Life beyond .C"OM" (Part 2)
Vinish? What sort of name is it? And what does it mean? I was curious to know and i asked him. The story behind the name goes like this. his grandfather's full name was V.N.Subramanian and in short he was known to Kochi as V.N.S. So in memory of his grandfather, they have modified V.N.S and named him as Vinish. Official records state his name as Subramanian, though! (Oh, my God! One more!). Vinish explained how children are named in the family as such. If you are the first son, then you get the grandfather's name from your father's side and the second son, gets your mom's father's name. Now that explains everything wrt to both the Subramanian's and Krishnan. So, vinish is doing his Ph.D here at Bangalore, is also associated with various other spiritual activites and in fact hes known as "Krishna Das" in his spiritual circle.
So after the dinner, we both went home and took the books which Vinish's org has published. The money that comes out of it goes to tsunami victims. He has sold almost 1000 books so far and he had got some books here to generate funds for the relief. He and mama told me that the night b4 Saasthapreethi, guys have lots of work at the temple: ranging from cutting the vegetables, cleaning the utensils for cooking, cleaning the temple as such and decorating the temple. I was told the activity goes on till 2 or 3 in the night.. I didnt wanna miss anypart of the fest and I was ready to go back to the temple anytime now.. As myself and vinish were distributing the book on 'professional ethics' at a home, we heard the sound of crackers. mama told me that the cracker sound is the signal that dinner is over and we are ready to start the night's work.
Vinish is an amazing person with amazing memory power. Seems hes coming to Kochi after 10 years and he seems to be remember each and every person in the street, their sons/daughters, grandsons/granddaughters! Man, its too tough. He remembers all the shops, schools, streets. You name it and he remembers it... Whenever he sees someone, he always goes to them and enquires abt how they are, hows their health etc.. He is also a very good singer, mind you! Since this was a guys-only activity, mami had gone to bed... She has a busy day ahead. And the house keys, we were told would be there with Franklin, the watchman for the street. Vinish told me that they didnt have a watchman before and they had appointed one apparently after some theft... Mami told me how nice person their watchman is. The setup was such that whenever we needed to enter the house, we get the keys from franklin, and give it back to him once we are done with the work inside and when we are going out.
I asked vinish why are we having this festival in the first place? Whats the significance? The story he told me goes like this: "Seems there was a Yakshi [Jike, think of yakshi as some bad omen] and she was troubling the people of Thekkethalam... Seems saastha controlled her and tied her with string and after controlling the yakshi, he took the form of Vibhudhi [holy ash] and went inside a cup. The cup with the vibudhi inside it, is still there in a seperate room of a temple and this room is opened only once per year, that is on the day of Saasthapreethi, and puja is done to this form of saastha on that particular day. The festival, think of it as we thanking saastha for all the good he hass done to us and praying for a better future too".
I had the chance to go inside this room where He is kept for the whole of the year. Now, He was taken out and was kept outside in the puja area. Songs and hymns were sung and the night-duty also started. First, all of us, took out all the vegetables that are gonna be used tomorrow from the store room and they were all segregated. Then, people started cutting them. I didnt wanna sit idle there. So myself and vinish, got the keys from franklin,went home and got some knives and started cutting vegetables. On the other side, Sreeram and Co were cleaning the utensils that would be used for cooking. On one more side, guys were making Thoranams that would be used to decorate the temple. On one more side, guys were cleaning the doors that lead to saastha. Inside a room, kids were packing the prasadams that would be given to all the devotees who wud be visiting the temple tomorrow. As i was cutting the vegetables and watching all these activities, remarked an old man to me: "Nowhere in this world, would you be finding people working together like this for a festival". True sir, very much true! Thats what makes Thekkemadom special.
As this was going on, vinish also introduced the people out there to me one by one... Tea was served to all of us working out there, so that we are energised and dont fall asleep :) ... As it struck 12.30 in the night, we were all done with the cutting of vegetables, but other work was going on. I asked sreeram:
Me: How long would this work go on?
S: Upto 2 or even 3..
Me: When wud the function start then?
S: Around 5 or 6 in the morning.
Me: Then, wont you be missing it all if you sleep after 3?
S: Yeah, but I always get up late in the morning. So it should be fine...
Me: I am leaving... So is vinish... we have to get up early, you see...
The thing I have noticed with sreeram and also his father for that matter is that they are silent workers.. They always would be doing some work or other, whether you are doing or not! So we both came back after the night's work.. My cracked heels wasnt giving me sleep for sometime and then I fell asleep.Got up at around 7 AM i guess.. sreeram actually asked me the next day if both of us got up early and went to temple.. No! Dont you know we wanted to sleep and that was just a reason to leave :).. Actually not! I didnt get sleep for quiet some time and so couldnt get up early.
This time after taking bath, i tied the dhothi myself, hurray! (there was no santosh, so had to do it all myself) and went to the temple. Was told that the first main part of the function was the abhishekam to be done to the yakshi. they call it kaavu (guess thats what its mallu for a forest, forgive me if am wrong).. The place where the idol of yakshi is there is surrounded by trees and was told that we even have snakes there! So the abhishekam went on well. It was also done to the trees surrounding her.. After this was over, we came back home for breakfast. After that we all waited for the decorated elephant to enter the street and leave.
Once the elephant went back, went back to temple again.. periappa was saying now we wud have Thullal. what is that? vinish asked me to see it all for myself.. he even asked me if i wud get scared easily or not? why? whats gonna happen now? Ssssshhhh... wait and see....So saastha was decorated well and we all were sitting there... certain group of people had come(was told they were from bangalore too) and were sitting close to Him.. Chanting and singing started... People who were sitting close to Him then started singing and these songs were sorta different. I mean the tone and the rhythm were different from the normal songs.. As this was going on, suddenly an elderly person started behaving strangely... He started shouting, stamping the floors, started moving side-to-side and then shouting and making sounds he started moving towards Him and went there and started crying, praying... Then i understood, whats happening out there and what Thullal meant...Some spirit has taken over him and the people who were sitting near saastha were controlling the spirit.. They applied the vibhudhi and made him calm down.
Then one after another, different type of spirit seem to have come inside various people. This i say by the way in which they behaved differently.Though i didnt notice it now, seems like the spirit of saastha also comes inside one of the persons sitting close to Him and he was the person whos controlling the other spirits coming towards saastha. vinish was explaining me that the spirit always comes inside people of some particular family and this has been going on from one generation of the family to other. Also, i noticed that, the spirit seems to come inside only men and not woman! So, aftet Thullal was over, we had deepa araadhanai and neyveidhyam for saastha. Then, the person inside whom the spirit of saastha had come touches the pile of plantain leaves kept there and after that only the lunch is served. i was also told that place where payasam is cooked was chosen so that it is straight oppsite to Him and hence neyveidhyam can be performed easily.
It was lunch time and we had magnificient lunch at the temple.. Gives you a lot of pleasure to eat, right, when you know that you are one of the perrsons who had cut the vegetables for the lunch ? And there was a very very huge turnout today for lunch.. And you should see kids of 5 or 6 years carrying jugs of water with them crying, "Vellam.. Vellam". Even they want to be a part of it, isnt it? This i have noticed so many times in Thekkemadom. Whatever good stuff the elders do, they pass it on to the kids: Even when these guys play, they also include kids, atleast as a Joker, so that the legacy continues!
After lunch what? Of course, people would like to take a nap after such a great lunch with so many varieties of food. mama, periappa and vinish all went to sleep. mami asked me to wake her up in 30 mins. I was happy to get the good old job which i used to do at college: waking up other people. People used to leave note at my hostel room with the time i had to wake them up.. Anyway, i was not feeling like sleeping and asked her to give the photograph collection she has at home.. I was going through mama and mami's snaps in hyde, santosh's poonal snaps, Big B's poonal snaps(Why am i still referring to him as Big B? Hey, jike, lemme introduce the most important person in my life, the person without whom this whole Kochi episode wont be possible at all... Jike, put your hands and welcome Subbu...), subbu's BITS snaps, the cutting from various newspaper which had the news of him standing first in the state in his class 12. The collection even had a telegram from the Kerala Education Minister congragulating him on this achievement(Man,am living in the house of a VIP)... By this time, mami had got up and was working on the Kolam. Kolam, for you jike, is what women put and decorate in the space in front of the house with. And even this had to be different for Saasthapreethi. Morning kolam was in the shape of '#' and now the kolam was put specifically for 'Vanji Paatu'. The myth goes like saastha would go in a ship in the evening and so the kolam should reflect that and hence women in the street put kolam in the form of a ship.. Mallu, seems Vanji stands for ship... Now, mami noticed the cracks on my heels and told me that people in kochi never have cracks on their heels. Seems like whenever they get these cracks, they go and rub their heels against a rough surface(like the stone thats used for washing clothes). she asked me to do the same. I tried. but got immense pain and so left it as it is...But now, have been doing it continuosly for some days and i could see some difference. pain has reduced and i am able to sleep better in the night. this was the same treatment which my thatha had also suggested and it seems to be paying off ....
Women dont seem to have any rest on Saasthapreethi. If you have noticed, all the activities had been done by Men.. There was never a women intervention. If you think jike, that Saasthapreethi doesnt have anything to do with women, then you are wrong. Now, we have Kummi coming up. Kummi: exclusively wor women, where they go around a lighted lamp, singing, clapping their hands and dancing...One of the different ways in which you can show your Bhakthi towards Him.. Since vinish was a good singer, myself and vinish left to temple with mami and this time it was filled with 90% ladies. I met an elderly lady, whom vinish introduced to me as the leader of their ladies wing and she is also the main singer of the ladies group. Microphone arrived and she started singing. She was singing the story of the birth of saastha. Other ladies started repeating whatever she sang and also started doing kummi. kummi, mind you can done at diiferent pace depending upon the pace in which the singer sings the song. So the singer controls it all. Since it was difficult for this elderly woman to look at the book, concentrate on the thaalam, sing and also to hold the microphone, i was sitting beside her and I was holding the microphone for her to sing.. (After the kummi was over she told me this: "The women sitting next to me asked whether you were my grandson and I said Yes. So who are you actually?"... Then i explained her, who i was and where i came from. Got a nice paati though).. Among the ladies who were doing the kummi, mami was fabulous.. She remarked to me and to vinish after the kummi: "See, i could do the kummi non-stop with this body of mine while others took break in the middle".. She was referring to the fact that she was little fat.. One more old lady, who according to me was the best among the ladies who did kummi, came over to me smiling and said:"This is nothing..You should have seen me doing it some years back.. I was even better then.. Now since I have become old, am not able to do it like the way i used to do it b4"... Look at these ladies... The fact that they are old, or look little fat doesnt matter to them at all... Its the devotion to the lord thats important to them...It was almost 7 PM and men started coming to the temple and started complaining to the ladies that their time is up and the men have to start their sahasranaamam. So the ladies shifted the place to another area and this time did Edhir Kummi, by which what i mean jike, is two ladies doing it at a time.. Now, vinish was the singer and the ladies were dancing to the song he was singing...And what do we see? Like young guys who follow what the elders do, now kids who are girls start doing kummi seeing what their moms/aunts/grandmoms do!
After the kummi was over, the next thing that was happening was the breaking of coconuts which were offered to saastha. Even i broke some... This was the most dangerous snap that i have taken on this Kochi trip...i then got the coconut as prasadam back home.. mami was remarking that santosh always brings home a huge load of broken coconuts that it really becomes difficult for her to manage with those! Now, we were all waiting for the arrival of the elephant again.. I was having my dinner at home when the sound of music announced the arrival of the elephant carrying saastha. the music came from the Kottu, from the instruments that are standard to kerala, the same instruments that we see in TV or in movies whenever an elephant comes out for procession. The thing is that in the group of musicians who are playing, only 1 or 2 are the professionals. What amazes you is the rest of them are the guys from Thekkemadom who match the experrt with everything the expert plays.Not an easy stuff at all..! mami was saying that these guys go around to many other streets apart from ours and the group again consists of youth, kids and old men..And apart from guys who are playing the music, there are also guys who are dancing and appreciating the tunes being played..The ritual now, is that of Padi Alathal.. What i mean by that is we give Nel (rice) as offering to the elephant thats carrying saastha.. The elephant stops before everyhouse and takes the offering. After the elephant reaches the end of the street and now that everyone has done with the offering(this actually is confirmed), saastha is taken from the top of the elephant and now is the time for Vanji Paatu as i said before.. It is imagined that saastha is going on a ship, but actually two guys carry Him now.. Before Him, there are men who are singing the Vanji Paatu. Cant u imagine fishermen/boatmen singing when they are on a boat? Similar to that men sing song in praise of Him here. The song was totally in mallu and what i could remember out of it is : "Thai thathha thigathithha thiga dhithai thaga thai thai tha"(forgive me if am wrong..).. Now saastha go backs to the temple for the climax of Saasthapreethi..
We go back to the temple and men and women have already assembled there and they are all singing in praise of Him. I see the same group from blore there and they take over the singing now. I was sitting at a place from where i can comfortably see whats happening around there. Suddenly the spirit of saastha seems to enter one of the persons sitting over there. Similarly the spirit of the Yakshi comes inside another person and we again see the happenings of Thullal in the afternoon. After all the spirits have been pacified by saastha, the persons on whom the spirits of saastha and the yakshi have come are taken around the temple. Abhisekham is now done for them and after that they are taken around the temple again and this time all the men and women who have come to the temple do a namaskaaram at the feet of saastha and take the vibhudhi prasadam. For few people saastha says something personal in their ears and asks them to do something in the future fot their well-being. When i did the namaskaaram, i wasnt told anything though.
So when all this was going on, sreeram was there sitting at one side of the temple and with what me and vinish observed, he was literally falling down asleep. I asked him why dont you go home and sleep!? Reply: Smile and he said they would serve appam in the end and he is waiting to eat it :) .. I can imagine, there would be some pending job and hes waiting there to do it.. Just as i was thinking abt this, few guys came and called him. Now i know.. he goes there and holds these people who are still shivering and shaking from falling down bcos the spirit is making them shake and shiver... Finally after every person has done the namaskaaram, the spirit finally left those people.. We had a deepa araadhanai and yes, appam was served along with bananas.. Appam was made wonderfully well and me, mami and vinish were all in praise of it..So, when this was all over and by the time we came back home and slept it was 3.30 in the morning... Never in my life have i stayed awake for a festival, like this one... This one indeed has been so so special..
So after the dinner, we both went home and took the books which Vinish's org has published. The money that comes out of it goes to tsunami victims. He has sold almost 1000 books so far and he had got some books here to generate funds for the relief. He and mama told me that the night b4 Saasthapreethi, guys have lots of work at the temple: ranging from cutting the vegetables, cleaning the utensils for cooking, cleaning the temple as such and decorating the temple. I was told the activity goes on till 2 or 3 in the night.. I didnt wanna miss anypart of the fest and I was ready to go back to the temple anytime now.. As myself and vinish were distributing the book on 'professional ethics' at a home, we heard the sound of crackers. mama told me that the cracker sound is the signal that dinner is over and we are ready to start the night's work.
Vinish is an amazing person with amazing memory power. Seems hes coming to Kochi after 10 years and he seems to be remember each and every person in the street, their sons/daughters, grandsons/granddaughters! Man, its too tough. He remembers all the shops, schools, streets. You name it and he remembers it... Whenever he sees someone, he always goes to them and enquires abt how they are, hows their health etc.. He is also a very good singer, mind you! Since this was a guys-only activity, mami had gone to bed... She has a busy day ahead. And the house keys, we were told would be there with Franklin, the watchman for the street. Vinish told me that they didnt have a watchman before and they had appointed one apparently after some theft... Mami told me how nice person their watchman is. The setup was such that whenever we needed to enter the house, we get the keys from franklin, and give it back to him once we are done with the work inside and when we are going out.
I asked vinish why are we having this festival in the first place? Whats the significance? The story he told me goes like this: "Seems there was a Yakshi [Jike, think of yakshi as some bad omen] and she was troubling the people of Thekkethalam... Seems saastha controlled her and tied her with string and after controlling the yakshi, he took the form of Vibhudhi [holy ash] and went inside a cup. The cup with the vibudhi inside it, is still there in a seperate room of a temple and this room is opened only once per year, that is on the day of Saasthapreethi, and puja is done to this form of saastha on that particular day. The festival, think of it as we thanking saastha for all the good he hass done to us and praying for a better future too".
I had the chance to go inside this room where He is kept for the whole of the year. Now, He was taken out and was kept outside in the puja area. Songs and hymns were sung and the night-duty also started. First, all of us, took out all the vegetables that are gonna be used tomorrow from the store room and they were all segregated. Then, people started cutting them. I didnt wanna sit idle there. So myself and vinish, got the keys from franklin,went home and got some knives and started cutting vegetables. On the other side, Sreeram and Co were cleaning the utensils that would be used for cooking. On one more side, guys were making Thoranams that would be used to decorate the temple. On one more side, guys were cleaning the doors that lead to saastha. Inside a room, kids were packing the prasadams that would be given to all the devotees who wud be visiting the temple tomorrow. As i was cutting the vegetables and watching all these activities, remarked an old man to me: "Nowhere in this world, would you be finding people working together like this for a festival". True sir, very much true! Thats what makes Thekkemadom special.
As this was going on, vinish also introduced the people out there to me one by one... Tea was served to all of us working out there, so that we are energised and dont fall asleep :) ... As it struck 12.30 in the night, we were all done with the cutting of vegetables, but other work was going on. I asked sreeram:
Me: How long would this work go on?
S: Upto 2 or even 3..
Me: When wud the function start then?
S: Around 5 or 6 in the morning.
Me: Then, wont you be missing it all if you sleep after 3?
S: Yeah, but I always get up late in the morning. So it should be fine...
Me: I am leaving... So is vinish... we have to get up early, you see...
The thing I have noticed with sreeram and also his father for that matter is that they are silent workers.. They always would be doing some work or other, whether you are doing or not! So we both came back after the night's work.. My cracked heels wasnt giving me sleep for sometime and then I fell asleep.Got up at around 7 AM i guess.. sreeram actually asked me the next day if both of us got up early and went to temple.. No! Dont you know we wanted to sleep and that was just a reason to leave :).. Actually not! I didnt get sleep for quiet some time and so couldnt get up early.
This time after taking bath, i tied the dhothi myself, hurray! (there was no santosh, so had to do it all myself) and went to the temple. Was told that the first main part of the function was the abhishekam to be done to the yakshi. they call it kaavu (guess thats what its mallu for a forest, forgive me if am wrong).. The place where the idol of yakshi is there is surrounded by trees and was told that we even have snakes there! So the abhishekam went on well. It was also done to the trees surrounding her.. After this was over, we came back home for breakfast. After that we all waited for the decorated elephant to enter the street and leave.
Once the elephant went back, went back to temple again.. periappa was saying now we wud have Thullal. what is that? vinish asked me to see it all for myself.. he even asked me if i wud get scared easily or not? why? whats gonna happen now? Ssssshhhh... wait and see....So saastha was decorated well and we all were sitting there... certain group of people had come(was told they were from bangalore too) and were sitting close to Him.. Chanting and singing started... People who were sitting close to Him then started singing and these songs were sorta different. I mean the tone and the rhythm were different from the normal songs.. As this was going on, suddenly an elderly person started behaving strangely... He started shouting, stamping the floors, started moving side-to-side and then shouting and making sounds he started moving towards Him and went there and started crying, praying... Then i understood, whats happening out there and what Thullal meant...Some spirit has taken over him and the people who were sitting near saastha were controlling the spirit.. They applied the vibhudhi and made him calm down.
Then one after another, different type of spirit seem to have come inside various people. This i say by the way in which they behaved differently.Though i didnt notice it now, seems like the spirit of saastha also comes inside one of the persons sitting close to Him and he was the person whos controlling the other spirits coming towards saastha. vinish was explaining me that the spirit always comes inside people of some particular family and this has been going on from one generation of the family to other. Also, i noticed that, the spirit seems to come inside only men and not woman! So, aftet Thullal was over, we had deepa araadhanai and neyveidhyam for saastha. Then, the person inside whom the spirit of saastha had come touches the pile of plantain leaves kept there and after that only the lunch is served. i was also told that place where payasam is cooked was chosen so that it is straight oppsite to Him and hence neyveidhyam can be performed easily.
It was lunch time and we had magnificient lunch at the temple.. Gives you a lot of pleasure to eat, right, when you know that you are one of the perrsons who had cut the vegetables for the lunch ? And there was a very very huge turnout today for lunch.. And you should see kids of 5 or 6 years carrying jugs of water with them crying, "Vellam.. Vellam". Even they want to be a part of it, isnt it? This i have noticed so many times in Thekkemadom. Whatever good stuff the elders do, they pass it on to the kids: Even when these guys play, they also include kids, atleast as a Joker, so that the legacy continues!
After lunch what? Of course, people would like to take a nap after such a great lunch with so many varieties of food. mama, periappa and vinish all went to sleep. mami asked me to wake her up in 30 mins. I was happy to get the good old job which i used to do at college: waking up other people. People used to leave note at my hostel room with the time i had to wake them up.. Anyway, i was not feeling like sleeping and asked her to give the photograph collection she has at home.. I was going through mama and mami's snaps in hyde, santosh's poonal snaps, Big B's poonal snaps(Why am i still referring to him as Big B? Hey, jike, lemme introduce the most important person in my life, the person without whom this whole Kochi episode wont be possible at all... Jike, put your hands and welcome Subbu...), subbu's BITS snaps, the cutting from various newspaper which had the news of him standing first in the state in his class 12. The collection even had a telegram from the Kerala Education Minister congragulating him on this achievement(Man,am living in the house of a VIP)... By this time, mami had got up and was working on the Kolam. Kolam, for you jike, is what women put and decorate in the space in front of the house with. And even this had to be different for Saasthapreethi. Morning kolam was in the shape of '#' and now the kolam was put specifically for 'Vanji Paatu'. The myth goes like saastha would go in a ship in the evening and so the kolam should reflect that and hence women in the street put kolam in the form of a ship.. Mallu, seems Vanji stands for ship... Now, mami noticed the cracks on my heels and told me that people in kochi never have cracks on their heels. Seems like whenever they get these cracks, they go and rub their heels against a rough surface(like the stone thats used for washing clothes). she asked me to do the same. I tried. but got immense pain and so left it as it is...But now, have been doing it continuosly for some days and i could see some difference. pain has reduced and i am able to sleep better in the night. this was the same treatment which my thatha had also suggested and it seems to be paying off ....
Women dont seem to have any rest on Saasthapreethi. If you have noticed, all the activities had been done by Men.. There was never a women intervention. If you think jike, that Saasthapreethi doesnt have anything to do with women, then you are wrong. Now, we have Kummi coming up. Kummi: exclusively wor women, where they go around a lighted lamp, singing, clapping their hands and dancing...One of the different ways in which you can show your Bhakthi towards Him.. Since vinish was a good singer, myself and vinish left to temple with mami and this time it was filled with 90% ladies. I met an elderly lady, whom vinish introduced to me as the leader of their ladies wing and she is also the main singer of the ladies group. Microphone arrived and she started singing. She was singing the story of the birth of saastha. Other ladies started repeating whatever she sang and also started doing kummi. kummi, mind you can done at diiferent pace depending upon the pace in which the singer sings the song. So the singer controls it all. Since it was difficult for this elderly woman to look at the book, concentrate on the thaalam, sing and also to hold the microphone, i was sitting beside her and I was holding the microphone for her to sing.. (After the kummi was over she told me this: "The women sitting next to me asked whether you were my grandson and I said Yes. So who are you actually?"... Then i explained her, who i was and where i came from. Got a nice paati though).. Among the ladies who were doing the kummi, mami was fabulous.. She remarked to me and to vinish after the kummi: "See, i could do the kummi non-stop with this body of mine while others took break in the middle".. She was referring to the fact that she was little fat.. One more old lady, who according to me was the best among the ladies who did kummi, came over to me smiling and said:"This is nothing..You should have seen me doing it some years back.. I was even better then.. Now since I have become old, am not able to do it like the way i used to do it b4"... Look at these ladies... The fact that they are old, or look little fat doesnt matter to them at all... Its the devotion to the lord thats important to them...It was almost 7 PM and men started coming to the temple and started complaining to the ladies that their time is up and the men have to start their sahasranaamam. So the ladies shifted the place to another area and this time did Edhir Kummi, by which what i mean jike, is two ladies doing it at a time.. Now, vinish was the singer and the ladies were dancing to the song he was singing...And what do we see? Like young guys who follow what the elders do, now kids who are girls start doing kummi seeing what their moms/aunts/grandmoms do!
After the kummi was over, the next thing that was happening was the breaking of coconuts which were offered to saastha. Even i broke some... This was the most dangerous snap that i have taken on this Kochi trip...i then got the coconut as prasadam back home.. mami was remarking that santosh always brings home a huge load of broken coconuts that it really becomes difficult for her to manage with those! Now, we were all waiting for the arrival of the elephant again.. I was having my dinner at home when the sound of music announced the arrival of the elephant carrying saastha. the music came from the Kottu, from the instruments that are standard to kerala, the same instruments that we see in TV or in movies whenever an elephant comes out for procession. The thing is that in the group of musicians who are playing, only 1 or 2 are the professionals. What amazes you is the rest of them are the guys from Thekkemadom who match the experrt with everything the expert plays.Not an easy stuff at all..! mami was saying that these guys go around to many other streets apart from ours and the group again consists of youth, kids and old men..And apart from guys who are playing the music, there are also guys who are dancing and appreciating the tunes being played..The ritual now, is that of Padi Alathal.. What i mean by that is we give Nel (rice) as offering to the elephant thats carrying saastha.. The elephant stops before everyhouse and takes the offering. After the elephant reaches the end of the street and now that everyone has done with the offering(this actually is confirmed), saastha is taken from the top of the elephant and now is the time for Vanji Paatu as i said before.. It is imagined that saastha is going on a ship, but actually two guys carry Him now.. Before Him, there are men who are singing the Vanji Paatu. Cant u imagine fishermen/boatmen singing when they are on a boat? Similar to that men sing song in praise of Him here. The song was totally in mallu and what i could remember out of it is : "Thai thathha thigathithha thiga dhithai thaga thai thai tha"(forgive me if am wrong..).. Now saastha go backs to the temple for the climax of Saasthapreethi..
We go back to the temple and men and women have already assembled there and they are all singing in praise of Him. I see the same group from blore there and they take over the singing now. I was sitting at a place from where i can comfortably see whats happening around there. Suddenly the spirit of saastha seems to enter one of the persons sitting over there. Similarly the spirit of the Yakshi comes inside another person and we again see the happenings of Thullal in the afternoon. After all the spirits have been pacified by saastha, the persons on whom the spirits of saastha and the yakshi have come are taken around the temple. Abhisekham is now done for them and after that they are taken around the temple again and this time all the men and women who have come to the temple do a namaskaaram at the feet of saastha and take the vibhudhi prasadam. For few people saastha says something personal in their ears and asks them to do something in the future fot their well-being. When i did the namaskaaram, i wasnt told anything though.
So when all this was going on, sreeram was there sitting at one side of the temple and with what me and vinish observed, he was literally falling down asleep. I asked him why dont you go home and sleep!? Reply: Smile and he said they would serve appam in the end and he is waiting to eat it :) .. I can imagine, there would be some pending job and hes waiting there to do it.. Just as i was thinking abt this, few guys came and called him. Now i know.. he goes there and holds these people who are still shivering and shaking from falling down bcos the spirit is making them shake and shiver... Finally after every person has done the namaskaaram, the spirit finally left those people.. We had a deepa araadhanai and yes, appam was served along with bananas.. Appam was made wonderfully well and me, mami and vinish were all in praise of it..So, when this was all over and by the time we came back home and slept it was 3.30 in the morning... Never in my life have i stayed awake for a festival, like this one... This one indeed has been so so special..
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