Chottanikkara temple

Chotanikkara Temple
Chotanikara  Bhagavathy temple is one of the famous Devi temples of central kerala situated around 30 km from Ernakulam city .
Its just around 10 km drive from where my house   .
A temple with several legends and a very popular one too .
During Sabarimala season as this forms part of pilgrim circuit it is very crowded .

Bhagavathi or Devi is supposed to be in three forms here one in resplendent white dress as a fount of learning and creatitvity blessing devotees with intelligence the  Godess Saraswathi in the mornings .

As crimson adorned Mahalakshmi the Godess of wealth at noon ,and
 blue attired Sree Durga the Godess of power in the evening .

The temple is an example of ancient temple architecture of Vishwakarma .

It was once admidst dense forests when it was built with several tales to its origin .

One talks of a tribal devoted to the Godess who used to sacrifice an young calf as his offering every day but  he loses his beloved daughter as a punishment for the sin of seperating calves from thier mother cows and regrets his actions ,while searching for his daughters corpse in the forest he comes across two divine stones one is Vishnu and other Devi .
Kanappan the tribal prays to the stones every day to forgive his sins .later after his death for years they lie in the forest forgotten till a grasscutter  attempts to sharpen his knives they bleed so later a temple is built there which is Chitanikara temple .
Another story talks of Adi Sankara who in his travels pleads to mother Godess in Chamundi hills to come to kerala as there was no temple to the Godess there .
The supreme mother tells she would follow  him but he should not be tempted to look back to see if she is following him .
Adi sankara agrees walks all way from Mooghambika in kodajadri hills  listening to silver anklet of Godess tinkling .
At one time not hearing sound he sneaks a look back and Godess says since he broke promise she would stay there in Moogambika .
Adi sankara pleads with her to reconsider her decision ,impressed by his sincere devotion the mother tells him that she would be in kerala at dawn in white and would return back to mookambika by noon
Thats why chotanikara temple opens at early dawn a bit earlier than mookambika .

The temple on a small hillock has a gradual  descent into a kali or fierce form of Godess Durga in the Keezkaavu which was supposed to have been built later when swami vilvamangalam found the idol in the temple pond .
The keezkaavu is associated with cure of mental illnesses and many devotees who believe in this stay here for days to pray as penance .
The trees inside have strands of thier hair nailed on them as a belief that thier sickness is nailed to tree .
Faith and belief may have strong placebo effects these are medically proven too .
One of the most famous days here is the magam thozhal when the Godess is given a ritualistic bath in temple pond later taken in seven caprisoned elephants into poora parambhu with Sastha as escort where she stays till 11 am .
At 2 pm she is dressed in her best with jewelery ,arms ,sanghu  puspham  ,and gives a befitting visual spectactle blessing those able to see her form into eternal bliss .

Secular me

Though I share this post  its not to prove any minority credentials ..
no Indian needs that .
In everyday life Indians are quite happy with each other ,and hardly see each other with coloured glasses of religion ,or caste .

Its only in pages of newspapers or in TV screens , or in social media that  we hear stories of bigotism ,incidents of insinuations,discrimination,intolerances and fundamentalistic acts ,terrorist attacks, arson ,and immediately a sense of distrust is created .

Above all the politician of all hues and party though they describe themselves as secular ,labelling their opponents as communal ,are the prime reason for driving wedges amongst communities .

In day to day life people live , laugh , love , litter ,with neighbours ,co passengers coleauges ,classmates,friends,casual contacts,service people and no one is bothered about these two factors which is how it should be and is .

There are umpteen incidents of people pitching in for each other ,helping each other ,assisting strangers taking part in joint local celebrations ,holidays as a united group .

Most festivals, in the country are celebrated with much fanfare by all communities
I used to look forwards to xmas for taking part in midnight carols  when young,
for Ramadhan when in Brunei and UAE for the general bonhomie of iftars and fast breaks
 in fact a couple of times i too had fasted alongwith
On Bakrid we used to get some excellent meat as our share from neighbours .

I still remember my dads sardar friend telling me about Golden temple in Amristar which i had the fortune to visit last year .

I love old Kerala churches with thier qauint roofed buildings ,old mosques

 In Malappuram district where I hail from
In my dads place in Tirur I can never forget an old retainer who was there even when my dad was young ,we just called him maplah ,whenever we came for holidays he would be around ,silent but cheerful .
People interact ,respect,have friendships ,share thier problems and celebrate in day to day life without much barriers or apprehensions or pretensions .

They respect each others faiths ,dont intrude or interfere , live and let live .

Its when these walls,are broken by conversions , incursions , and ridicules of traditions that there is irritation and anger , and we all know who causes those
Fundamentalists and politicians who gain by splitting people
If only all knew this truth and turned in unity against these two dissiparous forces , how our nation would change

Railway houses

The stories they tell .....
These are houses along the  Railway line on the way to Madras ..no not Chennai as the days these houses existed with its people was when it was Madras .

These houses housed Raiway staff like gaurds ,station masters,engine drivers,etc .

Most in days of the British hailed from Anglo indian community which was the same till about 2 to 3 decades following independence ,
remember the malayalam film Chattakari based on an anglo indian engine drivers daughter .
Most migrated to thier home country or England or to Australia  .

Slowly Indians occupied these houses and later they were abandoned to become shells .
If one stands by their side in empty moonlight I am sure one can hear the tinkle of glasses , the chords of the piano  ,  the clink of glasses in the flickering light of candles and a robust
 good night dahling Rosie .
You bet Fredrick

Love Dosa

Love Dosa

This picture is from last year .
Shyam with his all time favourite dosa .
Premila his mum is happy to wait for those rare moments when Shyam is waiting for her dosa in the table .
She would pour not dough but love on to the pan to make it a golden symbol of motherhood .
The dosa would come just the way he wanted ,golden crisp ,glowing, aromatic warm and delicious .
Right from the hot pan into the plate the proud dosa would be carried by the doting mamma to her waiting son .

There was a time when she needed to stop him from eating more than was good , for a chubby Shyam then ,but these days the number Ten ex captain of BHU IITs football team looked after his tall lithe body , and no dosa could change that, though mummies dosa almost did at times .

I would watch this parade of dosas with amusement as mom and son would argue over the number of dosas which need to be eaten !

And so she waits for that elusive son of ours to turn a bit  ,from the evolution of stars in his astrophysics lab  and come home to a hearthy good dosa by mamma .

Marudamalai

On our drive back from Aanaikattu resorts near Coimbatore we saw the board Marudamalai .

we remembered the famous tamil song marudamalai maamaniye murugaya .

We heard we could drive up the 600 ft hillock where the  temple was ,as we werent looking forwards to a climb in the very hot sun .

So we drove towards marudamalai .

We bought the vehicle ticket drove up,road was quite good and plenty of traffic including some buses .
Only nearing top the bends were bit sharp .
Parking was good crowds were reasonable
We still had to climb around 50 to 75 steps but there was a roof to provide shade and a gentle breeze
And then we were at the  top gazing at the 12 th century temple.
It had a majestic gopura
We got into line
In a short time we were in front of altar .

The place was so called because of abundance of Marudha trees .

There was also a saint called paambaaty sidfhar or snake yogi who lived long back in the hills .

Hes said to have a tunnel ftom his cave to Sanctum sanctorum of temple directly and was supposed to have used it to pray .

Murugan was very handsome and glowing
We particularly were grateful for this unexpected oppurtnity to visit the temple .

After some photos and buying prasadam we were on our way to palghat for  a stopover in premilas uncles house meeting her cousins and back to cochin .

The highway from coimbatore to cochin was perfect but for short stretches

Remarkable change indeed .

Enid blyton and other books

This picture by a friend with mutual reading  taste brought me back nostalgia in a rush .

I used to love Enid Blyton books think till around 8 to 12 years of age .
Mostly borrowed from friends houses very rarely bought but i read plenty .
I used to live those adventures with the five in the famous five series .
They lived in cold England and me in warm Madras but i did go through their stories as if they were mine .
Enid Blyton the lady author wrote more than 600 childrens books and was one of the seven most popular writers ever .
There were lot of criticisms too on her habit of doing no research but just writing spontaneously
She used to tell "writing to me needs no planning, its there in my underbrain ,all the plots the stories just roll in once i sit to write ."
In a very teeny weeny way I am that sort ,
I hardly think of plots or posts or read them back it just flows and I forget !

Please dont conclude on me of having any airs I just alluded to the way I write .

Later came Biggles ..a first world war pilot John wrote them
this man wrote about first war aeroplanes .
with angled caps the brave pilot Biggles would fly his rattling machines jumping without parachutes and do other such dare devilries .
The cartoon heroes of Mandrake ,phantom,later Archies filled my mind in time with the mushrooming of lending libraries in Madras .
Then I graduated to the wholly yankee sinister plotted James hadley Chase with his description of Bronx burgers and crocodile shoe wearing Sicilian mafia men .
Harold Robbins butted in later when adolescent hormones were bubbling over and the heated bedroom scenes were the first soft porn of our times .
Fredrick forshyths Day of Jackal brought more maturity to asaasins professionalism and thier sniper prowesses .
Those were the days of such films too .
Then came the fat novels of Leon uris like Exodus etc wherien history was melded into fiction
By then I did discover Indian authors and enjoyed many specially Amitav Ghosh and Vikram dutt
Arundhati Roy with her impressionable first book later turned into a secular harlot with dark commie fantasies as her writings and became despicable .
I enjoyed biographies by then and now too do
Though after FB my reading has dwindled a lot
Can I ever end anything on reading without mentioning my most favourite plum affectionately so called by fans of
 P.G Wodehouse .
I will read him till i die .

Odiyan ....film review

Odiyan was a movie i missed in theater .
Mostly a north kerala phenomenon odiyans are a mix of black magicians, illusionists ,martial art experts ,mime artists,animal camouflague experts and paid to use their art to scare enemies in the sixties to seventies .
My mother and grandmother told us stories of how odiyans waited in narrow edozhys or paths in the pre electric era and spring on them suddenly to strike mortal fear and at times even death by fear .
They were masters in imitating animals like cattle,deer,wild animals .
Usually thier wives were supposed to do black art pujas to support them during this time in thier houses and any faults on thier parts resulted in thier failures .
The story has Mohanlal as an odiyan trained by his grandfather and having a romantic mutual attraction to a lady of a tharavad or family and who is blamed for murders by a jealous family villain who commits the murder .
The climax comes when the odiyan who had escaped the wrath of the village to return in his old age by then to a more modern electric lighted village which scoffs at the art .
But the odiyan with his skills has the last laugh by an extended climax a couple of good songs and built up horror scenes as a mix of romantic suspense horror fictional story .
Though not perfect the difficult subject was weaved well and saved by the brilliant histrionics of mohanlal and manju warrier .

My cousin sent me this
Read more on odiyans

https://valluvanadtimes.com/2009/12/25/odiyan/

Etumanoor temple

Ettumanoor Shiva temple is one of the three famous temples in Kottayam dt .
The others are Vaikom and Kaduthuruthy

Demon Kara was given three lingas by lord Shiva after his penance
He carried one each on his right and left hand and third in his mouth
They fell in 3 near bye places and today they are Ettumanur ,vaikom and kaduthuruthy .
Once a metal worker came to sell a huge lamp but was ridiculed by the dewasom official
The worker felt sad and appealed to the Lord
Immediately the lamp got stuck and the authorities bought the lamp .
This lamp is seen in front filled to brim with oil and the excess pouring into a vessel below .its wick burns eternally .
Thulabharam or weighing oneself with bananas or sugar or jaggery or anything and offering it to the lord is done in the front .
The temple is constructed in traditional kerala form and is a symbol of the skills of the vishwakarma stapabhatis .
The present form came into being in 1542
Its said pandavas and sage Vyasa used to pray here and Adhi sankaracharya wrote his Soundarya lahiri from here .
The festival of those great temple falls in February March and on the 8th or 9th day a big event happens
Its the exhibition of the ezhara Ponaanaa ie seven and half golden elephants in Malayalam .
These are 2 feet wooden figuerttes covered by gold leaf of elephants one amongst them only 1 foot .
This was offered to the temple by Anizham thirunal Marthanda Varma the Maharaja of Travancore though some say though so willed the transfer took place only in the time of his successor karthika thirunal .
The reason given was to condone for unpleasantness happened during annexation of Thekkumcore with Travancore ,another version says it was a thanksgiving to have stopped the advance of the fanatic bigot Tipu Sultan southwards .

The festival is in kumbha maasam february march and on 8th day of ten day festival 
Though I had visited this temple several times I was happy to do it again 

Puthankulangara temple

Living in Thripunithura we never knew of this lovely temple.
Just 5 km from our house is the ancient Puthankulangara Sivan temple .
It has a very intresting history .
The Pandavas during thier banishment is given a house to stay but due to Duryodhanas deviousness its a house made of wax so that it could be burnt when they are inside .
The pandavas realised there was some stealth behind their stay they built a tunnel from house to use when needed.
As they feared the house was put on fire and they escaped through the tunnel but in the process all of them suffered painful burns by the fire .
Kunthi devi prayed to lord Krishna to relieve them of their ailment .
Vishnu asked them to pray in the Siva temple of one place and kunti devi doing so the lord removed thier problems .
Its this temple that was used by the pandavas .
It was renovated by the Mampattu bhatathiri family who managed the temple for many years till it was was given to a Tulu family 

 .

In 1492 it was renovated .

Later a Cochin thampuran added Bhagavathy depicting kodungaloor amma who came to be close to her devotee who was bedridden .

Shaktan thampuran ruled Cochin in 1800 and the temple was renovated then .
His skin disease vanished after his phyisical labour for the temple .
In 1790 when Tipu Sultan came to kerala with his hordes of savages destroying temples murdering raping pillaging converting a devotee of a temple in Malabar ran with a Saastha idol and this too was installed here .
The temple today is known for its beauty its neatness with levelled green lawns symetrical granite patgways trees flowering plants and medicinal plants .
It has trees corresponding to all astrological stars
Murals depicting its legends adorn its walls .
It has alovely pond.
Mahavishnu too has a small temple like bhagavathy and Saastha .
Its a treat to photograph this temple the air was pristine with a gentle breeze from the giant banyan tree ,devotees were circumbulating a silver chariot used in ceremonies was seen and lovely huge lamps temple flagstaff etc .
It was an unforgettable temple indeed .