A auspious day it was on Sunday, being Vinayagar Chathurthi. I was about to go out in the evening when I received few calls. What started out as a good day ended on a sad note. One of my university mates had passed away. Vijendran Subramaniam, from Hutan Melintang, Perak was a good guy. Calm, quiet, studious and a pillar for his family. His demise will be sorely missed by all those who knew him.
Then was upset as well, since he was the first visitor to our house after the wedding, and still remember how thoughtful of him to bring “buah tangan” when he dropped by.
I knew him from university days as we were in the same faculty. In fact, on the very first day at the university, he sat next to me as we waited for the speech before heading towards the hostel.
We had plenty of good time together while studying and still kept in touch after graduation. Camping, outings, seminars, school projects, and many other events saw his participation. Went to India together too.
He used to call me during Deepavali, one of the very few who took the effort to make a call.
Sometimes we wonder why these things happen. God has his plans, and its part of His plans for Vijendran to leave us so soon. Let us offer some words of prayer and thoughts for his soul, may it continue on its journey to a better place.
God bless you, Vijendran (27 January 1976 – 22 August 2009).
Woke up a bit early since we wanted to walk around the town. We took a walk along the beach and saw quite a number of people walk/exercising along the beach side at around 7.45am or so. The waves were not high but can still feel the strong current. Saw Gandhi’s statue and War Memorial along the less than 1 km beach. We also saw some important buildings facing the sea – Ambedkar Hall, Church, government offices etc. Some of them are of French architecture.
We walked past Sri Aurobindo ashramam again to take some pics because was rushing yesterday. Took breakfast at Adyar Anantha Bhavan restaurant (same place we had tea yesterday).
Next, we went searching for the Auroville Information Center and managed to find it after using the map. The center houses a handicraft shop and also workplace. Collected some info on visiting Auroville city. We left for Auroville which is about 13km away. Reached Auroville at 10.20am (about 30 minutes due to traffic and road conditions).
A bit on Auroville. It was established in 1968 as a city of peace. There are residents of various nationalities living there, each contributing to the maintenance and well-being of the city. There’s strict rules on use of polluting vehicles and also other worldly vices. The highlight of the city is the Matri Mandir, a huge globe covered with small gold discs. There’s also a very old banyan tree and a white urn which contains soil (earth) from many countries which was placed during the launching of the city in 1968.
From the visitor center, we walked about 1km or so to the viewing point. Yeah, to visit the interior of Matri Mandir, have to make prior reservations (at least a day earlier). You will be allowed to enter and meditate in the Mandir. For longer stays, have to contact and make reservations.
We took some photos of the Matri Mandir from the viewing point, and talked to the security guard manning the viewing point (a mound of earth actually). We walked back to the visitor center (which is near to the restaurant, souvenir shops, and office management). Along the way, stopped at the to take photo of Sri Aurobindo’s statue. Proceeded to the souvenir shop – La Boutique d’ Auroville. Then did some shopping. Left Auroville at 12pm (hmm..more time shopping than viewing the Mandir!!!).
Chidambaram is famous for the Akasha stalam (yet another of the Pancha Bootha stalam) Tillai Nadaraja Temple. Here, Lord Shiva is represented as the space element. He is known as Lord Nadaraja since he performed the cosmic dance at the citsabha here (There’s 5 dance halls for Lord Shiva, Chidambaram is the golden hall). We hired a guide to show us around the temple (and its a huge temple compound!). There’s many, many statues and carvings dating back to 2nd century or older. As with other great temples in India, the building and expansion of the temple was done gradually over hundreds of years. The actual age of the inner temple is subject to debate, I guess.
Anyway, we arrived at 4pm, walked around, took photos and then entered the inner compound around 5.30pm. We were forewarned that the priests in this temple (this temple is privately run by the priests) will ask for lots of money for various reasons). I was looking forward to see the Chidambaram Ragasiyam (refer here , here, and here), and waited patiently for the 6pm pooja. Managed to see the black curtain, but no sight of the golden vilvam leaves. As “warned” earlier, towards the right side of the moolastanam there will one or two priests handing out vibuthi. If they sense you are not local, they will ask where you are from and proceed to promote some prayer or another). The guy in front of me was from out of town and they asked Rs300 for some special prayer. I decided to skip the vibuthi part. Also, the priest (or staff) seem not to be showing respect to the visitors or devotees, simply saying “poh, poh”, or pushing people away. When we went to climb up (at the side entrance), the guy there said only certain people can go, and that its closed already. To make the long story short, I was really angry with the situation at this temple. Maybe not meant to be my turn yet to visit Lord Nadaraja.
I made my way out, blood boiling. Came all the way from Malaysia and some jokers make the life miserable. I really cursed those fellas!
Left Chidambaram at 6.50pm for next stop – the popular Vaitheswaran temple in Vaitheswaran. Reached the temple around 8pm. Went for a quick tour and prayer in the temple. I can imagine Sarath Kumar making an entry in this temple as per the movie “Vaitheeswaran”. Why this temple is famous? Well, for two things: the “olai chuvadi” (leaves that contain details about an individual, writtten thousands of years ago), and the medicinal healing properties of the temple prasatham. Its also one of the nine temples that represent the Navagraha (this one represents Mars).
There’s a few shops outside the temple that are “agents” (I think) for the olai chuvadi business. We went to one of the stall. From what I know, not everyone’s record is available (well, with 6 billion over people, it will take a lot of storage!), so depends on your luck. There are very few places that store these leaves, so you may have try in the other venues as well. After searching twice, the guy managed to find the leaves that contain, ahem, my records. Basically, the use your thumb print to identify the suitable set of leaves, and by process of questions, eliminate the leaves in the set to find your records. They also provide a cassette recording of the session so that you can go back and listen to it. There’s also a standard pooja (for a fee of course) which will be done by their guru for your well-being, and the prasatham posted to your home (Got mine two days after returning home). For me, being the skeptical person, I have my doubts on the validity of the “agents” and the readings. The olai may exist, but surely only for small number of people. I can’t imagine someone writing down the records for millions of peoples who will be living centuries later. Oh ya, my “readings” were all normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Cost for full package (meaning it covers all topics – health, career, family, marriage, wealth, blah blah blah) is about Rs3000.
Tired from the travels, we hit the sack around 10pm. Stayed at Balaji Lodge for the night.
As usual I was listening to the radio in the morning. Was alternating between THR and Minnal. Around 7.45am or so, I heard the female DJ in Minnal (Buvana?) mentioning that SK Devamany urges the community to take up courses related to agriculture. She gave the website as agrolink.moa.com . I had my doubts, so I check the URL and its non-existent. So, I put a message on their Facebook presence “Kaalai Kathir” at about 8.45am or so. Another guy named Sashi also posted after me, regarding wrong URL for something called e-press. Anyway, a short while later, I found that both Sashi’s and my comments have disappeared.
the comment which was deleted went something like this (I couldn’t screen capture it because I never expected this, so this is from memory):
I heard you mentioning that SK Devamany was asking the public to take up courses related to agriculture, and you gave the website address as agrolink.moa.com , but the Ministry of Agriculture’s website is www.moa.gov.my because all government websites end with .gov.my . I hope you will correct this because already few times the websites mentioned by Minnal have errors. In this case, the public may think Devamany is IT-illiterate or the deejays not well prepared.
So, i posted any comment, to ask why my earlier comment was deleted:
I waited till today (24 hours), but no reply from them. Instead, my comment above was also deleted!:
Now, I would have accepted if they replied saying that the comment was not related to the initial wall posting (or even any other reason), but not even that. (If you read their wall posting, it says “…any comm..pls drop by…”, what irony!)
I find it disturbing that these very young people can act in such manner, without respect to their viewers. When listener give comment or point out their mistakes, they delete the comments. I wonder what they will grow up into in another 5-6 years down the lane. Are these the people who are going to lead the organisation later?
Anyway, I’m going to send this posting to SK Devamany, PCB’s Murugiah, all the Minnal staff, their bosses at RTM and Information Ministry, and also the yahoo groups by end of the day if no response in Facebook from the persons involved. I would love to know if the Ministry has any policy on their agencies/departments running a Facebook site, and if the department itself has any guidelines on this matter.
Note: Being frequent Minnal FM listener, I can say that they do make mistakes when mentioning URLs of websites. Perhaps they should go for basic Internet courses – can liaise with those guys that give IT talks on Wed afternoons.
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We checked out of our hotel, Arunachala Ramana Home around 7.30am. Went straight to the Arunachaleswarar (or Annamalaiyan) Temple. This Sivan temple is yet another Pancha Bootha stalam, where Lord Siva is represented as the fire element (earlier in Kanchipuram, he is represented as Earth element). We spent nearly 2 hours at the temple since its quite a big one (24 ha). The hill behind the temple is the Tiruvannamalai hill where Lord Siva appeared as a stripe of fire. Every full moon, the wick at the top of the hill is lighted and devotees walk around the hill (14km) – this is known as Girivalam. The most famous occasion is during the Tamil month of Karthigai (Nov-Dec) where the Karthigai Deepam function is held. It seems many famous actors and actresses also take part, including Superstar Rajinikanth. Read more about this stupendous place over here, and here. The city is also known for two famous gurus – Ramana Maharishi and Seshadri Swamigal. Ramana Ashramam is also located near the hill. The outstanding feature of the temple is the large gopurams.
We then took leave from Tiruvannamalai and headed towards next destination – Melmaruvathur which is about 100km away. We took the route that passes through a placed known as Gingee. Gingee is known for its fort which was building along the hills. We stopped for a while to take some pictures but did not climb up the hils as time was running short. We took early lunch at Vasantham Restaurant at Gingee town.
Even though we rushed, we arrived late at Melmaruvathur, partly due to our driver who is not so familiar with the road (and this will be a repeating theme throughout the trip). A bit about the temple here – its run by the Sakthi Peedam. The head of the Peedam is Sri Bangaru Adigalar whom Amman transmigrates into, and provides Arulvakku (God’s word). The Athiparasakthi temple was closed for poojas when we arrived, but visitors can still enter and pray.We entered the queue, saw photos along the walls and did our prayers. It was terribly hot, and walking barefoot outside the temple was not easy. We left around 2pm to our next destination – the picturesque and lovely Pondicherry.
A bit about Pondicherry (or Puducherry as it is known now) – The small strip of land on the eastern coast of Tamil Nadu was a French occupied territory until (there are four such regions in total), thus there’s an unique blend of French and Tamil culture here. The strip of land is vertical (north-south orientation), but the French influence is more towards the coastal side, while inner Pondicherry is Indianised. Pondicherry is not a state in India, but an union territory. To enter Pondicherry, non-Pondicherry registered vehicles have to pay a fee of Rs400 (and its the same for all interstate travels). Pondi has a laidback feeling, a good sea view, and an urban look comparable with other cities in Tamil Nadu. And its a lot more cleaner too! No sights of men urinating anywhere.
We reached Pondicherry around 3.45pm. We parked near the main temple in Pondicherry – Manakula Vinayagar Temple. We waited until the temple opened at 4pm. Did our prayers and then went to Sri Aurobindo’s ashramam which is located just about 40 metres from the temple. Its a quiet place. The samadhi of Sri Aurobindo (Aravind) and Holy Mother is situated here. We prayed for a while, but did not take any photos . We then returned to the Vinayagar temple. Took some blessing from the elephant.
Took a break and had coffee at Adyar Anantha Bhavan restaurant which is nearby the temple. The tea and coffee was superb. We took some time to search for hotel and in the end decided on Hotel Ajantha, which was close to the beach. It was a bit expensive but since we could literally hear the waves beating down on the rocks, couldn’t resist it.
Disaster struck at this point. While unpacking I realised that I forgot to bring the USB cable that connects the camera to the laptop! So, had to change plans a bit. We hit the streets to find a computer/electronic shops and boy, it wasn’t easy! We walked all around the main shopping area (Nehru Street) and finally managed to buy a 3 feet long cable for Rs25 (about Rm1.90 only!). In a way it was a good exercise as we got to see the evening life around the shopping area. The crowd was big and traffic was slow moving around the main roads. Came back to room tired and retired for the day.
First trip was to Aalamara Iyarkai Vinayagar Temple, located in Triplicane, Chennai. Kumaravel mentioned that tours starts off with a prayer at temples such as this. Its a very small temple, more like a shrine. This temple has a Vinayagar shaped tree trunk/stone. It was established in 1968. Currently, the new state government complex is being built next to the temple. In front of the temple, there’s a building in which the late MGR’s body was kept shortly after he passed away (so said the driver). The road to the temple is quite small and narrow.
We started the journey towards our first destination, Kanchipuram, leaving Chennai at about 8.45am. Along the way, we got to see Chennai on a Sunday morning. This part of Chennai was quite a dirty place. Dusty due to the soil/land and construction work. There were road and building constructions in many places. Road detours, and really outrageous way of during. I think I won’t even last for 10 minutes on the roads in Tamil Nadu! The scenes started to change gradually, from concrete to more greenery and open areas as we travelled further from the city. We took breakfast at a Highway Motel. I ate 3 chapatis while Then took thosai and idli. Passed Sriperumbudur Toll Plaza, paying Rs30. Arrived in Kanchipuram at nearly 11am. We had a local guide, Iyengar guy named Ragu who serves in the Varada Raja Perumal Temple. He took us to Ekambeswarar Temple (one of the pancha bootha Sivan temple). There’s a mango tree in the temple compound which is an offshoot of a 3500 years old mango tree which was destroyed 8 years ago. The temple charged Rs50 for bringing camera, but we can’t take photos in the inner compound.
My first grouse started here – many places disallow cameras, and some even disallow mobile phones (which meant it was a problem finding our driver again at times). My second grouse is the priests who asks for money for various reasons, but then saying they are “not compelling”. I realised later that this is common in many temples around Tamil Nadu. I find it irritating and disrupting our concentration. But what to do. If I knew all the mantras, I’ll just take over and conduct prayers myself! 🙂
Anyway, a bit on the pancha bootha thing – Sri Ekambeswarar is a lingam made out of earth (one of the five – pancha – elements). Thus there’s no abishegam done on the main deity. Instead, abishegam is done on another lingam which has 1008 tiny lingams carved on it. The temple compound has many, many lingams all around.
Next stop – Kanchi Kamachi Amman temple. We rushed to the temple because it was nearly 12.30pm, time for temples to close (Temples in Southern India usually close between 1 and 4pm, so do plan properly). Managed to reach in time, and due to our guide’s connection, we managed to get in front of the queue. I then realised that this is also normal in many temples there. You either pay special fees to get in front faster or you have contact with the temple staff/management. Just had a glimpse of Kamachi Amman, and the golden gopuram before being ushered out. There were so many people waiting. It was a tiring start to our journey, and still got 25 more days to go!
Since it was already 1pm, all the temples will be closed, so we took a trip to a silk saree weaving place. Kanchipuram is famous for two things – temple and sarees. We saw how the sarees are made. It takes up to 20 days to make a set of three sarees using the traditional hand-powered tools. Then then took some time to purchase a saree. We were famished, and headed for lunch at Saravana Bhavan. The chapati there was thin and not so filling. After that, we headed to Varada Raja Perumal Temple, the place where our guide works. According to him, the main deity took form about 3000 years ago, and the temple was built 2000 years ago. As like other old temples, this temple was expanded by different rulers in different eras. The deity in this temple is submerged in the water tank (teppakulam). The Perumal is 32ft tall while the pool is 46ft deep. Every 40 years, the water in the pool is drained and the prayers are conducted. Next session is expected to be on 2nd July 2019. A replica of the deity is kept in the main sanctum, measuring 11ft tall. The reason the deity is submerged is because it was partially damaged long time ago. In order to preserve its power, a deity must be kept in water or rice. Another unique thing about this temple is that the sanctum is accessed by climbing stairs, meaning its on higher ground. There’s also a pair of lizards that visitors can touch in order to get blessings and good fortune. One is made of gold and the other silver. The pair are embedded on a ceiling. We took leave from Kanchipuram and Ragu around 4.30pm, and made our way to Vellore.
Along the way to the famous Golden Temple in Vellore, we spotted a temple on a hill, near a town called Ratnagiri. Made an unscheduled stop here. The temple is Ratnagiri Hill Murugan temple, build in the 1960s. Its on a hill with about 60 stairs to climb. The view from top allows us to view the town. Left around one hour later.
Reach the newly built Narayani Golden Temple in Sripuram, Vellore around 7pm. It was getting dark already. In India, daylight starts early around 6am and nightfall is around 7pm. The Narayani temple was packed due to being a Sunday. We had to leave our handphones and camera with the driver. If you do bring it in, you’ll be asked to deposit it with the temple counter and given a token nmber to collect your things later. There are 3 or 4 checkpoints, so you can forget about bringing in cameras or handphone. They even took my spare camera battery which I was carrying in pocket without realising it. Trying arguing with the temple people but to no avail.
Anyway, we took normal entry and walked the entire star shaped pathway around the main sanctum for about 25 minutes. The place was well lighted at night and feels just like a garden. The crowd was concentrated at the main sanctum. We couldn’t really see much due to the crowd. Anyway, this temple is famous for….its GOLD sanctum. Yes, PURE GOLD! I think 1500 kilo of gold was used. No photos from me, but have a look at the image search results from Google. Its definitely something worth visiting. The official website of the temple is here, while some other sites on this temple are here,here, and here. While the Peedam who owns the temples justify the use of such large amount of gold and its expense, I personally feel the money could have been put to better use. The Peedam runs some charity and social projects, so expect counters all over the compound promoting their products and services.
Left Vellore around 9.00pm, after calling our driver from a phone booth (STD as its known there). Remember, no handphone, so make sure you keep some coins. Our halt for the night was Tiruvannamalai, about 70km away. Night driving in India is not advisable unless you have a good driver and high tolerance against dangerous moments. The roads are narrow, sharp bends, obstacles like cows may appear suddenly, and the overtaking by oncoming vehicles may make your stomach churn.
Reached Tiruvannamalai around 11.10pm and went straight to the hotel for a much needed sleep. Day 3 next.
Oh yeah, another thing which we noticed while on the road was that the rivers were dried up in many places. Driver told us that Kavery river is dry due to heat and the closing of dam by Karnataka state government. Things will be better once the rain comes.
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