Mohanur

Kula Devatha

Dad and paternal grandfather's temple is Sri Sellandiyamman in Mohanur, which also has navaladi karupana swami temple outside ambal's sannidhi on the left. After a dip in cauvery before sunrise, realized that the Perumal temple would open only after 7:30 am. Was glad in a way, could go to kula deivam temple.

Temple had transformed. The first time, i remembered going there during college days, when my grandparents were still alive. Could not participate in annadhAna there, for the very sight of chopped goat's head impaled on spear nauseated me. My BIL remarked this morning how, i didn't touch food that day and had not let my nephews eat ice creams outside. There are few temples, where even after going till the entrance, can not enter and pray. Would be waiting outside, while my folks went inside for prayers. Thankfully, this morning, no such thing was there in the temple and it was peaceful darshan, with the unflickering jyoti lifting my spirits.

Sri KalyAna Prasanna VenkatramanAr temple

After a peaceful archana and darshan in kula deiva temple, found Perumal temple open. It is so funny, like in Rameshwaram, the pujari thought i was a student blessed me vidya praptirastu. In Rameshwaram, while my younger sister and younger bro got sheegram and adhi sheegram vivaham prAptirastu, it was udyogam prAptirastu for me. Glad to have darshan of Perumal on ekadashi.

Mohiniyur, earlier it was called Vidyanarayanpuram according to the pujari. See this
DinamalarReview
Hindu
Alayamkanden

On my left was Rukmini SathyabhAma sahita Navneetha KRSN which immediately brought ChAyayAm pArijAtasya on my mind, while on the right was a beautiful statue of krishna half male and half female. Kind of krishna in ardhanAreeshwar form, kind of like dancing NatarAjar.

Hayagreevar was very famous here with localites and opposite to him was Medha Saraswathi. In front of Medha saraswathi was Bala Maruthi facing Hayagreevar and Bala Vinayakar facing east. They had done an elaborate Moola nakshatra pooja in front of Hayagreevar with heaps of flowers in front of God.
You had Chintamani Ganapathi, Varaha and Narasimha with consorts with Vishnu durga as koshta devatas.

Thanks to BIL who had enquired for abhishekam for my niece's board exams. Pujari had suggested milk and honey abhishekam on thursday. Am still not able to reconcile why pour milk and honey on Gods. Can't we just eat them and distribute, adding the herbs that are supposed to be in the statues. Need to ask my AchArya.

Trip back to Bangalore was smooth without hassles. Started a little after 8 am from temple and reached PG by 1:30 pm.

Two days by Cauvery

Musiri Puthur is an obscure place, where dad grew up with his maternal uncle since childhood for more than 3 decades. And dad, never mentioned his maternal uncle, even once. Need to dig the place history. Small amlas, papaya, drumstick leaves anything is nearby.
It is not just town folks who slog, till 10 pm, farm hands were threshing paddy, since temple was the only public place that had cemented floor.

Early Morning Visit to River
Akka had made a simple kolam first thing in the morning.

Sunrise by the river was stunning, sunset was even more.

 This was called KokkuUttanParai. When the river flows to brim, storks would be sitting on this rock it seems.

Bro and nephew wanted to make boats and all that was available was Bank of Baroda’s ATM slips, which became two tiny boats, which disappeared in no time.

A lone hyacinth on the river side.

Flowers on the way

Chinna Thottiyam Voikkal History

A brahmin lady married a low caste guy and this asavarna couple were excommunicated  from the village. In village, during construction of dams and such structures, it was custom to offer human sacrifice it seems. So the audacious low caste husband was sacrificed for building this dam.

The distraught wife, jumped into her husband’s pyre. A tiny bit of her unburnt silk dress kept on settling at one particular spot. So villagers invited the soul, which entered the 6 year grandson of the temple pujari. Finally, they built a temple for this lady who rushed into fire and call this temple as theepAnjAl koil.

After decades of eating chikkis aka kadalamuttais, for the first time, realized that groundnut flowers are golden chrome yellow.

The soil around the Plantain was white with fertilizer. Farmers are naturally concerned with yield rather than soil and underground water. It’s a 24/7 job not just in BPM in agriculture as well. Early morning 3 am shifts are for milk hands as well. Each with its own seasonality.

This papaya was just a little taller than 5 feet.

Folks used to comb their hair with this oomathaan fruit it seems.

 On the way. This nonna leave cures tooth decay according to my sister.

Was quite surprised to see passion flowers in a village.

 On the way to the river, thalamalai

Arai nellikas with which akka made a juice laced with a bit of jaggery.

This is a dusk flower.

Piping hot sweet puttu was waiting on Sunday morning.

Evening walk to river with storks settling on the field

 Sunset, water is cleaner on the western side

River bed is 90% dry, with pockets of water here and there. Dams, are for equitable sharing. Who is man to stop the waters that nature gave?

It is the angle of the camera, that shows so much water, otherwise, it was not even knee deep at 90% of the places.

Other Trivia

Dead snake on the river bed, which my nephew spotted.

Children, girls, villagers still shit on the roadside, leading to the river. River is not visibly polluted. At some places, river stinks shit in the morning and cleaned fish in the evening. Dams are closed from Feb 1st week, which again gets opened only during April. River bed was dry with pockets of rivulets here and there, deceptively deep at places. Lone fish kept cruising inside deep waters. At 1 inch waterspots, zillion tadpoles would swarm around, in wet soil, there were tracks of earthworms, in dry river bed, there were silts, to conches and shells to hard pebble deposited along the riverine curve.

Seems like it is procreation season. On Saturday morning, was trying to sleep in the bright light, after a tiring bus journey sitting all night from Bangalore to this place and a dog was noisily on top of a bitch, next to bedroom window, which finally shifted place to behind the temple, which reminded me of the scene in “A Suitable boy”. Later that day, it was two squirrels on the tamarind tree branch by the rear entrance.


Best part was the night sky view. So many stars, not visible to naked to eyes in Bangalore, twinkled in its full glory. From Jupiter in Gemini to Mars in libra to raising venus early morning, the whole star lit night was fabulous under the open sky. Early morning Venus, Navami moon, Antares in Scorpio and Mars were in one straight line. For the first time, could see the rashis as given in internet pictures.

While my niece eagerly looked at Jupiter and other nakshatras I showed her on sky, akka dismissed off venus saying, I see it everytime. Velli mullaicha, mantriki Apathu. (If venus raises, it is dangerous for ministers/politicians) and then dawned the aha moment. How did I miss it? It is so obvious.

The crowing cocks were our alarm clocks. No canned water, it was cauvery water with its natural minerals. After a sunrise and sunset 1 hour walk to the river and back home, piping hot food would be ready for a growling tummy. Every meal had at least 2 green leafy vegetables, plucked from the garden. Vegetables were from relative’s garden. Milk unpasteurized straight from cow’s udder. Simple life, peaceful.

Ahneeka procedure
Wish had read this before travelling all the way for a river dip like our guruji had said.

• Water should not less than knee deep.
• Take bath against tide, in other places, bathing should be facing sun
• Women should get inside till water reaches their lower lips and take bath, guys till chest (obviously)
• Even rivers have periods (exception Ganga), first three days during July-August lunar month

Pleasant Surprise

Am on cloud 9.

Books that came on their own, books that are still close to my heart:

• There was March 1st distant relative who gave me first colourful glossy Lori Reid book on “The Art of Hand reading” when folks thought I had leukemia after 12th std and this came to me on BHEL hospital bed
• There was a Feb 15th guy, who gave me a guru shisya samvada – which built my basics in astrology in 2000.
• After 2000, 14 years later my Dec 9 yoga colleague presented me Vedic Mathematics by Bharati Krsn tirthaji.

Am so happy… This will be something I really really treasure….Glad to get such a lovely gift today.

Just when I was struggling with astrology calculations, simple ephemeris q, to find the year based on sat-ju placement – eod astrology is applied math, was presented with this amazing book. Though was certified in Vedic math in 2010 by e-gurukul, could not apply it beyond competitive exams. I could remember only what I taught to kids, what I didn’t teach, I conveniently forgot. Need to teach to learn actually.

One gets Bhadra mahapurush yoga only due to guru’s blessings for teaching freely what was learnt.

We have a saying that  knowledge in books and money lent to others, in times of need, it is neither your knowledge nor your money. So stopped buying books. I just read voraciously in book shops and move on without buying a book and carrying and adding on to excessive luggage. I share a 80*80 with 3 other girls and lesser luggage, more space to breath and sleep.

Funny, mana prasannatah, utsaah, everything restored now. Of late, had been hurting myself, my right hand index knuckle got slit, deeply nicked my left hand apollo finger tip, that made it keying difficult, this morning, bled my inner lower lip in the left side by accidentally banging on wall, long before my left thigh just below hip. All pains vanished with this gift. Funny!

Kai kaal Mulaitha Rojapoos

Never felt baby pink so close to my heart. 7:30-8:00 am was sun basking for my twin nieces and it was a wonder holding them. 1 month premature, 50 gms plus or minus 2.5 kgs, amazing kids. One kuvaaa sound, everyone was at the cradle. Could not sleep even for 1 hour at a stretch. My sister’s SIL was watching the drips and she was awake till 4 am. Everyone is taking turns to sleep. LSCS means lower segment C-section. Meconium is black as coal tar. Got practical lessons on holding new borns.

Di-zygotic twins
The bigger one had sis’ O+ve and smaller one had big BIL’s B+ve. When I saw those bundled treasures, just melted.

All that is still embedded in my inner eye are the two babies, their soft kuvaas. You just touch them once or hold them reassuringly and they get back to sleeping peacefully, doing all those enticing antics in their sleep. Their images are still brimming in my eyes. Anything for them.

Sis was the largest baby. She is slowly learning to sit, to take few steps, go to the loo on her own. Will be months before she gets ok. The pain in her eyes, would get tears to everyone’s eyes. Everyone was quite disappointed that both were girls. The third girl in the family (including BIL’s sister’s daughter), that BIL has to take care of, 5 if one were to included his sister and my sister.

Doctors’ Dilemma
My sister was concerned, if the skin was fully formed. My BIL was concerned that bilirubin should be ok after the 9th feeding, since twins had a high likelihood of developing jaundice. He had already done all the tests with reports sent to Hongkong for genetic anomalies in 1st trimester itself. So they were doing these post-partum tests as a complement it seems. Funny, to have knowledge of all the complications that could come up.

When Your Super Senior Comes for rounds

Most visiting friends were her batch mate doctors practicing nearby in SRM and the like. So yesterday, when yet another doctor said in her peter English, sorry K, we cannot have more than 1-2 visitors at time, only then, I learnt that my nieces were one month premature.

Then sis started relating story of how a hi-fi batch my BIL’s batch was. The doctor was ss’ super senior and BIL’s senior. BIL’s batch had SRMC Uddayar’s grandson studying. It also had Governor Reddy’s grand-daughter and lots of NRIs. So when BIL scored a goal against the grandsons team in football. For the next round, he and others playing well, were asked to play without shoes and socks. Only during university level football matches, they became friends. Ok leave side stories.

God’s amazing way of inculcating responsibility. Child is indeed the father of the man.