we were.

Later we went to the beach and stood there for sometime looking at the bathing pilgrims, at the evening sky, at the small boats sailing away , while the kids played with the waves.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

subrahmanya aaradhana and someold wive"s tales





"Can a medical student learn pulse reading in one day?",the great saint ramakrishna paramahamsa told someone who was asking him how to answer those seekers challenging the existence of god..."You have to find out who teaches it,do rounds of him regularly for sometime,undergo training ,and only then you can differentiate between vathanadi, pithanadi or sleshmanadi. It takes sometime before you can actually get to know him"

My experience with subahmanyeswara swami seemed to be one along somewhat similar lines too. The plain fact was i never was drawn to him the way i was attracted to other forms of divinity, and there was a very simple reason behind it.....I had a horror of snakes....In my younger years, it used to be deeper, very probably because of ignorance,though over the years i learned to overcome it.....Continuous watching of N.G.C no doubt must have helped to educate me on those poor misunderstood creatures who more often turn out to be victims than otherwise..Once i read somewhere..might be an animal lovers pamphlet....that snakes are pinned down to the boles of trees,and skinned alive ,and left just like that and they die a long lingering death. ..

Yet, i still could never bring myself to venerate them.It somehow struck me as a primitive practice.My father used to joke that all those ladies who went out pouring milk into anthills would run away if the god they worshipped chose to come out of them, and anyway snakes never drink milk....His words might have influenced my thoughts.I never celebrated NAGULA CHAVITHI or NAGAPANCHAMI,as other women..,ofcource not as a defiant posture, but mostly because i remained indifferent towards the whole thing.Quite frankly i thought the existing gallery of gods at home was quite enough...if only one could believe completely in one god...
.
Well...the connection between my fear of snakes and subramanya swami simply is....in Andhrapradesh, also in most parts of Karnataka,and many other states too, he is worshipped in this form only and no wonder i kept my distance from him.But i used to watch other people and knew subramanya aaradhana was a very emotional and almost ,you could say an extreme cult sort of worship...People went to him,appealing for health, progeny. One can routinely see roadside temples spread everywhere....some of those walls being painted with loooong tailed and fearsome multi hooded serpents....and i flinch.....

A great deal of fear is also there,among almost all sections of our society regarding NAGADOSHAM,....it really permeates it.....All sorts of problems are ascribed to it.....ill health, hysteria, nervous disorders, births of handicapped children,family curses,....I personally knew a family whose men always seem to develop complications with their legs after 60 ...They either get paralytic or accidents happen to them.....All this said to be because some of their forefathers destroyed an anthill and killed the snake therein and built a bungalow over it........

Anasuya"s friend Poornima says all the men of her family get to die at a very young age....mostly unnatural deaths.....She said once her uncle happened to be lying down on the floor of their house with one foot to the wall,when a snake crept out of a hole in the wall and bit him to death...I thought this was spine chilling..

.Yes....stories like these abound....and ofcource when things are going all right we tend to ignore them..We say ...yes....there could be real hereditary reasons that could explain these things...some trouble with genes very likely....

Experts on scripture rationalise the philosophy as how the snake represents the spinal chord, a vital organ and also the centre of nervous system,carrying signals all the way to the brain,,..no doubt ..any defect therein would inevitably be disastrous ... That is why his domain over mental illnesses ... also how it represents the sperm and the origin of life as such,hence the resulting problems are his domain too. .A fully shaven human being,when he sits with his back to us would look just like a cobra shooting it"s hood out of it" coils..
.well... A pertinent question at this juncture would be why one has to go to the lord,when the thing you should be doing is to consult a neuro physician or an endocrinologist .I know we are entering the realms of occult here where mind matters more(pun intended)and satisfactory answers are difficult to find.
.....
... The long and short of all this is to explain how my original fears being compounded by these gruesome anecdotes kept me uneasy,and did not allow me to appreciate the cult.

It went on for sometime like this and then a time has come, as the Paramhams said, for the going rounds and the trainings by the great doctor....In 1988 January Anasuya went down with a severe attack of measles and again in may with another virulent attack of chicken pox. She suffered a lot during both these, running high fevers, and developed secondary infections with chicken pox, but ofcource,as is wont with children ,bounced back to normalcy quite easily,and was her normal self again.But just prior to these two bouts,i had two curious dreams of a long, huge snake which seemed to be chasing me...No doubt , i was naturally worried, and lugging her reluctant dad(he thought i was being foolish), took her to MOPIDEVI, a popular subrahmanya kshetram near our hometown.It was the first time ever i went visiting him,and though i went there with my pleas, i was quite frightened by the sight of the huge anthill there , where people were breaking eggs, pouring milk,..the brass snake shaped spears placed all over the railings...you could say it put fear of god (literally )into me . You may bet i beat a hasty retreat once my rituals were over and also felt ashamed of my self, for with this i was neither doing justice to the lord nor could i control my prejudices.

In 1994, we went for a holiday, to my brother"s place at NAGARI, in Chittoor district, where he was working as munsiff magistrate and while we were there he suggested how we could make a short one day trip to , Kanchi, which was just two and half hour drive away, and also a quick visit to Thiruthani which was literally on the way so to speak. One need not even deviate from the road.We liked the suggession,and did the trip,drove up to the short hill to Thiruthani. It could be called my second visit to the lord...I was still feeling uneasy,but the form of a man here was a relief. I found i quite liked the divine cherub, with his luxurious mane of locks and chubby cheeks. ( though in Thiruthani he was a grown up man)..We made our obeisances, saw the rudrakshamantapam,and returned.I never felt any kind of passionate feelings of devotion or anything, and neither did he seem to favour me with an experience as such..Why should he?......To put it humorously ,you could call it a polite meeting where i gave him a coconut and he reciprocated by giving half back...

In 2003 december we went on a short christmas holiday trip to Bandar ostensibly for performing my mother- in- law"s annual ceremony and had sometime to kill....so visited the nearby places including my husband"s place UNIKILI,(sadly no body lives there now), and MOPIDEVI again, though this time i was calmer,even felt peaceful. Surprisingly someone told me it was SUBRAHMANYA SHASHTI on that day.....Finally we seemed to have broken the ice...the lord and me....I was thrilled to have been let into his court....after all, he received me on his most important day...did"nt he?....Later we went to jillellamudi too...A queer thing about the visit was we ended up seeing his temples all through ,,,,We jocularly congratulated Anasuya for this because lately she has taken up reciting SUBRHMANYASHTAKAM everyday...She said somebody told her it was beneficial. ..she became a staunch devotee now,,,,Had to go to the skandagiri temple every month.....so .. life was going on like a breeze....

Till march 2004 when Anasuya had an attack of viral encephalitis...We had a bad time coping through those three tough days...By god" grace she came out of it unscathed..,,almost like sun coming out of an eclipse.....We think that the all the three crore gods have watched over her,,protecting....No doubt subrahmanya swami was an active one among them.....and this tour was in a way ... a thanksgiving one..


we were out of the temple by 9 or 9.30 ,the darshan having taken no more than half an hour or so and from then on we seemed to have been literally on roads.first we ambled about the streets around the shrine,took the launch trip to the vivekananda rock, as even kids decided they were not feeling like having breakfast.there we went into the grand dhyanamandiram,went to the little temple and saw the footprints of devi ,where she was said to have done her penance,spent some time at the well stacked book stores,run by ramakrishna mission, perused over the literature,and in a fit of parental concern for the urgent need of spiritual instruction for the tomorrow"s citizens, bought some for the kids and some for ourselves too and felt quite virtuous over the whole thing and for having discharged our dharmic duties.

then for sometime we enjoyed viewing the vast sea around us, had a hot discussion as we tried to guess which water belonged to which sea, then finally settled the issue once for all,...the muddy waters to the left, belonged to the bay no doubt it being east,the slightly blue waters(they were blue only from a distance) to the front was the ocean,the green tinged ones on the right could only be the arabian.
then we realised we were hungry after all, headed for the jetty which harboured the launch,and with a bit of surreptious support of expert opinion from, alekhya ,skipped the thiruvalluvar statue ,went back shore, seeking urgent satisfaction of the inner man(or woman...in deference to the feminists).
at the restaurants we noted with amusement how our food preferences seemed to vary from person to person. .srinivas and prasanna always went for idlis or puris, anasuya seemed to have cultivated a taste for pongal,alekhya oscillated between dosais and puris,my husband as always was very loyal to his idlis...as appetizers ofcource.later he loved to experiment with local specialities......the two kids and me(on par with them)never ate anything but dosais,.... sada, onion or masala....we never differentiated and religiously ate them day in and day out with such unshaken commitment.


kanyakumari was a bit of a let down as far as culianary standards go, i regret to say, though we only had our breakfast there.looking back on our trip, i must say, the five star status should be accorded to the modest eating house at aruppukottai( unfortunately i could not remember it"s name)not just for the food.,while it was wholesome....the hospitality and the concern the simple lungi clad servers showed us easily made it win hands down.


later we strolled along the streets of kanyakumari, leisurely inspecting the various stalls selling oyster shells,and artefacts made out of sea-junk.ofcource the girls splurged on the trinkets, ...ear rings, hangings, beads..handbags, mirrors,gifts to carry back home.....all the while knowing perfectly well they could not be of much use afterwards .then they announced they were tired and went back to the hotel, while i and prasanna peacefully settled down to some serious shopping .i.e. that meant ofcource ...saris..we looked at some, compared the prices and found them not much different from back home,did some spirited bargaining, finally prasanna went for a handloom one, while i bought an off white kerala type sari ,as srinivas and my huband waited in the back ground with sour faces with a long suffering look about them.


back at the hotel, we did some quick reshuffling of our plans, in consultation with sundaram ofcource.he wanted to take us to suchindram,he said,with an injured look,....but we could not do both suchindram and thiruchendur if we wanted to be back at madurai by atleast 10 in the night.seemed like sundaram did not approve of our frivolous shopping expeditions.so we regretfully dropped suchindram....we were never keen on it anyway...and to thiru chendur,now , we must head for.

Monday, March 5, 2007

A glimpse of the divine spinster



When we presented ourselves at the entrance of the kanyakumari temple , at about 8 or 8 30 in the morning,there seemed to be a sizeable crowd of people jostling for darshan. As we stood there just trying to get a grasp of the place,and looking about us, someone appeared, or metamorphosed by our sideas as if he knew what we wanted...and was waiting just for us. ."You could go in the queue and it would easily take 1 hour",he explained,"or you could take special darshan tickets and you would be taken right in"he wagged his finger,...." you can take ur pick". Ofcource, we picked special darshan....with hungry kids and scanty time on our hands,we had to...We paid the due amount and got our tickets,but outside the office...there was simply nobody at the office. ...Well..well....

Then followed what i can only describe as going fast forward in a videomovie. We were hurried along stuffy stone corridors and labytinths,all anti clockwise to the normal queues , once sqeezed into a narrow tunnel like passage too i remember,ducked at one or two places and suddenly the man said "ok have your darshan".We strained our eyes ,and just few yards to the front of us, standing in a dark chamber, illuminated by a score of peacefully burning oil lamps was a beautiful face.
Infact till today i remember only the serene ,lovely face and nothing else. I mean not the whole statue. I did not notice it,nor had time enough to,the few moments one is allowed to have being not sufficient for that.Just the serene face with big lustrous eyes which seemed to smile.


It is interesting to notice how the our deities"s features seem to change with and in accordance to the locations.Most deities of south india ,are made out of black stone with large eyes and prominently south indian features whereas,up north,they are mostly made of marble, with smaller eyes and different get ups.
All this took place just in five minutes and we were shoved out unceremoniously afterwards along the same serpentine way we came in before, and got ejected into a sort of waiting hall like mantapam, where we lit some lamps(this was a peculiar custom, i observed on our trip ,having never seen it anywhere in a. p.or elsewhere)
and looked about us and saw a bit of the temple.


It did not seem to be a large one after meenakshi or rameswaram,but by itself it WAS a large temple....A bit low ceilinged perhaps.... somehow seemed more malayalee than tamil....though i can not say i am an authority on these things...Infact the whole village of kanyakumari struck me like that.....might be because of it"s proximity to kerala, i suppose.


The holy mother of jillellamudi used to sugget visiting kanyakumari, whenever someone she knew happened to go that way.When her daughter HYMA attained sidhi, and a temple was being erected for her, mother wanted the image to be fashioned along the lines of kanyakumari .There was something,pure and unsullied about the virgin . Sometimes we can observe the shades of it(ofcource,..only shades).. among our sisters and daughters, among the maidens of strongly protective families,whom we tend to shelter from the harsh realities of this world.They usually grow up to be very kind hearted, always quick to take mercy ,without differentiating on the merits of the recipient because they do not seem to think anybody is beyond redemption.Alas they do not seem to make those kind of girls any longer.


It was used to be said ,HYMA of jillellamudi, who would weep if she saw a sparrow egg broken by a fall,would often go to mother with "amma, aa annayya edustunnadu", " amma aa akkayya badha paduthundi", .Her inherent plea apparently being asking mother to intervene and do something for the needed. It seems one day mother was said to have remarked in exasperation "what is this ra?.Hyma gathers every rascal to her heart and what did she get in return? i would like to break her head and bury her". Well ...... it did happen.later...

..
What i mean to say is there is an aura, a fire, something pure and unsullied about the virgin who sat in meditation having renounced her own pleasures, ,,yet from her abstinence drew the power to grant bliss to the multitudes who thronged her presence through her .sheer grace..... Be it the kanyakumari,of cape,.. or HYMA of jillellamudi, or the Kanyaka parameswari, of penugonda.. it is said that whoever goes to them with supplications gets them fulfilled,.....She is supposed to have the power to grant wishes both spiritual and mundane,and the place of her penance is called THAPOBHOOMI . Make no mistake. when u take away the bustling tourists and mushrooming hotels,you will know at once the huge rock surrounded by mahodadhi can never be anything but thapobhoomi .That was why vivekananda meditated there and that was why many other saints did their penance there.,


She was standing there...always....all these days...... it was only our good fortune which draws us to her...yes... it needs good fortune for that indeed.

Saturday, March 3, 2007

friday ,the 19 "th may

ALAS WE DID NOT SEE THIS

Alarms , set last day"s night did duly ring,and there was a great commotion in our rooms as the elders were up,--(the kids could be shaken out of beds when the sun is sighted)-- stood in balconies,and gazed expectantly at the eastern skies.Why us?.Most people seemed to be thronging their windows, straining to have a dekko.The clocks ticked along,,the skies lightened up,people waited, the east was all red and orange hues,,,,, but of the actual sunrise....sun coming out of the womb of sea....nothing could be seen. Later we even went on to the hotel roof....the view was exiting.... but that was just about it....No sunrise either....when actually sighted he was quite high up in the sky....

Prasanna and Alekhya seemed the most crestfallen...Alekhya was Yasoda"s second daughter,,she was doing her first year at I.I.T. Gowhati and was at home to enjoy summer holidays.Anupama and Alekhya quite amicably split between themselves the task of accompanying us,.....Alekhya who had not seen Rameswaram would come on the first leg of our tour, Anupama who wanted to see kodai would be on the second leg.

To be sure Alekhya who already had been to the cape once, made a very good guide as we observed to our amusement.She neatly bypassed the thirivalluvar statue as "just the same as vivekananda rock and also very windy", then brushed aside gandhi mantapam as"not much to be seen there. just some photos when he was here". We had a suspicion that if we let her have her own way, all that she wanted to do would be lolling at the beach...Infact the entire trip seemed to be a tug between the young and the old..... the kids clamouring for beaches and sightseeing,shopping.........the elders calmly weaning them into temples...We felt like the producers of a masala film,.....trying to cater to all tastes.."something for the men, something for the women, something for the old" It was great fun to see little Jyotsna stopping in the middle of the road with an accusing look on her face..."not another temple?"..:)