Bright lights of suburbs.

The way to and back was nothing like it was even a decade back, when the only known and famous landmark near our suburbs was the Ramachandra  hospital and an engineering college near the Sri Perumbudur town .
Now factories and more factories, gated housing communities, multistoreyed flats colleges  and huge shops dot the entire route.The car factory for which land was acquired ,is in full swing. I still remember the unmistakable wonder and pride in my f-i-l's car driver's voice when he visualised gleaming cars rolling out of the factory. when we went to inspect my f-i-l's lands.That driver is no more , had he been  alive ,he couldn't have lorded over those near empty high ways any more , since they were all crawling with cars  of every make , without a break for the entire 50 kms stretch.

An hour or so into or journey back, the cab came to a standstill  ,amidst thick traffic, As i looked out i saw that the halt was on the highways abutting our ex suburban house and the time ,8.30 pm.

There was a gym with transparent glass windows, with men working out  in full glare of all the passing vehicles as well as similarly transparent restaurants where couples were dining ,there was even a Reebok shoe shop! What a change! It was like a mela!

Just a decade or a little more back i would hesitate  to walk on this very road after nightfall as it was pitch dark and totally deserted the only movement being of those monstrously speeding mofusil buses that occasionally thundered by in this lonely stretch , squashing stray dogs, snakes and two wheel riders.and unwary passerbys.

Now every inch of the road was taken by motorists returning home ,probably from those factories .Lights that  were blazing, from head lights, street lamps, and from brightly lit shops, banks, petrol bunks, restaurants ,flats , hospitals ,gyms etc.has turned this dark quiet and lonely area , literally upside down.

Quite conversely the bright lights of the city the heart of which i live now looks, no longer that bright.

The Adi Kesava temple at Sri Perumbudur....religion.

The temple is huge with the unmistakable print of Vijayanagar emperor's bounty.Neat and nicely kept and quiet.
It struck me as i stepped on to the ground with my bare feet leading to the temple  which is right opposite o the house where Sri Ramanjar was born and raised , that once upon  a time this very ground  was touched and thus sanctified by the feet of this great acharya and that i was lucky to be doing so now.

Since the temple of Vishnu predates Ramanujar ,he must ave worshipped in these very precincts and i could feel his assuring presence as meditated and ciumbulated the silent corridors .
There is a  separate sanidhi for Ramanjar .According to the priest presiding over the puja's the panchaloka idol of Ramanujar was fashioned in Ramnujars lifetime itself  ,towards the end of his long 120 years of life and was given the finishing touches by the acharya himself, before it was installed , there in. The priest continued saying whilst the SriRangam temple houses in its compound the physical body of Sri Ramanujar, interred , the temple at Sri perumbudur has his spirit or atma encased ,for all times to come.

The prasadam viz 'pulihorai 'that is tamarind rice is as tasty as the prasadam available at Vardhrajar temple at Kanchipuram.

To Sri Perumbudur...................musings.

At the very mention  of this temple town's name the event that jumps into everyone's mind is the blast that took place there years back that took in its wake the life of a  ex PM.

This happened within a few months  of our landing back at Chennai after 3 year stay on transfer at Ranchi.It was then rumoured that its  perpetrators had rented a house in the vicinity of our house in the suburbs ,which was in those days nothing but acres of fallow fields  sparsely dotted with houses . This rumour /piece of information made us the early settlers  apprehensive of every Sri lankan Tamil residing there , who were all easily distinguishable from others by their very dark skin and attires that they  wore,mainly middies and maxi's and not sarees.,for quite some time to come.

This so far unheard of, an unique method of violent killing of a leader, perceived to be invincible and immortal owing to his awe inspiring lineage and personal charm ,was the talking point of conversation in all meetings whether social or otherwise,for several years there after.

My next association  with this place came when my father-  in- law  and m-i-l who stayed in the city picked me up en route of his visit to this place where his lands purcahsed for a song  in earlier decades was being acquired by the govt to build a car factory, to get my legal views.

If the place i lived 2 decades earlier was a forlorn outpost of Chennai , Sri Prerumbudur 40 kms away was a small town amidst barren lands and rolling fields, shrubs and thorn trees.Same  was  true of the way sides ,through out.

We also visited The perumal---Vishnu temple that was dominating this small town.

The above mentioned tragedy had eclipsed the original importance of this place to Hinduism and in particular to Sri Vaishnavism.

This is the birth place of Sri Ramnuja the foremost acharya , scholar and saint who analysed existing philosophies  that were scattered in the Vedas, epics, gita, aazhwar hymns and  his own views ,perceptions and codified them into a coherent form   and presented them as Visishtadwaita philosophy ,which is thence forward was considered to be one of main schools of Hindu philosophy.He defeated advaitan's in debates , several of whom  then voluntarily embraced his espousal's.He also went on a extensive pilgrimage of all parts of Bharat and standardised the form and procedure of worship and rituals to be conducted by priests in all SriVaishnavaite temples like Tirumala, Sri Rangam and so on, which are followed to date.

He was also a bold social reformer, a rarity in the times in which he lived --12 cent AD.He embraced every devotee of Narayana from which ever caste he may belong to, into his fold with equal rights.Thus shaking the taboos attached to caste system to its very foundations.He was a brahmin hailing from a very orthodox family but separated from his wife once and for all when she refused to serve food in proper manner to his teacher ,owing to his inferior caste status.He then took up sanyas and turned away from the life of a house holder.To him a devotee of Narayana was more important and dearer than Narayana himself . It was as simple as that.

I was visiting this place and temple after nearly 20 years. An old place but nevertheless an interesting novelty  due to my new found interest in Hinduism and philosophy.

Burdensome notoriety.

Black magic

Barely a few months back i was an unknown entity,plodding through these dirty streets  where even the mangiest mongrel wouldn't grace me with a glance.

Now due to ppt's  and over exuberance of  their most reliable alliance partners and co in executing an unique and so far unheard and unseen form of interrogation [ it must be sent to Guinness book of world records]  every rowdy ,be it two bit  or ruthless dada's themselves from the nearby slum and also all those adjoining them ,know me ..Such is my notoriety now.

Thankfully the mangy mongrels still do not look my way. But they are not harmful ,are they?

Since i have been burdened with this unwanted celebrity/ notoriety  status ,ppt's have to burden themselves with my protection [ black cats] all my life.An responsibility invited upon them selves irresponsibly.                    Yet another proof of callous disregard to individual's liberties and public money.

Black cat.

As i walked into our compound after an early morning walk i saw this black cat , in house feline, looking up longingly at a squirrel that was clambering up the uneven surface of the outer wall  and doing an acrobatic act of keeping its balance whilst negotiating the second floor wall before jumping on to the safety of a neem tree that was caressing the wall with its pungent leaves.

The cat barely gave me a glance ,till the prey was out of  its sights but once it realised that it was out of its reach ,it swallowed its disappointment  and with remarkable swiftness ,darted towards me purring and brushing its lithe black and white, satin like shining body, a miniature snow leopard ,velvetish to touch, with its tail raised, the only abdominable practise ,in an otherwise dainty and clean picture it portrays
.
I some how extricated myself from its effusive show of affection and got on to the lift. It couldn't be shaken off so easily. Its hunger made it follow me and its intelligence showed the way--by the staircase. It was waiting  for me at the doorstep.

It gobbled up 3 whole biscuits in a trice whilst it would normally be satiated with just one and was looking at me for more. Its usual fawning patrons at the ground floor, absent, maybe out of town since their entrance was not adorned with the usual bright kolam.

This coupled with its inability to make a successful hunt  had made it latch on to me tenaciously, pestering for more..

After thought.

The woman as usual lay hidden behind the huge trunk of road side rain tree and i nearly tripped over her outstretched arms.

Her frame ,spare as usual but her face wasn't its usual self. It wasn't bright and her smile of recognition didn't touch her normally twinkling eyes.

On her, enquiry as to my year long absence from this daily trek on the road side ,the morning walk ,i told her about my inability to do so as my knee had given way.

I dropped her usual dole of rs 5 , a little bit more than what i usually drop in other outstretched palms , clanking bowls and tumblers and was about to lumber on when she stopped me with these words "I was also in the hospital for a month and have come only today", to beg --she didn't add .

As i stopped to enquire about her health, she shook her head mournfully and said" No, nothing is wrong with me , it was my son who was in the hospital and he died there".Her eyes clouded and there was a catch in her voice as she continued that he was only '50' and that he had two teen aged children.

Middle aged son with children of his own ! Yet a son is a son however old and well tried by life he may be.My eyes too clouded.

She continued " My daughter in law has left to her brother's house and I have to do this[ begging] to wash my stomach " and went back to her seat.

As i walked on i remembered one of our earlier brief exchanges when she had said that she took a bus from Adayar to this place and it cost her rs 5. I had thought with amusement then, that my dole met the transport expenses of her job .

As an after thought i wish i had increased the denomination of my hand out,since begging is no longer an source of extra income but has become a means of her very survival.

The art of diversion.

Now that i am becoming more and more familiar with dirty tricks ,being in the receiving end in all its intensity yet performed with such fine subtlety that it is never wholly visible and could fox even the most intelligent, aware and seasoned person. One thing that is very much apparent is that politics as practised here at present [ my eyes have been opened only recently, so this short time line] is purely an art of diversion.

In genius or should i say evil genius at full play that toys with the lives of common people ,who are used as mere pawns to be blown hither and thither in the quest to retain power and maintain the status quo at all costs.

An kidnap or two of high profile persons are engineered and then released to rattle the concerned state's .Moving large body of people from one state to another and putting the blame conveniently on the most reliable enemy to date[Pak] and thus securing two fruits with one hit [ oru kalila rendu manga---a tamil saying] that of driving the carnage , the reasons behind them and their rectifications out of public minds that are willing to be diverted and at the same time riling the most favoured enemy and deriving petty satisfaction out of it.

The frothing and fuming with great exaggeration at the insult to national emblems is only to establish the credentials of 'Patriotism' that was seen to be lacking and then feign reluctance to let go off an unknown young man whose creations were also unknown till then after the predictable hue and cry with the opposition also neatly snared in this patriotic exercise..Simply brilliant!

And the melee near the seas. A bad joke gone too far.

At Tirumalai temple.--------tour diary. 15.8.12

The delaying, obstruction and diversionary tactics that ppt's have honed to perfection came to the fore in full blast in their own turf.

The ttd machinery took inordinate time to issue a room .Whilst my donor card would ensure immediate darshan , within an hour , now it was deliberately overlooked and were made to wait for 3 hours, that to just enter the q complex with the usual attempts to arrest our attention ad to provoke us by making a group of young policemen create a melee of sort by chasing away supposedly gate crashing pilgrims[.One of them stepped on my toes with his boots and couldn't be bothered to apologise.]The extent ppt's go to show their might is simply touching.

So whilst my son and his pal retired to the room to rest that they sorely needed after the early morning climb up the hills, we whiled away the time sitting on the steps near the entry.

Would ppt's allow such a golden chance to slip to educate me on the flavours of India?Like as i was a foreigner and not born and bred here .I have visited Tirumalai at least once in every year for the past 40 years.

So whilst i educated myself on the current choice of saree's of middle class women , silk cotton in as colourful hues as lower class women choose in polyesters,ppt's tried to educate me about the lower classes , a little lower than me , by seating whole families beside me ,though several steps lay vacant, specially young men with wives and babies. Were they rubbing salt or opening a door to the future? PPT,s motives are so shady to fanthom that one is never sure as to what actually lurks in their murky depths.

After this long wait we were allowed to join the q that was uncharacteristically too long for my type of ticket . It was the special q for couples with babies less than a year , a new facility for pilgrims . My bachelor student son and his friend senses were bombareded from all sides by squeals and wails of babies and their tiny wriggling bodies that petrified them and scared them out of their wits ,used as they are to groups of men lustily cheering 'Govinda govinda 'whilst pushing and shoving every one around in the stampede of sorts that bursts at the final assault near the sanctum , and thus felt quite cheated at this tame victory.

To add to the tamasha a body builder along with a dwarf jumped the q and then jumped out again and a dark lad with sacred ash smeared all over his forehead kept shouting Govinda govinda , less with religious fervour and more with the intention to irritate.

As for me i enjoyed the rose bud like faces all around me along with their squeals and was glad that their presence ensured less rowdiness and aggression from their young fathers.

An amazon entered the line behind me effortlessly and sprayed the shampoo scent just as i entered the sanctum .Once again demonstrating the long reach of ppt's and the untiring efforts of charlies.

As usual the darshan of Srinivasar was fleeting but it was without the accompaniment of the usual violent pushing.

It was a good darshan but it wasn't touching as it usually is .ppt's tricks and antics succeeded as it was intended, to remove the punch.

The hunt is on.

It is slowly very slowly dawning upon my numb brain deadened by the debris of decades and frozen from a sudden and inexplicable turn in my otherwise serene life that was like any other woman similarly placed ,that i have become a bone of contention in a world where dog eats dogs [politics]

The most bizarre and cruel form of interrogation, the second shock life has dealt me after the first one 5 years back, that would ever rankle the conscience , if it is to be found, amongst those who choose and are chosen to lead us , for considerable time to come and would be a dark stain on one , considered widely as suave and sophisticated , elicited an confession , that is deemed as true indication of my character and the reason behind everyone's inability and comprehension to shepherd me into ,this or that group with clear ideological schism's.

The truth is that i didn't know it was a interrogation ,till my brother observed that i seemed to be driven ,and was totally in dark as to for what it was being conducted.Yet Charlie extracted what ever he was ordered to.

My sub conscious was bared for all to see and make note of.That i was and am an incorrigible rebel.So i will never fit into any strict political idealogies.

Did it end there? My nasty brush with deadly politicians?No. It continues . It is coaching time now.In a similar fashion, cloak and dagger ,nothing straight nothing above board. How i should observe purdah,even in my bedroom! [ like as if i was a bar maid before],etiquette's [ like as if i have the morals of an alley cat] ,socialise[ like as i never attended a marriage or a funeral before Higgins took over] befitting a dumb doll , also a queen of sorts!Charlie's slip shod attempts to civilise me like as if i am wild creature or one of those exotic tribals of the Andamans makes me laugh, often as well as those deliberate attempts to mould me in a particular way---as a 'secular neta' and blunt my 'supposedly' extreme right wing leanings?

The game is on. The rush of adrenalin of the 'hunt' every man revels and takes delight till the quarry is squared , caught and trapped.An instinct as old as time.

Why me ? When the scene is reef with candidates of better abilities and qualities to credit and are wholly willing to be thus snared whether to embellish the sinking ship or the rising star, more so by the former.

I suppose the hunt gets lively and wild when the prey is running for its life.

An aura of authority and the glow that excessive attention [ which is cunningly contrived to seem attentive but is actually highly intrusive, de humanising, obnoxious, unpleasant and unethical as well as illegal] bestows on one is my current signature. A carefully crafted one. That it is nothing but an unnatural and artificial retrieval of lost youth , of smooth skin and light steps ,as the remarks of my son who on seeing me after an absence of 2 months or so in harsh daylight, that my hair had all but turned white , testifies sorely and surely the immense pressure and duress of it all, on me. i am unable to relish this duplicity , an illusion and also shudder if it is to be the precursor to what might be in the cards, of those who are so assiduosly dealing it.

It just doesn't feel like me.

At Tirupati---- tour diary 14.8.12

Reached Tirumalai in the evening since the darshan of Srinivasa was set to be at the day next i decided to circumbulate the temple.

I found myself behind the vimanum where fountains spray water in delectable streams over huge granite shanku and Chakram.

As the sun set ,dark clouds hovered over us. A drop of two of rain drops fell on me as i sat meditating ,with the vimanum at , front, going through all the hymns sung by aazhwars and acharyas on Srinivasar and Tirumalai for the last 1500 years or so .

As the lights were switched on the Vimanum was bathed in a golden light that made me catch my breath and the long held belief that Nithya suris or ever free souls are said to visit this temple at night fall to worship Srinivasar came to my mind and if they were visiting this would be the right time and setting. So i felt.

Maybe one of them was some one very dear to me..

Photo.The fountains at Tirumalai with vimanum of Srinivasar at the back.

Lock up.

The supposedly seditious cartoons are a creative and not destructive expression of deep anger,resentment and frustration of any normal youth of his age against the supposedly incorrigible system.

Had a good laugh .

Would any parent be that petulant to lock up their own children for scribbling on the wall?

Landscape in the interior of Ahobilam.

Bullocks in a town on the way.

Unwelcome waste.

An early morning stroll along the coast line ,with waves lapping and cooling one's feet ,is what one dreams about.

The beach is the second longest in the world. It so stretches on and on that its tail, both ways, is lost in the horizon.The waves here are huge and ferocious and the sound of their fury is delicious.

Welcome to Marina beach. No, i just issued a wrong and very outdated [dating back to decades] invitation. I retract it.

The beach is ofcourse long.Its beauty is however out of reach of every morning walkers feet as it has been overtaken by a equally long line of early morning abulators.

The early morning sun rising from the sea and pouring millions of unscoopable twinkling stars on the restlessly pounding waves ,is a sight to behold, savour and cherish.

Perish this thought, the beach is strewn with regular outcomes of the bowel movements of lazy layabouts [ who can easily use or be made to use the toilets very much visible near the main road]that will banish any one's simple desire to dabble and paddle in the sea , once and for all.

Photo :Marina beach,

Not a joke?

Heard president Obama's speech seeking re election to the highest post on this earth and had a quite a good laugh at his alluding to dousing wild fires and handling of draughts as not a joke.
How peaceful and prosperous life must be in there when leaders are called upon only to douse wild fires and not communal conflagrations and face poverty and draughts as a rare occurence unlike the normal course of life in here!

What a piece of cake it is to be the leader of US and thus in default a leader of the world!

However i could strain out an uniformity of thought and quest between leaders of two countries which have a 50 year gap of development between them in Obama's keen interest in self sufficiency in energy and its renewablity i find a resonance half way across the world , in Modi's passion for the same which he openly displayed in his meeting with youngsters in google hang out.

A six footer with 6 packs to boot at an age an paunch invariably pops out, with a highly educated and equally matched wife, with two beautiful and loving daughters to boast of and to cap it all to be first ever 'black president' of the most powerful white nation of this world , an unthinkable proposition just decade back, refers to a tall sturdy young soldier who walked firmly on a artificial leg to meet him and further speaks of that doughty mans cheerfulness which he witnessed later as he went on a cycling trip ,as a source of inspiration for him to lay stake for a second term! This was greeted with loud applause and tears streaming down women's eyes who seemed to be in very large numbers , his doting fans, at this meeting .

In this allusion to the source of his inspiration i detect an envy ,the envy of that man's unfettered simple happiness unmindful of his handicap ,even proud of it ,of having acquired it or rather divesting a part of him in the service of his country.

To some the crown one wears is that which pricks and stings,like as if made of thorns.The president just let his inner most thought, slip through.

Make way Obama , your rival can't wait to wear it .To him it is bejeweled and well cushioned.

stirring.

When i see my red and swollen knee and try and relieve the pain,with hot fomentation i relive the thrashing and throbbing pain that assaulted me for the very first time in the first 26 years of my life and the final futility of it all, the pain f creation and the pain of destruction , the unravelable mystery of it all .
There are other pair of eyes seeing the same knee . It colour stirs them also but in a different way.

Tear drop,

A tear drop on the vast ocean is a beautiful poetic description of our neighbour, in nearby seas.

It witnessed a lot of tears for decades and as a spin off it was shed here also.

But this is all old story fraught with violence and the present gush of tears is a new one which is the result of a inhuman war ..

It 'was' and 'is' the tears of innocents caught between the devil and the deep seas .I hope the UN succeeds in wiping them away.

Identification.

Then , i had to carry a small slip ,a computer print out with my name and address in my hand bag whenever i set out of my house on my own,which is quite often ,just in case if i were to meet with an accident ,the police could identify me and inform those at home without too much hassle and delay.

Now ,i have been relieved of this onerous responsibility, thanks toKGB mentalist and co who are like a pack of wild dogs always at my heels snipping, yelping ,barking and circling .I have been thoroughly divested of this enormous burden i had to carry all alone for past several years!