On Murugan's trail
On Murugan's trail
What do we do on Tamil New Year’s day? Precious little except laze around, in these days of nuclear families and hectic lifestyles, when you don’t have the time to participate in the family puja or enjoy the unique flavours and tastes of the sumptuous repast mother lays out for you. (For the uninitiated, the new year lunch has a bit of everything: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy. It’s about the only time neem forms part of the south Indian meal).
In recent times, the Tamil new year seems to have been relegated to a mere sideshow, with no one except TV stations paying any attention to it. The only other sign that it is a festive occasion is the much-hyped release of new films on the day. This year, after a considerable gap, we are told, films starring two major icons of Tamil cinema, Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan, opened to huge expectations.
Increasingly, Tamil families celebrate the native new year with less enthusiasm than they do its English counterpart, with the equivalent of midnight mass quite a prominent if incongruent ritual at most of our urban temples on 31st December. The number of greeting cards I receive has been going down steadily; this year I received none, though true to recent trends, a few friends sent me messages on my cellphone and a couple of others emailed me.
The first SMS I received on 14 April said 'Inia puthandu vazhthukkal'. It was from my good friend Anvar, whose devotion to Tamil rivals his passion for photography. I had run into him after a long gap the evening before, at a birthday party for Mr S Muthiah, the Man from Madras Musings. Years ago, Anvar and I did assignments together for Mr Muthiah. Our road trips together had been interesting experiences for me, especially when my two companions swapped stories from contemporary Tamil history. Depth of knowledge on the subject was hardly surprising in the older man, often described as a Madras historian, but I was more than impressed with the researcher's bent of mind the young photographer displayed.
During one of these freewheeling conversations, Anvar revealed his deep interest in the Murugan cult. It is his ambition to produce a film on the Aru padai veedu pilgrimage trail, involving travel to six Murugan temples and documenting the rituals and traditions observed by the simple folk who offer worship there.
On a personal level, Anvar promised the lord at Palani a couple of years ago that he would bring his wife soon after their wedding. He found out however that before he did that, he had to visit another Murugan temple at Tiruchendur in fulfilment of a vow by his bride's family! There, he disclosed his name and his wife's with some trepidation, while making a personal offering to the lord, but to his pleasant surprise, the priest not only blessed them, but wished them both a speedy return to the temple baby in hand.
Anvar is a devout Muslim and I often wonder what drives him on this particular mission. Is it a search for his roots, or is there a romance in the lore of a boy-god that transcends religion? I'll never know the answer but people like him give you hope. His New Year greetings brought back memories of happy times, and lightened for me the general gloom of the pathetic 'entertainment' our indefatigable TV channels offered throughout the day.
(First published in April 2005)
What do we do on Tamil New Year’s day? Precious little except laze around, in these days of nuclear families and hectic lifestyles, when you don’t have the time to participate in the family puja or enjoy the unique flavours and tastes of the sumptuous repast mother lays out for you. (For the uninitiated, the new year lunch has a bit of everything: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy. It’s about the only time neem forms part of the south Indian meal).
In recent times, the Tamil new year seems to have been relegated to a mere sideshow, with no one except TV stations paying any attention to it. The only other sign that it is a festive occasion is the much-hyped release of new films on the day. This year, after a considerable gap, we are told, films starring two major icons of Tamil cinema, Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan, opened to huge expectations.
Increasingly, Tamil families celebrate the native new year with less enthusiasm than they do its English counterpart, with the equivalent of midnight mass quite a prominent if incongruent ritual at most of our urban temples on 31st December. The number of greeting cards I receive has been going down steadily; this year I received none, though true to recent trends, a few friends sent me messages on my cellphone and a couple of others emailed me.
The first SMS I received on 14 April said 'Inia puthandu vazhthukkal'. It was from my good friend Anvar, whose devotion to Tamil rivals his passion for photography. I had run into him after a long gap the evening before, at a birthday party for Mr S Muthiah, the Man from Madras Musings. Years ago, Anvar and I did assignments together for Mr Muthiah. Our road trips together had been interesting experiences for me, especially when my two companions swapped stories from contemporary Tamil history. Depth of knowledge on the subject was hardly surprising in the older man, often described as a Madras historian, but I was more than impressed with the researcher's bent of mind the young photographer displayed.
During one of these freewheeling conversations, Anvar revealed his deep interest in the Murugan cult. It is his ambition to produce a film on the Aru padai veedu pilgrimage trail, involving travel to six Murugan temples and documenting the rituals and traditions observed by the simple folk who offer worship there.
On a personal level, Anvar promised the lord at Palani a couple of years ago that he would bring his wife soon after their wedding. He found out however that before he did that, he had to visit another Murugan temple at Tiruchendur in fulfilment of a vow by his bride's family! There, he disclosed his name and his wife's with some trepidation, while making a personal offering to the lord, but to his pleasant surprise, the priest not only blessed them, but wished them both a speedy return to the temple baby in hand.
Anvar is a devout Muslim and I often wonder what drives him on this particular mission. Is it a search for his roots, or is there a romance in the lore of a boy-god that transcends religion? I'll never know the answer but people like him give you hope. His New Year greetings brought back memories of happy times, and lightened for me the general gloom of the pathetic 'entertainment' our indefatigable TV channels offered throughout the day.
(First published in April 2005)
posted by Ramnarayan at 9:28 PM
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