திருவண்ணாமலை

Made my first visit to திருவண்ணாமலை yesterday with my mother. The trip was not a pre-planned one, had thoughts of going with my mother to the temple for some time now , so just executed it. It is about 200kms from my place, started a little late around 11:00 in the morning. With so much traffic and with small bad patchy roads from Tindivanam to Thiruvannamalai (around 70kms) reached the temple by 2:30.

The place is a complete package. It has a Primary god (அருணாச்சலேஸ்வரர் , a form of lord shiva) , surrounded by a lot of semi-gods i.e. you have different forms of shiva linga in the road surrounding the temple along with other small gods, all varieties of god-men to satisfy the varying needs of people of different strata (like rich , poor, learned , wise , uneducated, needy) , a few god-women and a lot of devotees. The temple is the town’s backbone, every job opportunity is very much dependent on the temple and its visitors.

My mother has visited the temple umpteen times and loves to walk around the temple (கிரிவலம் ). As I was with her, we decided to do the கிரிவலம் in an auto. It took around 2hours and 15minutes to visit two ashrams, nine Shiva lingams, an old temple and a Vishnu temple in the whole கிரிவலம் process. Since am the newbie , my mother was guiding me with a lot of explanations about the lingams and ahsrams(thou, she repeats a lot of known stuff , I like to hear it from her) . Saw a lot of foreigners in the ashrams and it seemed to me that they were staying there; they were also of varying age groups. My mother pointed out an ashram and said, it used to be very expensive to stay here, only foreigners used to stay, and nowadays I see a lot of our people also staying in these places. Hearing this, the auto-man said “Previously the accommodation was provided only for people who gave donations and they were mostly foreigners but nowadays there is a lot of donation from our people too”.

There were a lot more temples in the கிரிவலம் which we did not visit, the reason according to my mother and auto-man was “These are new temples only built a few years before and not traditional ones”. May be those temples will join the traditional category in my old age. Another interesting thing is we also visited the old Shiva temple of Thiruvannamalai , my mother informed me that “this is the original temple , but now that temple has the main shrine”. I dislike travelling to crowded place, so liked the old one much more, yes, it had less crowd. Should study the actual history of these temples and also am not sure how my mother came to a conclusion that this is the old temple. The கிரிவலம் was a mix of both congested and pleasant roads; the pleasant ones gave a lot of peace.

The layout of main temple was wide with huge towers (கோபுரம்) and with less crowd/business establishments would have loved that place. It was already dark so did not get to observe the arts of the temple, had a good Darshan(தரிசனம் ) of every god in the temple. Did not get to make a Darshan of main lord Shiva, as there was so much crowd. Both the free/paid Darshan had a lot of people waiting, so my mother insisted on using her special powers to take me in a special route for the Darshan, I somehow denied it. I strongly dislike all this paid / special-permission entries, money/power playing a role to make a Darshan makes me laugh, however a lot of people (including my mother) use all this to make a தரிசனம்.

It was completely dark when we started the drive back to Chennai. With small roads and lot of opposite traffic with powerful head lights on high beam, had to slow down on a lot of occasions. Tried my best to put my head lights on low beam on most occasions to help the opposite person, a dozen cars, a few buses and a lorry responded positively. Had to wait in front of a railway gate in Tindivanam due to traffic for about an hour, finally took an alternate route. Reached NH45 around 11:00 pm, driving at night has its own advantages, like FB you get the information of people following you at your place (i.e. headlight reflection in mirrors). During day time you will have to check (using mirrors) if someone is following you. The drive till my house was amazing, own a fiat and throw her at all corners and for all zigzag movements, she does respond with pleasure (Fiat, please bring in your own service centers and showrooms).

Overall it was a good satisfying trip with a few new learning.

Azhagar Samiyin Kudhirai

Drove to Mayajaal yesterday evening to watch the movie Azhagar Samiyin Kudhirai(அழகர்சாமியின் குதிரை). Was expecting a watchable movie , but the movie was too good. Making a movie out of a Short Story is a challenge , but when done well , it really proves the skill of the Director and the screen play writer. Short Stories always depict the true nature of life and to depict it on screen without much boredom is a great skill. Thanks to the director and the producer(think it was Gautham) who had the guts to invest.

Telling out the story or the plot always spoils the movie watching experience. There is one line which i could not stop Staying "Illayaraja , the master of BGM". There are few poetic/smart moments in the film , which conveys a lot :

• A Small boy takes the free meals served to him (during afternoon) in school to share it with his younger brother. ( A guy sitting near me commented : Still the served food appears similar , have not changed much from his days).
  
• When an atheist stops from entering a temple , his lover doubts his motive for other inequality reasons.
  
• An atheist accepts the Vibuthi for the sake of his love.
• How deeply people tie up every good stuff happening to them to God ( there is not much self confidence or any one else to fall back).
• How easy and tough is job of a Kodangi ( Mantrik ).
  
• How big a Mantrik/personlaity you are outside the house , you are still a silly husband to your wife.
  

Am certain that i could have missed a few. There is a lot more stuffs which depicts the innocence , economy , job opportunity , dependence of those people. The movie has a very few ill logical scenes which we shall ignore.

Not sure if our political/social circumstance will allow us to make a similar film(with the ideologies and philosophies of people about GOD) based on City life with names like "Ramanin Vil" (ராமனின் வில்) / "Vinayagarin Eli" (விநாயகரின் எலி).

Ok , here goes the last punch , i do not see a lot of difference between the ones who believe the words of a Kodangi and the ones who believe the words of news media people.

cheers,
jkyaar

Inferior : Who to Who

It was election time last week here in Tamilnadu . My office colleague traveled to her home land to cast her vote. It was a small village where a majority of people were from the same Caste (will call this Caste A) . Two incidents which happened during election clearly illustrates our social system and its complexities.

1. TN has been ruled by two big dravidian parties for the past 40+ years mostly in alternate tenure. This time a new party contested in a lot of places , vouching it to be the alternate for the major dravidian parties. The person who contested on behalf of the new party in my friend's home town was a member of Caste A. So , the first thing he did after making his decision to contest , is to meet the leaders of the Caste Group and get their support. And Yes , as in every part of TN , he (being one among them , i.e நம்ம ஆள் ) was promised for full support. Because of this , there was festival mood through out the village , and everyone were pushed to vote for their man with the following advice : "Press the fourth button from top" (நாலாவது பட்டன அழுத்து).
   
2. With all this advice , my friend went to the polling booth to cast the vote. There were two queues , my friend was surprised to see one queue being a lot longer than the other one , So , being intelligent (!), took her place in the smaller queue. Only after standing in the queue , she realized that a lot of people she knew were standing in the other queue and were calling(basically shouting at) her. My friend moved to the other queue and came to know the reason for two queues : "The other queue was for people from Lower Caste".

Caste Systems are deeply rooted in our country and form a very important factor in a lot of stuffs( believe , impact is slightly less in Cities) either directly or indirectly. I do not know how to solve these problems , may be as an individual we could remember the following quotes :

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." (Albert Einstein)

"If you think some one is inferior to you , remember , there is already some one else thinking in the same way about you and by your thought you are accepting it."

Cheers,
jkyaar