December 2008 saw us making a trip to India. After two weeks of relaxation at parents place in Pune, we had decided to embark on an epic visit to temples in Tamil Nadu. Amma and myself started off first from Pune to Bangalore. After spending two days in Bangalore, catching up with friends we decided to head to Chennai and received Gopi and appa. From there begins the journey, starting with Chennai music festival followed by our epic journey. we visited many places but I would like to start with Mannargudi. Our driver for the trip's name was Rajani (it seems his father was a fan of Rajnikanth- filmstar and thats where he got his name). He comes from this town named Mannargudi.
Mannargudi was not in our itinerary of visit. We went to a couple of piligrim centres and Rajani was our guide for the trip. We had given him the entire responsibility of deciding the places. We used to halt the night at the last place of worship. But this time Rajani decided to change this trend. He decided to halt the night at Mannargudi. At first I thought Rajani stole the oppurtunity to visit Mannaargudi, his native place this way, since he had his sister living there. But I dint realise then what was in store for us the next day...The next day saw us getting ready to start for an other epic tour and Rajani said lets start with Rajagopal swamy temple Mannargudi. We reached there and appa had terrible knee ache, so it was only Gopi, myself and amma who made our way inside the temple.
The moment we entered the venue all three of us were struck with awe. The serenity of the place was the first thing that captured us, the gopuram is huge and the pillars are magnificent.The place was empty but there was this in-depth silence and the place was dark with sunlight trickling in from different places. Gopi, our photographer of the trip was busy capturing shots when the manager of the temple came and asked us to leave the camera in the temple office and collect it after the darshan. But then seeing the size of the camera (digital SLR, we fondly call it the mainframe) he decided to let it be with us but with the assurance that we dont take any more pics. We complied to his requests and proceeded further on. The temple seemed totally empty in that magnitude of space and then we come across this one priest and he does a small archana for us at a pillar and gives us kumkum and then we get to know that he is deaf and dumb. It really captivated us. We gave some dakshina and we moved on...Then we go to the main sanctum of Perumal, which was really beautiful and how I wished we were allowed to take pictures so that I can always cherish the sight. The priest performed an archana for the previous set of devotees and then it was our turn. He was one of the most humble and happy priest I saw. He had this beautiful serene smile on his face and he performed the archana for us. He then asked me if I would like to carry Santana Gopal in my hand and rock Him. It seems if you rock Santana Gopal and make a prayer, your wishes will be fulfilled and I happily obliged. The priest got a cradle out from inside the sanctum with baby Krsna lying in the cradle and gave the cradle to me. Gopi and amma joined in too and the priest rocked it for us with the three of us holding the cradle whilst chanting some mantras and we make our silent prayers. It was so captivating a moment. He asked us where are you from and amma replied to him that Gopi and I have come from Melbourne, Australia. He was happily listening to us while walking to and fro to the sanctum and also replying from in there. It felt so homely and he said that his brother has just finished training and is now a priest in the Venkateswara temple in Sydney. I just thought what a small world and how globalisation has taken its form. From there we made our way to Thayar's sanctum and there was a beautiful site awaiting us there too... Thayar in her beautiful pattu sari and graciously adorning the jewellery is such a beautiful sight, my imagination fails to perceive the magnanimity of Her beauty in Vaikuntha... From there we made our way to Lord Hanuman's sanctum, it was a quiet dark sanctum and again we came across a deaf and dumb priest. This time I was dumb struck, to see two people with the same disability at the same place seemed like too much of a deja-vu. Maybe my scope of vision is too primitive to realise that there could be many out there in that small town who cant hear and speak but at that particular instant I was just taken by surprise. After performing the archana for us, he took a paper and scooped out some prasadam for us in that. When I think back about that moment I feel like reaching out to them and wanting to do something for those priests. (I would maybe discuss this in my forth coming blogs). We take the prasadam and finish our darshan and start to head out of the temple. Thinking we just had a heavy breakfast before setting out to the temple, we decide to give the prasadam to someone in the temple. We saw a lady cleaning the temple premise and amma thought we can hand it over to her. The first unspoken priest we came across was watching us. The moment he saw us handing the prasadam to the sweeper lady, he expressed a silent disgust. I did feel embarassed at that moment and expressed it to amma. We came out quickly to join appa and Rajani who were waiting for us in the car. We were constantly praising the ambience of the place and the aura it held. There is a beautiful kolam outside the temple. All in all I enjoyed Mannargudi to the most.
All this time I was under the impression that RajaGopala swamy temple was less noticed and tucked in a small town until last week when I googled the place and came across some very interesting links. The temple is indeed very well known and has got a remarkable history behind it. Please read the following blog to get more information about the temple.
http://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2007/05/mannargudi-rajagopalaswamy-temple.html
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