kattumannar koil-- tour diary --29.10.13

The next place of visit the next day was Kattumannar koil the birth place of Sri Nathamuni and Alavandar--Sri Vaishnavaite acharyas , former the grand father of the latter.

The 50 kms of the distance from cuddalore ,was a treat to weary eyes .Green fields of rice stretching on both sides was a balm .Thank god urbanisation hasn't as yet spread  its tentacles in these life sustaining lush pockets , though a few , very few concrete houses amidst green fields have appeared giving me a sour feeling.

The line of swarthy skinned peasants sowing or weeding  in  a single file in the hot sun stirred my gratitude. If not for them [ tho' it is their ancestral vocation for livelihood] who will supply me rice?It is also amazing how mother earth never tires of her bestowing her bounty though used and reused for centuries!

The town was medium sized and quite dirty like most such towns in India.When will they ever become neat and tidy as those in us or UK etc?

Vishnu is enshrined as Vasudevar in this ancient temple .It has two separate sannidhis for the  2 most important sons of that soil--Sri nathamuni and Alavandhar.Sri Nathmuni of 10 th cent ad , collected and compiled 4000 Tamil hymns of aazhwars-saints of preceding centuries ,that were scattered around and nearly forgotten.He revived Sri Vaishnavism by dint of sheer perseverance and tireless efforts and re established the eminence of Tamil hymns in Hinduism at par with Vedas.

It is a wonder how some persons from somewhere arise and is a spark to revive and re vitalise Hinduism or  a branch there of.

The next spark is Alavandar, his grand son.who awoke to his real vocation --that of propagating Sri Vaishnaviam after a stint  as a very successful and prosperous ruler & householder ,the kingship that was gifted to him due to his precocious scholarship,and relinquishing his kingdom  and taking up sanyas ,after being gently reminded of true lineage by his late grandfather's loyal disciple.

He settled at Srirangam and wrote commentaries on shastras , gita, and so on and has written a beautiful Sanskrit's sloka known as strotramala which has all the ideas and seeds that helped Desikan few centuries later to work upon.

The priest pointed out to the nathamuni's sannidhi abutting the sanctum,  as the place of his original residence .
What propelled him to undertake such a onerous and daunting task? The proximity of the deity within coupled with the deep grief of losing his only and youthful married son  ?

If not for his single pointed devotion to restoration i wouldn't be enjoying the poetry's and hymns of saints/azhwars of yore and deriving strength and solace from them ,by mere thumbing through pages .
I registered my gratitude silently before his and his grandson's idols in unspoken words.

written on 30.10.1`3 1 pm

Tour of thiruvaheendra puram Temple town....cuddalore.0n 28 &29 .10 .13

The top floor terrace overlooked the only busiest inter section of Cuddalore ,a small and neat town whose traffic on the road was so small in comparison to that of Chennai even at peak hours that brought in its wake, laughter of relief.
 The early morning air was fresh and spiced slightly with the special  saltish twang of coastal areas.The sky was awash with white cranes flying in formations to  a specified secret distant destination in earnest silence.The squeal of some birds attracted my attention .It was that of pairs of white crested eagles  or Garuda's who were circling overhead leisurely and settled   gracefully on tree tops and then again taking off
.
Seeing them i was reminded of Sri Desikan and his sanskrit slokas- Garuda panchgam, the Sri vaishnavaite acahrya of 14 th cent whose journeys across south i was tracing and the purpose of my journey to this town.
Sri Desikan lived in nearby hamlet Thiruvanheendrapuram for 40 long years
The place is as untouched by time and is more or less like it would have been at his time.
Vishnu is enshrined as Devanatha perumal in the temple since ancient times. The inlay of silver and gold plating's on pillars, entrance and doors inside the temple is breathtaking and reminded me of the gorgeous and rich decorations of temples at Manglore mainly that of srivenaktaramana temple

A flight of steps cut on the vertical wall of a hillock right in front of the temple takes one to the summit where Sri Desikan meditated often .This is a quiet place with a good view of fields and villages down below.It is here in one of his moments of solitude and connection that he received the blessings of Haygreeva an  avatar of Vishnu known for bestowing knowledge like Saraswati.Desikan then consecrated the idol along with the idol of the vehicle of Vishnu- Garuda [unlike the usual of practise of enshrining garuda outside the sanctum] and worshipped the chosen deity ever since and was  blessed with uninterrupted  literary flow  in form of Sanskrit and Tamil slokas ,philosophical treatises,shastras ,and innumerable poetic and scholarly works.It was in here that his Sanskrit works on Rama and slokas on Garuda were written.

Thanks to the efforts of earlier pontiffs of Ahobila mutt the place where Sri Desikan lived and held katha kaltshebham ---lectures  on dharma Hinduism and vaishnavism,in the tiny town below is well preserved .So is the well that Sri Desikan himself is said to have dug with his own hands as a challenge to one of his many adverasries .He was a versatile genius.

Maybe the call of the garudas that attracted my attention are the descendants of those garudas that must have attracted Desikan's attention as well as he sat meditating in total solitude on that uninhabited hillock and inspired him to write slokas of the bird that is considered to be the vehicle of Vishnu.

He used bis vivid imagination, command of language and scholarship purely to enhance sri vaishnaviam faith and philosophy.
Reading them and grasping their deep meanings is truly a delightful and exhilarating experience and his immense literary compositions are unrivalled;ed till date.

written on 30 .10.13 11 am

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Reaction to a blog.

Like i have observed earlier certain articles of certain journo's or blogger tend to prvoke me,try as i might to ward it off.
The latest provocation is that of sandeep, the blogger who mostly attacks only 'secular 'liberal  'commie' luminaries orbiting around in various guises and never any politician, most of which i have enjoyed reading in the net over the years .The concluding blog on Girish karnard.
Somehow i felt that in substance it was also directed against me.i am no fan of gk though i  was aware of his fame and recognised him, once when we shared the same coach [diff berths] of the train running from Delhi to madras , in my late teens as a college goer in late 7o's in one of my families annual trip to south.

Am i being extremely prickly or just exquisitely sensitive?What ever i take this as oppurtunity to clarify the position i took on Anna movt  on the net which i think is the main cause for cops to come calling to my flat complex and haven't left and have  taken firm roots ever since thriving  in draining me of all my juices.

I knew then and do still believe now that such movts cannot change the corrupt scenario [though it serves the sacred purpose of scaring the politicians out of their thick skins and to knock down some of their cockiness] ,but on reading the overwhelming down pour of comments[5000 and more] of young Indians from all over the world in the net on blogs and articles of msm's , [those days without pale face and co breathing down my back as they do now i had all the time in the world and the solitude to read them all ]i just  didn't have the heart to break their naive idealism.Youth is and its innocence is so short lived that i couldn't bring myself to dirty it with cynicism.So i just played along contributing witty one liners.After all wasn't the net youth's territory? And wasn't i in it because of my youthful son[late]?He too would have joined such a movt being as idealistic as all those young supporters of Anna and as a mother how could i break such innocent hearts?
So it was not an opportunity for me to grab and extend my support base.More over I am not all that tech savy to gauge my impact on the net with numbers or facts.

Second that Gk fled like a hare the moment cops came calling in a demonstration against the right is hilarious.I wouldn't have.And the very fact that i withstood 2 months of rigorous attempts to dissuade me and scare me out of my wits and am continuing with their crude and authoritative but shadowy presence into every nook and corner of my very private and social life and am even writing comic pieces ,enduring bouts of nausea and constant battles of wills , the punishments meted out by paleface and co for being myself, is no joke.To me it was similar as well as converse--double dose of opposing liberals attempts to civilise and prune me and try and fit me into the prevailing secular discourse.Ironies ,that those who coined the term psuedo secular themselves are snared into it for sake of politics and wanted me to be one!Since i have no political compulsions nor any guilt at being a conservative hindu, i stood it out..Then it is the nehru ghandhi parivar that is demanding its pound of flesh for daring to cross it.Probably lack of ambition and lack of scycophancy and ofcourse myHindu conservativeness  coupled with that darn irritating thing called conscience which would make die a 100 deaths if i went against it, is making me battle it out every day.

I suppose not one of those journo's reading  from the comforts of their cocooned life,what i write will have even the guts to' imagine' only imagine  their wives or mothers or sisters or daughters  in the de humanising situation i find myself in . Nor see their spouse reduced to popping pills  for a weakened heart rapidly failing  by intense shadowy pshycological tortures.  I am excluding  hardened politicos .they are a breed apart .All this may not faze them but only  a sudden milling of leaderless youths in India gate would so definitely.Jitters and nightmares.Thank god for them --the vast numbers of young indians relying only on their ability and merit .The one and only check on conscience less politicians.

The latest bout of nausea and burning in the throat i realise now was a whacking for my piece on malala.
It was a genuine observation on a precocious child.I didn't factor in the intl and natl [i am not all that well read] politics in it .Come to think of it not a single politician or secular liberals have spoken about her after her recovery.Though i am from a political family it seems that not even one cell in my body possess the cunningness, calculations, groupisms and pure selfishness ,etcetc that characterise a true blue blood politician .

I don't suffer from delusions or hallucinations but may be from grandiosness.And if Obama asked Nawab sahriff to speed up the trail of 2008 carnage because of that piece i am glad.The picture of all those innocent passengers lying dead in the rly way station and the anger of the daughter of the slain police man is still fresh in my memory.

If pf and co [ if he is not a muslim  he is more mus --[the voting type & not intellectuals or upper middle class] than a mus  is angry at my insensitivity to victims of drone attack[i read only later] i can't help it .Frankly all those innocent deaths at the station stirrs me more naturally they are my country people. That is what matters. I am a local.

written at 11 30 am 27.10.13

Note:In all probability the nausea etc was to prepare me to yell on the net so that the hand that may   have a hand in beating [bombing]the child would rock the cradle with soothing words.Cold blooded deviousness and indigestible [for ordinary folks like me and not to ppts] points to prior knowledge ,planning and preparation..The role foisted upon me forcibly is that of a conscience keeper of the bearers of the nehru-Indira ghandhi dynasty for unwittingly being its mascot[maybe causing in small measure as well as definetly rescuing it in its most terror stricken moments --the anna movt and nirbhaya -fury and may have even staved off another bout of civil society fury over 'criminalisation of politics' order by reading toi and its campaign half an hour before that 'nonsense' tamasha at  a media meet  ] as well as its woes [by predicting Modi's role in future of india and his increasing popularity[which i guaged only through the net]in real time ever since] ..

Happy diwali to all may real light dispel the darkness of all-----2.11.13.  
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The bright jewel --malala.

Watched the interview of Pak teenager Malala first on videshi and then on Desi TV .Was totally floored by that very young girl's [only 16] wisdom , confidence and clear articulation which is simply beyond her age.

A brave girl not only because she has not cowed down to Taliban's terror tactics  but also has charmingly refused to bow down to the unwritten code of domination followed by nearly all males in this part of the world ,that is label a woman of strong views  as loose moral or promiscuous and put her down at the slightest opportunity ,when she without the slightest trace of fear of this powerful tool ,used often with societal sanctions to keep a woman in her place ,replies to her mothers castigation to cover her face that she too was looking at the males staring at her!A very natural , innocent biological instinct of the adolescent age which she has admitted to without any hypocrisy though she must be fully aware of the repercussions of such admissions in a conservative society.Truly brave. 

Hmm the gene 'truth' seems to unfailingly pop up with great vigour and strength in some unlikely individuals in this part of the world..

The visuals of large number of her country men praying for her recovery was another eyeopener.Wasn't Pak an backward country run by the diktats of dark ages and the Taliban had the societal sanction to do what it does and did to her? It seems not.

Restoration.

Read the news that Foreign' hand' has been replaced by' red faced natives'    in the old old paper bearing the name of the majority religion.
The foreign hand had made the paper sort of interesting and open to debates similar to its main rival.

Would restoration imply that it would entail reading real intellectual pieces which was its signature long long ago?

Neither official nor unofficial spokesperson.

Dear viewers,friends on line or otherwise, party members,politicians and journo's.

   Sujataism is my personal blog.The views i express are my own .Though i have joined BJP I am neither its official spokesperson nor an unofficial one.Please bear this in mind whilst reading my blogs.

Reason.      Though i am on same page on most matters since i am not actively moving with the party members, i may write something un intentionally in a inopportune moment which is not in line with the party politics at that given point of time or even later, causing embarrassment to the party  .Hence this disclaimer.

What i write is purely an reaction to news items, articles and my experiences and observations either sitting in my house or whilst travelling.

A National song by Bharathiyar.

The national song is on the exit of Bharat that is taking leave and on the entry of the new Bharat.

Cursing the exiting Bharat.

Gilli piditha nenchenai po po po
Vetru veru bhazhaigal karpai nee veetu vartahi karkilai po po po ,
Jaadi nooru solvai po po po ,
dharmam ondrum atrilai po po po ,
Needhi nooru solvai ,kasonndru neetinaal ,vannanguvai po po po

Meaning:                                                                                                                                                      Terror stricken heart go go go,
Instead of learning native languages and lore you are learning foreign language go go go,
You speak of castes in hundreds go go go ,
You will invoke hundreds of laws but will bow down to outstretched palm with cash go go go

Welcoming the new Bharat.

Illaya Bharathinai va va va ,
Yedhirilla valathinai va va va ,
Olliyizhundha nattinele nindrerum udaya gnayirru oppave va va va ,
Yerru pol nadaiyinnai va va va 
Khallai izhuindha naatile mun polave khallaisirraka vandhanai va va va

Meaning.

Young bharat come come come,
Un rivalled prosperity come, come come,
 Like a rising sun dispelling darkness daily do away with the gloom that has descended upon the country , come come come
Striding with the confidence of a bull,come come come,
Restorers of lost glory of Bharat come come come 

This song was written by this fiery poet burning with national fervour  in early 20 th cent[1882-1921]          but wasnt alive to see unshackling of india from foreign yoke or the  reform movments .    It has stood  the test of time as is the  nature  of the concept called Time ,that of being cyclic .   

Full form of vip.

I read this article in toi today [11.10.13]morning in which a' aman ki aasha 'fanatic has given a humorous interpretation  or full form ,  the wry variety  to the abbreviation of VIP.I'd like to chip in with my own full forms derived solely from my personal experiences and grasp.They are---

1. Very intrusive persons
2.Very intimidating persons/politicians
3.Very inhuman persons/politicians
4. Very indecent politicians
5. Vastly illusive preceptors
6. vested interest politicians
7. vigorous in preservation [of self and pelf specially by politicians]
 8. Vekkame [shame in Tamil] illadha [lacking it] politicians.

written on 11.10.13  .9 am

Coment on a article .

"When state does not do the obvious to grave problems society moves in to set things right.And as unlike the state apparatus,it is not organised ,it moves in a haphazard way.As a result the weakest ,the helpless are the ones to get hurt."------By Arun shourie

Reference from his book 'A secular agenda'

This is in reply to article in Hindu[8.10.13] by vidya  whose underlying message seems to justify the murder of members of extreme Hindu outfits by members of extreme mus outfits and sort of mocks at the states recent endeavours to establish law and order and security.

"It follows that the politicians, the press, the intellectuals who are today preventing the state from acting are far from being compassionate towards them .They are in fact setting up such people [or if i may add their community ]as targets".--Arun shourie on Bangladesh infiltrators.

Hindu as defined by Vivekananda

Mark me , then and then alone you are a Hindu when the very name sends through you a galvanic shock of strength.                                                                                                                                                  Then and then alone you are Hindu , when every man who bear the name from any country ,speaking our languages or any other , becomes at once the nearest and dearest to you.                                                                                                                                                             Then and then  alone you are a Hindu when the distress of anyone bearing that name comes to your heart and makes you feel as if your own son were in distress
Then and then alone you are a Hindu when you will be ready to bear anything for them ,like guru Govind did.
Driven out from this country , fighting against its oppressors ,after having shed his blood for the defence of Hindu religion , after having sen his children killed in the battlefield --ay ,this example of the great guru , left even by those for whose sake he was shedding blood and the blood of his own nearest and dearest --he, the wounded lion retired from the field calmly to die in South ,but not a word of curse escaped his lips against those who had ungratefully forsaken  him!
Mark me ,every one of you will have to be a Govind singh , if you want to do good to your country.You may see 1000's of defects in your countrymen , but mark their Hindu blood .They are the first gods you will have to worship even if they do everything to hurt you .even if everyone of them sends a curse to you ,you send out to them words of love .
If they drive you out retire in silence like that mighty lion, Govind singh.                                                       Such a man is worthy of the name of Hindu,such a ideal ought to be before us always.

From --Hinduism --its common bases--a lecture delivered by Vivekananda  at Lahore in 1897
courtesy Ramakrishna publications.

All in all.

Three news that stirred me.
1. Capture of the head of im that was responsible for several bomb blasts across India that resulted in tragic deaths in huge numbers.
2. Neutralising of maoists who were responsible for the  death of political activists belonging to Cong  party at chattisgarh
3.The recent capture of ul umma terrorists who were responsible for the heinous murder of  auditor Ramesh of bjp and other hindu activists based in Tamilnadu.

All three affirmative action sends the firm message that ideaogical and political differences  should not settled by taking to violence and that the mighty hand of the law will come down heavily upon those doing so.

There is also an underlying message visible to me .That our intels are doing their jobs very well and security forces are brave and courageous and that the fruition of their efforts and abilities can be had only if there is political will.
Hope that this important 'will' ensues  and ensures that the terrorists who have shown  ruthlessness in their   extreme indifference to others life  receive the severest of  punishments.

Wishing well, the brave police officer who was severely injured by the terrorists at puttur ,and that he makes a  speedy recovery. 

Criminalisation of politics.

Three views on the on going 'Ordinance 'drama.
1.The practical, blase' and weary view.--Though there is lack of killer instinct in sports where it is much needed to bring laurels to this country there's no dearth of such instincts in the political arena to make killings out of life and public resources.
All this media hype and expectations is anti thesis of the lokpal movement .Whilst it was seen to that the Lokpal bill wouldn't be passed come what may ,this ordinance may be stopped  with great fanfare but the bill overturning the supreme court ruling will be passed quietly .There is too much in stake for the survival of  the political class  either to compromise or pander to the niceties to those outside it.

2. 'lagho raho Munna bahai' moment or the idealistic fired up view, mainly for the Congress.  --That Shezaada[rg] somehow seizes the moment and movement and selflessly and sincerely withdraw the bill and not merely the ordinance ,like a true statesman and be shorn of the retrograde image that tagged his father ever since his infamous action in the Shah banu case in the politcally  aware and public spirited circles.. For those betting their political life or rather their reputation on anecdotal incidents and evidence this is a parallel situation .

3.An ordinary educated middle class citizens view.---Why should the system allow those people who break the laws to make laws? How very revolting.That the political class  mainly the ruling one is going out of its way to ensure  precisely that even after SC has reprimanded it twice is indigestible. Stop that filthy bill and kick start the cleaning of the mess .