There is a Murugan temple in the village hospital compound. Murugan is the second son of Lord Shiva, younger brother of the Elephant God ' Ganesa. This temple's yearly festival was to be held on the 13th of May, 2006.
The village Doctor Das took charge of everything as the temple was within his area. He first arranged for the painters. The painters wanted 2000/- rupees and Das offered them 1500/-, they finally agreed on 1700/- rupees. They made a list of the paint they required.
Das sent the list to Ganesh with the hospital nurse Dhanam.
Ganesh gave the list to the paint shop in the village bazaar in Kurumbur. Ramanatha Pillai promised to send the paint to the temple in two days. Ganesh then went to Alwarthirunagari which is 10 kms away.
There he went to Bhai's shop. This shop is owned by a Muslim. He has all the requirements for a temple festival. Communal harmony at its highest. Bhai did not require any list. He knew everything that was needed. All Ganesh had to tell him was the budget. They both agreed that a thousand rupees would be enough.
Shivan in the meanwhile gathered firewood for the occasion. He also made arrangements for four banana plants that would be needed for the decorations. Two would be tied on the hospital gates and the other two at the temple entrance. He also brought husk from the rice mill for the holy fire.
Eral is another 10 kms from the village. A cloth shop here supplied all the new clothes for the Gods in the temple. New clothes were also bought for the temple priest, the visiting Brahmins who would perform the rituals, the musicians and Das the organiser.
A Pandal contractor was brought in to put up the decorations. A man who hired out speakers and mikes was brought in to play religious songs on the festival day.
On the 12th Ganesh went to the temple to meet Das. The grocery merchant had sent everything. The vegetables had arrived. Bhai had sent his things. The Pandal had been put up. The temple had been freshly painted. Everything seemed O.K.
Ramar the man who would conduct the festival arrived on time. The first thing he noticed was that there was no Ghee. Das immediately sent his son Karthick to get Ghee from the nearest shop.
The next complaint was from the helpers who were making Panchamirtham. This is a concoction of five fruits which is served as prasadam at the end of the festivities. Their complaint was that the quantity of the fruits was less. Village elders advised them that the quantity of each fruit was not important and they should just add more bananas to make up the quantity. But the helpers were not happy, they said the taste would suffer.
Next the cook Muniamma said that there was no Chillie powder for the Tomato rice. One young boy went to get that.
The holy fire was lit and amid chanting of mantras the fire was fed with everything Bhai had sent. Finally a coconut enclosed in silk cloth was put in the fire. A lot of the assembled villagers threw coins into the fire.
On top of the temple tower is a Kumbham made of five metals. Holy water was poured on this. While this was happening it rained gently. All the villagers were happy. It meant that the Gods were happy with the pooja i.e. prayer. This is called Kumbhaabhishekam.
Then the Gods were decorated and they were clothed in new attire. A special pooja was done inside the temple. The visiting Brahmins left.
The villagers sat down in the temple for a meal of Tomato rice, Payasam and Panchamirtham. Payasam is sweet and is made with rice, jaggery, some ghee, dried grapes and cashew nuts.
After this most people went home. A few stayed back to clean the temple.
Posted in Religion.
By ganesh nadar
– May 16, 2006
There had been water in the river for the last two years. Everyone was very happy with this but there was a problem. Weeds had crowded most of the river. Usually for three to four months the river used to go dry. The weeds used to dry up.
The villagers decided to do something about this. There were three bridges over the river within the village limit. So cleaning had to be done within this area. The PWD officials were told and they dutifully shut down the sluices in the Kadamba tank.
Water level dropped, but there was still two feet water. To drain that would take too long. So Tractors were driven into the riverbed. Two tractors between the three bridges. The tractors could not pass under the bridges as there were too many pillars.
For three hours the tractors kept going up and down the river. The villagers were satisfied that most of the weeds had been uprooted by the giant tractor wheels. The tractors came out.
A call to the PWD and water started flowing again. The weeds which had been freshly uprooted got stuck between the pillars under the main bridge near the village bus stop. More weeds got entangled here and blocked the water completely.
The water overflowed the banks and entered the village. The villagers got excited because this had never happened. They ran for their lives. Then they decided to sit in dharna on the road. In a little while two buses and a few small vehicles were stranded on either side of this impromptu road blockade.
Some one phoned the police station. The police arrived and decided that this was a civil problem and called the Tahsildhar. The Tahsildhar came and made them get up from the road. He then phoned the PWD who shut the sluice again. Water stopped overflowing.
The he asked a few youngsters to get into the river and pull out the weeds from under the bridge. This was a tedious task but they did it to please the Tahsildhar. Water started flowing. People went back home.
The wife was complaining that the dog was stinking. With the help of the shopkeeper I managed to catch it and tie it up with a rope. It came unwillingly with me to the river. It went to sleep on the bank. I had to pull it hard to get it into the river. I was irritated as this was not the first time that I had brought it to the river.
I gave it a good bath. At the end I decided to give it a good ducking to clean its head and ears. Suddenly the road went limp. The dog sank. Shocked I pulled it out immediately. Murugan who was bathing at that time declared 'You killed the dog'.
I ignored him and started untying the rope around the dog's neck. Praying fervently I started massaging his stomach. I pressed hard and water came out of his mouth. He gave a snort and started breathing. Murugan volunteered 'Why don't you give it artificial respiration?' I gave him a dirty look and carried on with my massage. I thanked all the Gods as he lifted his head slowly.
He licked my hand. I felt very bad. I would definitely not lick the hand that almost drowned me five minutes back.
I finished my bath and went home. The dog could not walk so he stayed behind. Murugan promised to keep an eye on him. I told the wife what happened and told her that next time she should bathe the dog under the house tap.
She told me not to worry and assured me that he would come home when he was hungry. An hour later he did come charging in straight to the kitchen.
I needed money and decided to withdraw money from my ATM. It's a ten minutes walk to the bus stop. I took a bus to the bazaar. There I boarded another bus to Thiruchendur that is 18 kms from my village.
In Thiruchendur I had to walk 20 minutes to reach the State Bank of India ATM which is near the famous Murugan temple there. I took out cash and came back home. The whole exercise took me two and a half hours.
Posted in Personal.
By ganesh nadar
– April 26, 2006
Nallan Nadar's wife had died. The villagers had gathered. They were going to the river to get water. The water could not be carried in sunlight. So four men carried an open saree above the men who carried the water.
The water bearers were not supposed to walk on the ground. Nor could they wear slippers. So they had to walk on a carpet. This carpet was also a saree which was spread on the path. Once the water bearers passed over it the saree was carried ahead and spread again in front of them. This was done by the hapless village washerman.He did this from the river to the house where the old lady had died.
Enquiries revealed that no one actually knew why they were doing this but they just did it because their forefathers did it.
The main topic of discussion was who would do what the heir was supposed to do. That is shave his head and also be the first to throw mud into the grave. Late Nallan Nadar had two wives. This was his first wife and she had no kids. That's why he married again and had four kids from his second wife. Two boys and two girls.
Murugesapandian asked 'You think the elder boy Ganapathi has to do it'. Prabhakaran replied 'Nothing like that, its up to him, he can and he can refuse.' Lenin added 'He must, this woman gave him all her jewels to sell when he wanted to start a shop'. 'Yeah' said Selvaraj 'And she went there to cook for him so that he won't have to eat at hotels'.
Ganapathi did not say anything. They brought the water home.
The lady was bathed and dressed up in new clothes. The women paid their respects. The daughters of the house cried but the second wife did not.
At the grave, the barber looked expectantly at Ganapathi. No on said a word. The moment was poignant with emotion. Ganapathi went and sat down near the Barber who shaved his head. The villager's were happy.
They believed that if no one did your last rituals then you could not go to heavan. The soul would roam around the village which was bad both for the village and the soul.
The next day morning Ganapathi along with some villagers went to the grave where they had buried the old lady the previous afternoon. They poured milk into the grave.
That night there was a special pooja in his house. Here the Mahabharata was read aloud. That part of the Mahabharata was read which deals with the journey of the Pandavas from Earth to Heavan. This is supposed to help the soul get to heavan.
On the third day there is another function. Here relatives gave Ganapathi new clothes to wear. It symbolises the end of the old and tells him to start life again.
Posted in Personal.
By ganesh nadar
– April 13, 2006
Thinking of M.G.R.
We went to Matheran for the week end. It's the tiniest hill station in the world says the board at Dasturi on the way there. Matheran is on the way to Pune three hours from Mumbai. We drove to Neral in the plains. Then we took a Maruti Omni up the mountains to Dasturi.
From Dasturi, Matheran is about 5 kms away. You can walk, take a horse or take a rickshaw. I took the rickshaw. One boy was pulling it and another was pushing.
We were on an incline and the boy was straining himself to the maximum. I got of and walked to the top. While I was walking I was thinking of M.G.R. He was the Chief Minister of my state and also a Hero of Tamil movies.
He acted in a movie called ‘Rickshawkaran’ where he too pulls a rickshaw on the roads in Chennai. He got the National award for his performance.Must have realised how painful it was. When he became the Chief Minister later one of the first things he did was ban the man pulled rickshaw. He gave all of them cycle rickshaws so that their livelihood wasn't affected but their pain was alleviated.
M.G.R is no more, but that act of his made me think of him on the hills of Matheran. I got on again when the incline was less. I couldn't walk up myself. Thought back with nostalgia when we came as hikers from Elphinstone college.
Those days we took a train to Neral and then walked up. Some on the road, some on the railway track and the adventurous on hiking tracks. We used to go to a fort in the neighbouring mountain and have our lunch there. Then we used to come down to Matheran.
On the way to Matheran we had to pass through a pass that looked like the capital letter ‘V’. That ‘V’ is still there. These days I cant even dream of climbing that. That was 27 years ago. I used to sing on the train, dance all the way up and down again. Today I cannot walk for more than 10 minutes in Matheran. I can still walk in my village which in the plains.
Anyway back to Matheran. You can hear the birds but cannot see them. You can see monkeys everywhere. They are very aggressive. They attacked a friend of mine just to get the corn she was eating. Later when I fast asleep on a hammock, I heard chatter, they were on the hammock with me.
Posted in Holiday.
By ganesh nadar
– April 3, 2006
The Big Fight
Rajarathnam is the Panchayat President. A few people were chatting in his house. Kili Nadar who is 77 years came with a complaint. Alagesan had stopped a fisherman from selling fish in the village. Rajarathnam was angry. He sent three people to bring Alagesan to him.
The Vice President Murugesapandian, Kili Nadar and I went to solve the problem. Alagesan was adamant. He told the delegation to go to hell and not interfere with him. Concerned fisherman has used bad language against him. The fisherman denied this and said that he had refused to give credit to Alagesan and thus the false allegation. He also told us the reason for denial of credit. Alagesan owed him money for fish bought in the past.
When Alagesan refused to listen to reason, I lost my temper and started screaming at him. He got angry and slapped me. My glasses cut the bridge of my nose and fell off. I was shocked. No one had ever slapped me in the village. I punched Alagesan and he fell down. He got up and we were involved in some good punching.
Both of us were now bleeding. I got in a good hook and he went for a toss. Murugesapandian who had found a stick started hitting Alagesan. Kili Nadar was kicking him. My wife, Bhavani who had come on the scene started hitting him. 'How dare you hit my husband in front of my house?' she screamed. Kanagraj's mother also entered the fray. 'Why did you come on this street?' she said as she kicked him.
Some other villagers stopped the fight. Sundar took me to the hospital for some minor dressing and then to Rajarathnam's house. The Co-operative Bank secretary Devaraj was there. The Panchayat President told me to go with the Bank secretary and stay out of sight.
Meanwhile Alagesan went to the hospital. They refused to treat him there. Doctor Das' argument was that he could not treat anyone who raised his hand against the donor of this hospital who happens to be my father.
A disgruntled Alagesan went to the police station and complained. Sub Inspector Palanisamy was very happy. He wanted to get even with me. He was upset because last week I heard that the District Superintendant of Police was coming to our station. I went there to enquire when the SP was coming. The cops there told me that they did not know. Just as I was leaving the station one of them asked me 'What do you want to tell the SP.?' I gave him a sweet smile and replied 'How can I tell you, what I want to tell the SP?'
Palanisamy felt that this was a very cheeky reply and had promised the other cops that he would teach me a lesson. He was very happy with Alagesan. He got into his jeep and went to my house with two other cops.
Anticipating this Rajarathinam had stationed Sundar outside my house. Sundar told the police that the Panchayat President wanted to see them. The cops went there. Rajarathnam told them that this was in internal matter of the village and the police need not interfere. 'What about Alagesan?' the sub inspector wanted to know. 'Send him to me' was the curt reply. 'What if he doesn't want to come?' the sub inspector persisted. 'He will come, you don't worry about that' was the nonchalant reply.
Rajarathinam sent his Vice President Murugesapandian to fetch Alagesan. He went to the police station. 'Anachi(elder brother) is calling you. Do you want to come and settle your problem in the village or do you want to settle your problem in the Police station against the wishes of Anachi'.
'If you don't want to go, don't' said the helpful Palanisamy. Alagesan realized that the rest of the villagers would gang up on him for taking village matters to the police. He came with Murugesapandian.
The fisherman was still there. The President told him that he could sell his fish. He told Alagesan ' I sent Ganesh to bring you here. By hitting him, it was equivalent to challenging my authority in the village. Who appointed you as the village watchman? You have no right to stop any fisherman or flower seller or the washer man. Now go to the hospital.'
Alagesan cribbed that the hospital Doctor refused to treat him. Rajaratnam called the Doctor and told him to treat the man. Then he called me to say that the police were no longer looking for me.
Posted in Politics.
By ganesh nadar
– March 28, 2006
Villagers love to travel
Paddy, banana, sugarcane, mangoes, drumstick grow in the village. Fishes, eggs, milk, chicken and meat are produced in the village. Fertilizers are available in the bazaar in Kurumbur. There is a school, post office, hospital and vet in the village. The bazaar also has three banks and a police station.
There is an electricity board substation and a Railway station in the village. What else do you need? So villagers generally do not travel out of the village.
The exceptions are the college students. The girls all study at the girls' college in Tiruchendur 17 kms. away. There is a college bus that picks them up and drops them at the village bridge. The boys study in other places. They go by bus or train but nobody bothers about them.
So when a villager gets a chance to travel they are very happy to break the monotony of life. We took a car to Kanyakumari which is 100 kilometers away.
On the way we saw Murugesan and Anbalagan going from house to house verifying the voters' list. They were finding out who were working in other cities. The one's that they could call back for the elections. The others who could not come, those votes they would have to find someone else to vote. This is in the Tiruchendur assembly constituency.
Nazareth is in the Sathankulam constituency. The teashop owner told us that this was a Congress bastion. In the last bye-elections here the Congress was badly mauled by the AIADMK. Selvin dismissed this with a shrug. 'That was a bye-election and the entire Government was here. You cannot do that in a general election. The same candidate Mahendran of the Congress will win easily'.
Puthur is in the Radhapuram constituency. This is in Tirunelveli district, we had left Tuticorin district behind.The present MLA here was an independent Appavu. After the Lok sabha elections he was so impressed with the DMK that he joined their party. Manikandan told us 'If the DMK contests this seat and Appavu gets the ticket then its ok, if not then Appavu will again contest as an independent. Don't know if the people will forgive him for his mid term defection?'
We stopped at Valliyoor for breakfast at Saraswati Bhavan. This hotel has been here for the past 50 years. Like the Irani joints in Mumbai it too has never been refurbished. This is on the National Highway from Tirunelveli to Kanyakumari.
There is an 'Essaki Amman' temple on the way. All vehicles stop here. They believe that the Goddess here protects you from accidents. Then we were in Kavalkinaru and Aralvaimoli. This place is famous for its windfarm. It is the largest private sector windfarm in Asia says a board.
There is a gap in the Western Ghats and so the wind is good. The wind farms look like silent sentinels in the sky. Generating electricity without sound. Personally I would prefer a noisy waterfall.
There is this huge medical college built in a circle. The main building is a circle. The circumference of the circle will be easily be a mile. The Chairman of this college is in jail. He is accused of murdering a former DMK minister.
You take a left from this college to Kanyakumari. You pass Anjugramam which literally means five villages. From here if you take a left you will reach the famous Koodangulam Nuclear power project.
We reached Kanyakumari. The studio owner told us that all the political heavy weights in this place were camping in Chennai for a party ticket.
The sea was unusually calm and low. A flower seller told us that it was like this only, just before the Tsunami struck. We turned back.
Posted in Politics.
By ganesh nadar
– March 24, 2006
The village looks cheerful thanks to the harvest. Initially there were hiccups as the rain played spoil sport. When the paddy grain is ready for harvest, it is so heavy that the grains lie down in the field. The stem is not strong enough to hold it erect. In such a situation it rained heavily a fortnight ago.
The rain was the heaviest this district saw in 25 years. Luckily the next day it did not rain. If it had rained for three days the farmers would have sunk. What happens is that the ripe grain if immersed in water for three days begins to sprout and grow.
Thus the entire harvest is spoilt. This has happened in the past where 120 days of growing the grains can be washed away in three days. This time the harvest went smoothly and the grain is now at home.
Some farmers sold the paddy in the field itself while the richer ones brought it home. Today is Sunday, the village young boys and young men started the day by playing football in the red sand desert outside the village.
Earlier they used to play football in the school ground but now that the exams are on this was not allowed. They came home at 9 am exhausted. The power went.
Irritated I called the wireman. He told me that the village hospital was getting a new connection so power would be restored in half an hour. Enquiries with the villge Doctor who is actually a lab tecnhician with a RMP certificate revealed a new power bill saving plan.
The village hospital also houses the girl students hostel. The electricity board was charging a high rate and treating this is as a commercial establishment. Now the Doctor stays in a house on the first floor of the hospital. The new power connection was for his house. The rate for home current is very cheap, less than a rupee a unit.
Now this house would supply power to the hospital and hostel at this subsidized rate. The village would save money.
In the evening I decided to go to the river for a swim. I was floating lazily in the water when I noticed that I had company. There was this snake swimming effortlessly against the current. Without disturbing the water, that would alarm him, I tread gently and fled for my life.
Some villagers were cutting a mango tree next to the river. When they saw me leaving the water in a hurry, they went in looking for the snake. They made a lot of noise which scared the snake away. They told me that it was now safe to get back into the water. I declined politely.
At 7 pm the hostel 12th standard girls were led by the warden George Hastings to the school. They were going for special classes for Maths. The classes would end at 9 pm when the girls would be escorted back to the hostel.
The girls were happy because tomorrow was the last exams. They would go back home. Some of these girls have spent 14 years in this school. Tomorrow was their last day. But they did not look sad, They were happy to look forward to College which would not be as strict as the village school.
Posted in Personal.
By ganesh nadar
– March 19, 2006
Saying it with posters
In Southern Tamil Nadu political activity hasn't hotted up yet. The seat sharing hasn't finished. Seats haven't been identified so the cadre do not know whether they should waste their time and money on any vote catching endeavor.
The AIADMK was holding sports meets for children all over the place with good prizes. Now that the exams are on they have stopped that. Now they are holding live band shows on week ends in the name of celebrating Amma's birthday which fell on Feb 24th.
The opposition DMK, the communists are very quiet. The only person on the streets is the film star Vijaykanth. He launched the DDMK last year and is touring the state. It stands for Desiya Dravida Munetra Kalagam.
Vijaykanth is attracting huge crowds wherever he goes. But then all film stars attract attention in Tamil Nadu. Lets not forget that it is the only state where Khushboo had a temple dedicated to her.
After the Congress lost the elections here in 1967 all the Chief Minster have been from the film world. We have had heroes like MGR, heroines like Jayalalitha, actresses like Janaki and script writers like C.N.Annadurai and M.Karunanidhi.
So in the absence of any other work what the cadre is doing is booking all the available walls and also putting up massive posters and banners. The ruling party has the maximum number of banners and posters.
They show Amma prominently and on a smaller scale local big wigs. Again the most posters in Tuticorin district have been put up by the housing minister Anita Radhakrishnan. In Tirunelveli the same has been done by minister Nainar Nagendran.
MGR has been resurrected again as is the norm in every election. In one banner we can see a young MGR and a young Jayalalitha hoisting the party flag. In another you can see Amma kissing a baby. A third shows Amma hugging an old woman. You can see Jayalalitha from the age of 28 to 58 in the posters.
The DMK has Periyar, Annadurai and Karunanidhi on its posters. Very few have Stalin on them. The DMK Rajya Sabha MP and film star Sharad Kumar is the most visible poster of the opposition. The reason being that he is coming here for a public meeting on the 15th. The other reason is that they had to counter the Vijaykanth posters all over the place.
If you fight fire with fire you have to fight one film star only with another.
The Communists writings on the wall have only one message. Sitaram Yechury is coming here for a public meeting next week.
The Hindutva brigade is holding a meeting to save Hinduism.
Many little known caste groups are also holding meetings to make their presence felt. They have added to the colorful posters.
The minority community on its side has put up its banner. All in black. So we have a profusion of black, red colors on the roads. The PMK uses other colors but it has no presence in the South.
Posted in Politics.
By ganesh nadar
– March 11, 2006
They call him Puratchi Kalaignayan which means Revolutionary artist. He has been acting in Tamil Movies for almost 3 decades as a Hero. Last year he jumped into politics and started his own party. DMDK is its name. That stands for Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kalagam.
Yesterday he came to our village bazaar. Our village bazaar is 3 kms from Panickanadarkudieruppu.
Some people still walk to get there like Athiveerapandi. Some cycle like Mandhiram. Others like Prabhakaran go on their bikes. The rest take the bus. If you take a mini bus or a local bus you pay 2.50 to get there. The route buses charge 3.50.
The bazaar is called Kurumbur. It has about a 150 shops. Its a busy bazaar as it caters to almost 18 villages around it. Today it was all spruced up. There were flags everywhere.
Like all the other Dravidian parties this flag was also prominently black and red. But it had its own emblem which resembled the Olympic fame.
They were laying the road as the elections are approaching. There was gravel on either side making the road narrower than usual. There were posters everywhere. The posters showed a big image of Vijaykanth and a smaller image of the person who had put up the poster.
Then he arrived. A huge crowd gathered. Prabhakaran remarked ‘ It looks like Amma is here. Only she could attract such a large crowd’. Another Amma supporter added ‘ You cant compare this man to Amma’. A third remarked ‘ Amma translates to votes, this man’s party will loose its deposit in all places, these people are here because he is a film star’.
Vijaykanth spoke for almost half an hour. He attacked the DMK saying that they were a rich party. They had TV channels, FM radio, newspapers and magazines to propagate their views. He was a poor man and had only the people’s support.
One wit remarked ‘After this election you will be poor’.
Another boy screamed that he wanted to speak to Anna i.e. elder brother. People told him to keep quiet as Anna was giving a speech and he should wait for him to finish. The boy was not willing to wait.
He kept on screaming. A police head constable warned him to shut up. He did not. An exasperated Sub Inspector then beat him up.
Vijaykanth carried on with his speech. He did not notice this altercation. He did not mention Amma in his speech. By the way in Tamil Nadu when we say Amma we mean our Chief Minister Jayalalitha.
He went on his way. The villgers were very happy. ‘He looks exactly like the way he looks in movies’ was their general opinion. The other opinion was that they had just come to see him. They would not vote for him.
Posted in Politics.
By ganesh nadar
– March 8, 2006
Posted in Love.
By ganesh nadar
– March 7, 2006
