Kancheepuram.

I was on my annual trip to Kancheepuram. As we came out of the strangulating traffic after an full hour and coursed out of the city limits on to the high ways in good speed a huge tri colour, the Indian flag ,jumped into view stately,solitary and fluttering silently, in a open space away from any habitation, adjacent to the highways ,leading to Sri Perembadur.
For a moment my breath was caught in my throat when I read the words that it was a memorial dedicated to out former prime minister.I re lived those awful moments of that day when we received the news of the bomb explosion that shook this very spot.

It is so poignant that many people ,who are loved and cherished do not enjoy the luxury to breathe their last peacefully amongst their kith and kin.He was born up north ,educated in top schools and colleges, surrounded by dignitaries, mingled with world leaders in glittering ceremonies, but his end came in this barren land, at the out skirts of a small town,deep down south.

Vyasa's words of consolation to Yudhishtra ,when he was inconsolably dejected at the gruesome death of Abhimanyu came to my mind,
'Death is inevitable. Either due to old age or disease or accident.No one born can escape it ,how so ever learned , good or wealthy he may be'.

A few kilometres on we passed a Vishnu temple and the house where Sri Ramanujar had lived a good 1000 years earlier . He was the greatest proponent of Sri vaishnavism ,a erudite scholar, a deep thinker and is ranked at par with Adi Shankara in dusting Hinduism of the cobwebs that had formed over it,down the centuries and in re kindling the dying embers and making it shine and spread in all its former glory.

The tall Gopurams hazily visible ,from a considerable distance , heralds the arrival of the temple town of Kancheepuram.There are more than 30 temples devoted either to Siva or Vishnu in this small town that has been bifurcated according to the two faiths.

This town with its several red tiled houses , so quaint and antique remind me of my grand father's ancestral house in Tirupathi .The narrow lanes , with people and devotees occupying every inch is surprisingly clean.

As I stepped into Varadharaja Perumal temple , in Vishnu Kanchi ,the characteristic yalli cum horse like sculptures of Krishna deva raya period greeted me.How so ever remote temples I have visited , Sri Krishna Deva Raya was there well before me 500 years back. His faith and munificence reverberates to this day in nearly all the1000's of temples that dot Tamil nadu.

To me Vardhraja Perumal koil ranks second in its sacredness, ambience, antiquity, and the constant flurry of religious activities like hommams, Veda parayanam and many other related
functions, next only to Srinivasa temple at Tirumala.

As I climbed on the steps of the outer hall, leading to the sanctum , saw beautiful ancient paintings on the side of the walls defaced , scrapped and lovers name scrawled all over them in chalk and in coal .The priest told me that some officials wanted to scrape away those paintings and re do them with oils and the ASI stepped in and stopped them in time several years back. Thank god!

But no work has been under taken to restore these unique paintings of vegetable and herbal
dyes, that are akin to those paintings restored in the circumbulatory passage of Brihadeeswara temple at Thanjavur, to their original state. They are simply vegetating away.

Vardharaja perumal 's darshan was good .There are no pushing crowds here and I could sit and meditate right in front of the deity peacefully as my forefather's would have and Desikan's sloka of 14 th century, the great scholar,poet andSri vaishnavite devotee came to my mind

Tvadeka rakshyasa
Mama tvameva karunakara
Na pravataya papani
Pravruttani nivartaya.

Oh lord Varadha,there is no one except you to protect me
kindly grant me the boon not to commit any more sins
Please also destroy all the sins
I have accumulated so far.