Mera Rang De Basanti, Kapooraa Oye

Mahendra Kapoor is no more.

My mind goes back to 1960s, November, when the annual Nehru Bal Mela (Children’s fair) was being conducted in Delhi, Children’s Park. And yours truly, as a sub-ten year old, took part in the songs competition and started to sing a Mahendra Kapoor song, “He neele gagan ke tale”, from the movie Hamraaz… I had barely warmed up singing the first few lines, when the judges stopped me… They said “no film songs”… and then noticing the shock on my schoolkid face, they conferred, and asked me to go ahead, “but this song will not be considered for the prize”, they told me…

Well, that was ok… I sang…A song that kind of opens up the lungs, and goes fills the sky…

Mahendra Kapoor was a whole band transformed into one voice. There was metal, percussion, air and more, combining as one voice, that kind of surrounded you, picked you up clean, and carried you away, to the realm of the sentiment of the song…

The could be light, guitar strumming, feet on beat songs like ‘laakho.n hai yahaa.N dilavaale, aur pyaar nahii.n milataa’ ,  ‘aadhaa hai cha.ndramaa raat aadhii’, or ‘aa.Nkho.n me.n qayaamat ke kaajal’ …

Or serious songs of romance like “tere pyaar kaa aasaraa chaahataa huu.N” and “tum agar saath dene kaa vaadaa karo”…

Or deep from heart, songs of anguish, like “”andhere me.n jo baiThe hai.n”, “kisii patthar kii muurat se muhabbat kaa iraadaa hai”, “aap aaye to Kayaal-e-dil-e-naashaad aayaa”, “aur nahii.n bas aur nahii.n”…

Or Citizen-march-on songs like “hai priit jahaa.N kii riit sadaa”, “mere desh kii dharatii, sonaa ugale ugale hiire motii”… and some that I like even more, “meraa ra.ng de basa.ntii cholaa oye rang de” and  “na mu.Nh chhupaa ke jiyo aur na sar jhukaa ke jiyo”…

Mahendra Singh has left this earth, perhaps telling us, as he went – “chalo ik baar phir se, ajanabii ban jaae.n ham dono”…

But that cannot be. The sky can never become a stranger to the earth…

he-y! niile gagan ke tale, dharatii kaa pyaar pale
aise hii jag me.n, aatii hai.n subahe.n
aise hii shaam Dhale! …

A day trip from Chennai

Tuesday. Morning 6:30 am, we set off from Chennai.

Destination: The temple town of Sri Kalahasti.

Except for the spaghetti  traffic crush at the Padi junction, the ride is smooth, and we are soon cruising past Redhills, down the Nellore-Calcutta national highway. Somewhere on the highway we stop at a toll gate. The toll tariff for ‘same-day-return’ is just Rs 15/-.

A few kilometers before a place called Tada, there is a road branching left to Kalahasti, by the side of an overpass.   We were doing good time, making it here in just over an hour.

The road to Kalahasti was not bad at all. Pretty much motorable.  This is a forty plus few kilometers stretch, with fields on both sides, ..

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Soon we had hills in the horizon, and far on the right we could see the top of a temple tower..

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Sometime around 8:45 am or so, we were in Kalahasti town. Took a room in a hotel near the temple. Some pongal-vadaiu breakfast later, we set out for the temple.

Here is a picture of one of the temple entrance Gopurams.

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The temple is a huge one, spread over around 5 acres. It is on the banks of Swarnaukhi river, which is now, sadly,  a trickle. Going past the first Gopuram, we enter a long shopping street inside. Nice bustle, like a village fair. A riot of colors, little shanty shops, shopkeepers chanting sales mantras, it is a real consuming experience.

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At the end of the shopping street, there is an official ‘leave your footwear here’ place on the right.

We enter the temple proper, and there is a smaller gopuram on our right, leading to the shrines of Kasi Vishwanatha and Annapurneshwari, Going straight down, we find a long queue of people, leading to the Patala Ganapati shrine – the underground shrine of Vinayaka. Lots and lots of people with heads clean shaven. On the right is a mandapam where expert barbers offer tonsure services. There is a small two-pillared mandapam, in front of a shrine of Ganapati built flush into the temple wall.

We enter the hundred pillared hall built by Krishna Deva Raya. It is adorned with wonderful sculptures. Somewhere along the way we see Nandi, the bull, facing the temple wall – in fact facing an opening in the inner wall of the temple, with a direct view of the Lord of the Kshetra, Sri Kalahasteeshwara.

We enroll for Rudrabhishkea. The sankalpa performed by the temple priests is awesome. The temple reverberates with the power of the mantras that they chant. First abhishekam is to the Goddess of the Kshetra, Jnanaprasoonambika. A beautiful, tall idol of the Goddess is bathed with sacred waters, accompanied by prayer chants. What an ambiance!

Next, we proceed to the main sanctum-sanctorum, of Lord Sri Kalahastishwara. This place is one of the panca-bhoota-sthala, the five primary places of worship of Lord Siva, associated with the primary elements. Kalahasti is Vayulinga, associated with ‘wind’ element. Inside the sanctum, there are lamps whose flame are always flickering, blown by wind, indicating the presence of Vayulinga. The physical idol is a tall Siva linga, at least around 4 or 5 feet high, narrow, with a jagged top, resembling hoods of a snake. The name Sri Kalahasti comes from three unique devotees – Sri the spider, Kala the snake, and Hasti the elephant, who worshipped Siva here. The priest shows the marks of these three in the idol in the sanctum-sanctorum. The abhishekam of the Lord to the accompaniment of Rudra chant is a very elevating experience.

Around 1 pm, we step out of the temple to have some lunch. We get back to the temple by 2:30 pm or so. This temple is really huge, and takes some seeing. Around 3 pm, one sees long rows of people performing kala-sarpa-dosha-nivarana puja. People  who have to appease the effects of Rahu-Ketu dasha come here and offer worship to Rahu-Ketu.

There are so many shrines and idols. There must be scores of Siva lingas all over. A thousand faced siva linga, a hundred and eight faced siva linga, and so on. A temple well (now closed) has the waters of Patala Ganga. The temple has seen the contribution of several lines of Kings, starting from the Pallavas, followed by Tondaman, Kulothunga Chola, down to Krishna Deva Raya and more. Nattukottai Chettiars are also said to have contributed a great amount to the temple.

All in all, this sacred Siva Kshetra is a must see. It can be easily done as a day trip from Chennai. The temple does draw large crowds, so it may be better to go on a non-holiday. Next to the temple is a hill, steps leading up to the temple of the great Saivaite saint Kannappa Nayanar – the hunter saint. It is to Kalahastishwara that Kannappa offered his very eye. The temple has heard the singing of Appar, Sundarar, and Jnana Sambandar. No wonder the temple is known as Dakshina Kailasha .

Signing off this post with a picture of one of the old trees in the temple.

Nama Sivaya!

Arunachala – Another picture post

Peacocks at Ramanashramam….

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Went with Ravi and family to skandashramam on Arunachala hill.

heres what the trail looks like…

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Relaxing in the hill, on the way to Skandashramam….

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Ravi, family pic… inside Skandashramam….

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View of the magnificent Arunachaleshwara temple, from the hill…

One more view… From near Skandashramam…

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Santosham!

Milky Way, a seen poem

“She wants me
to sit right here”,
says the birthday boy,
sitting cross-legged
down on the ground
his back leaning
on the legs and knees
of his mother
who is sitting on a chair.

The party is on…
And he sits right there,
next to his mom,
who keeps running her hand
through his hair
pats him on his cheek
and shoulders…

Blooming-blushing
in joy, he turns
to look up
at his mom’s
loving eyes,
like a lily
the moon.

Had the guests
been celestials
surely
they would have rained
flowers…

As such
they watch in wonder,
For this
is one special birthday…

The mom,
Who had been just nineteen
when this boy was born,
is pure moonbeams, now,
a thousand full moons later,
beaming with him
As he turns eighty…

The Artful Dodger

My college classmate Joe is a head full of pictures. He can draw, sculpt, design, think outside the box… Kind of person who keeps the class egroup provoked with invitations to think (which is not inviting to many), stoke purpose of life kind of discussions… Were he a cloud, he would have rained in color… Here’s a recent mail of his… just a lil story… a pickle of pictures… enjoy

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I just recalled an event in school this morning. Wonder if I had written about this before. Age being what it is, one can’t be too sure!

Sebastian PA was  the most talented ‘Dodger’ I have ever seen. He could dodge anything from a ball thrown at him while playing ‘kings’,to  people lunging at him to ‘SAT’ him or arms shot out to him to take the basket ball away from him. He was as flexible & as unpredictable as water drops on a yam leaf. In a flash he would outwit even a quickest amongst us and slime off much leaving us fuming in fury and humiliation.  But before he hit the basket ball scene seriously ( to being a Madras university player eventually ) he was someone who didn’t give a #@*^^#  to being in a basket ball game or playing it. In fact most teams would not take him as he was forever faking throws, making fools of attackers and laughing devilishly to go past them effortlessly. Those days he was more interested in just that than in netting the ball. Eventually he was taken in by WA John and soon he was playing seriously ( or was he? i am sure he still was devilishly laughing at all of us inside!!).

The incident I am to describe took place before his transformation into a star basket ball player. We were in the 9th or so and a Kabaddi match was on under the watchful eyes of WAJ. It was an unbalanced team with weaklings like me, Sebstian, Patrick, Wilfred Pinto and so on against the likes of Izam, Arthur James, Harikesh, Aslam, Chandramohan and other muscular entities of our time.  We would get picked up like praying mantises by Aslam and gang, as we went in praying ‘kabaddi,kabaddi..please don’t break my haddi-haddi… kabaddi kabaddi”.  And when one of them would stroll in mumbling the same mantra (without the prayer of course) no one would dare grab a leg or torso for fear of losing a tooth and ending up in their court as he strolled back ! Eventually everyone in our team got out except for ….Sebastian PA.

So there it was people – a scene to behold as a shaky and visibly worried Sebastian alone Vs the muscle unnis of the school waiting to tear him apart like chicken in a KFC factory ! Every one was laughing at the chances this skinny lad had against the collective might of half a ton of Bournvita bred muscles. I was laughing too as he stood at the line before entry into their side of the court. But something inside me told me things are not going to be as predicted – not with Sebastian! I must admit that WA John did tell him “Go in!! Be brave “.

I remember seeing fear in Sebastian’s eyes as he stood there waiting to go in like a fly into the Venus fly trap. And then he made his move! As you all know, he had to reach a line drawn inside the court before he can get back for it to be a genuine attempt. He seemed to have decided to run straight in, get caught as safely as possible and end the agony of anticipated certain death. But the ‘Dodger’ in him took over I think. For what happened was simply stunning! He went like a rocket without a stabilizing tail fin. He just wove in & out between the arms reaching out to grab him as he held his hands on his head protecting it, crouching, ducking and evading instinctively as he went straight in to this maze of clutching arms and muscled fingers ready to clasp on. Everyone made contact with him in their attempt to grab him once at least but each one of them lost their grip on this Dodger of Jwalagiri. And before anyone knew it, he was out from their midst having zigzagged in & out of that zone beyond the line and was back in our court!

There was disbelief at first. Then there was this roar of celebrations from us skinnies that drowned the usual protests from the muscle brigade. But WA John would have none of the protestors! He declared all of them out except for Devadas or Eugene i think… We were all in and i remember Wilfred and his brother Patrick catching their lone little member as he came in. We won!!

And thus ends the legend of Sebastian PA against the Muscle Unnis.

Moral of the story: Even if your chances at something are as bad as the formation of life in the primordial soup, take heart in this story! Be brave & go in.