SENIOR CITIZENS, RAMAYANA MASA ETC....
Someone said today is “Senior
Citizens’ Day” – well, every dog has its day, after all, I thought !! And only
apt and logical that the day falls during the ‘dog’ days of “Adi” month.
Elsewhere in this blog page, I have told in detail some 5 years back about the ‘dog
days’ – you may read, if you are interested. Here is the link..
Let us put the dog in the manger or
elsewhere for a while.
The month ‘Adi’ or “Kataka” (‘Karkidakam’
in Malayalam) is considered very inauspicious for more than one reason. The weather
is bad - while too hot and sultry in Tamil Nadu, raining cats and ‘dogs’ in
many other parts of India, like Kerala, Maharashtra, and many northern states.
And while there are floods and misery in many parts, it’s time for epidemics
and sun strokes elsewhere. As usual, people look at Him for sparing them from
the resultant miseries, and so undertake pilgrimages, conduct special pujas at
temples, particularly in Devi temples everywhere.
The month is called ‘Ramayana month’
in Kerala. I was born in a tiny Palakkad village called Manjapra (with two
gramams – ‘Big’ village, and ‘Small’ village). I am from Big village – earning the
name because of its higher width and length, so also the number of houses. Music,
rituals, merging with and be part of nature etc., came naturally to us. I had
seen my dad reciting ‘Ramayana’ every day during the month. I remember there
were some 10 or 12 volumes of the epic, each thick bound book almost 2 inches
thick, with more than 1500 – 2000 pages…… One, or may be two books constitutes
one of the seven ‘Kandas’ – chapters in a broader sense. They were written by
Valmiki, and had the verses in Sanskrit as well as Malayalam, with meanings of
each sloka. One of my childhood ambitions was to read them all when I grew up. I
don’t know where the books are now. Dad most probably left them there back when
we sold our 3 – storey house of about 3000 plus square feet with a sprawling
two ground open space that housed all kinds of trees like jack fruit, tamarind,
coconut etc., for a paltry 5000 rupees way back in 1965. The Ramayana books
might have found their way to the ‘old paper wallah’s shop’. I was telling
about the seven different ‘kandas’ of epic Ramayana – they are Bala Kanda,
Ayodhya Kanda, Aaranya Kanda, Kishkinda Kanda, Sundara Kanda, Yudha Kanda, and
of course, Uthara Kanda. Opinion, however, differs as to whether the last Kanda
can be part of Ramayana at all, because it mainly deals with Lava and Kusha,
the two sons of Rama.
A visit to the 4 temples dedicated to
the 4 brothers of Ramayana, Rama, Bharatha, Lakshmana, and Shatrugana during
the ‘Ramayana’ month is a MUST for many devotees of Kerala. In fact, there are
these 4 temples, or Naalambalam (Naalu, meaning four + Ambalam meaning temple)
in four different districts / localities of Kerala (Thrissur & Ernakulam,
Kottayam, Kottayam & Ernakulam, and Malappuram). Thus there are 4 x 4 = 16
temples in Kerala, dedicated to the royal family. For the detailed descriptions,
photographs, background history etc, click the link below.
You will be interested to know, that
one of my muslim friends (junior at the engineering college) is sending audio
clippings every morning starting with the segment for each day of the Ramayana
month. He had sent the 9th segment today morning – hopefully, he sends the remaining
22 segments at the rate of one per day. I listen to some of the segments (5 – 7
minutes duration) but skip those which are longer like 30 or 40 minutes.
However, I do what is the next best thing to do – forward the clippings every
day to our ‘Srilanka Ramayana’ whatsup group created in October last year, for
the participants of the 7-day Srilanka Ramayana yatra undertook by some 30 of
us.!!! Elsewhere in these pages, you can see my English translation of our
experience at that time, originally penned beautifully in Tamil by the senior
most member of our group. See the link for the introduction of the blog on our
Srilanka Ramayana trip…
Time to go to the ‘Ratnagireeswarar’
temple in Besant Nagar (today being ‘Pradosham’). So, see you guys later……
Let us take back the dog from the
manger… or the tail, to be more precise.
‘TAIL’ piece:
One of my friends whom I met at the
Elliots beach this morning looked very happy. I asked him what was the reason.
He said “it is ‘Adi’ month no?”
I said, “Arre, this month is considered
inauspicious, and what is there to be so happy about it?”
“Oh, come on, don’t
you know that you have ‘Adi thallupadi' (discount) sale everywhere? We make the
best use of it, dresses, house hold gadgets or whatever….”
That, I thought, was ‘lateral’
thinking..! or, seeing things differently, rather than seeing different things……
