Mookambika Shethram North Parur

Dahskina Mookambika temple is in North Parur also called Paravur in Malayalam .

There is a South Parur in Kottayam dt .

And I think another Parur somewhere near Kasargod not sure .

The place is around 18 km from Ernakulam and is on NH 66 the narrow highway to Guruvayur and beyond .

It's also a nidus of historical happenings and becoming a tourist center under Muziris project .

The intertwined of local history that of Cochin kingdome its attacks by Samorins of Calicut ,Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan ,Portuguese and Dutch finally the British .

The advent of Jews early in century the earliest mosque in India Cheraman mosque is in Kodungallur not very far from Parur .

The migration of Gowda Sarawath Brahmins from Konkan area due to Portugese persecution was from here down to Cochin .

The temple itself was built 500 years back by local king 

Paravur Thampuran an ardent devotee of Mookambika devi in Kollur Dakshina Karnataka .

As he becomes aged he feels sad he is not able to travel to Kollur to worship in his favourite temple and the Godess appears in his dream tells him to build a temple for her in his place and she would be there too .

And so this temple was constructed 

It's a small very cute temple and faces a huge temple tank .

The sanctum sanctorum is in middle of a lotus pond and devotees walk over a small bridge to pray to Devi .There are smaller idols of Maha vishnu  ,Subramanya ,Hanuman ,Yakshi ,and Naga Devata.and Veera Bhadran .

Every day at 7.30 pm Kashaya Nivedhyam to instill wisdom is given as Prasad as Mookambika Amma is Godess Saraswati who is Godess of learning and intelligence and creativity .

The daily Pooja  are conducted by thanthris  of Puliyanoor mana of Thripunithura 

Navratri Puja is main festival and Vidyarambham most important date in year .

 

Photo story again

 Stories from photos

His Royal highness Rawal Sunderlal Singh was part of a long line of rulers from 12 th century AD when his great grandfather Rawal Jaisal Singh had started the empire of Jaisalmer pushed through war from the great swathe of land they ruled starting from  Afghangistan .

They were a salute state of the British empire ie a state that deserved a gun salute .

Singh looked  at the man sitting across him , from the hard glass  of frosted exteriors as the icy rocks sloshed the brown liquid the fine whisky .

He sipped into it savouring its oaky casked flavour and swished its rye raunchiness of a true scotch .

The man with the hat in his jeep he had glimpsed in the courtyard surely wasnt a tourist he played to convey .

The suns burnish in the coppery skies and the chill of a november evening in the desert with him sitting on the sandstone turret of a towering fort .

He looked down to the teeming market as busy as ever at this time .

And then he heard a distant rumble of the sturdy jeep the man with the hat drove and saw a fine haze of dust bellow as it wound into the desert  .

A silhoutte of slowly lumbering camels on the dunes never hid the by now tiny jeep steaming ahead .

Was this the man from RAW he was tipped about

The one whose mission in life was definitely not what he feared but still his focussed gaze when they met had  disturbed him .

He turned to his old retainer standing with his walrus moustache 

Oh kon he ?

Oh ....... laughed Hukum Singh

Oh tho ek malayalee aadmi he 

Idhar se uski daddha rehte he 

 pehle saal phir ,

unka uske baath enquire karne ke aane he ,

Koi RAW aadmi ,aur police waale officer nahi ,maharaj

Ye tho maamuli aadmi he 

Koyi gadbad nahi he saab !!

 

I just heard all this in my custom built Bose  ear piece

 one of a kind .

The same mini mike Hukum singh was given to plant on the king  😊😁

It was good indeed .

Lady in a Hood

 Lady in a hood....

The dusk had fallen

The moon peeped through the white domes of the magnificient Sheikh Zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi

I quickened my pace to catch a glimpse of an etheral beauty in black purdah !

The cold of the desert on a december evening was felt in my bones ....

There was a stretch  of fine sand I had to cross to reach the milling crowds , but by then the damsel had melded into the horizon , disappearing like a mirage in the desert .

I waived my way through jostling the crowd to angry stares !!

No i cant miss her again !

It was my soul that was calling me not my mind for I was numb for long .

The long lines parted .

The sombre altar of spirituality was serene in its peace .

The marble reflected the purity of divinity .

There was an aura of inner solace undescribed in the bowels of the monument .

The whispering shuffle of foots on the Iranian carpets hardly broke the sepulchural silence .

The kaleidoscopy of the chandeliers reflected the multiplicity of humans milling below .

Where can I search for the elusive her in this hall of mirrors ?

It was like in a dream

The fog of time crept into eternity .

Awareness extended to infinity

I was lost in a trance .

I walked away

I came to stand in the moonlight .

For a change I was alone far from the crowd inside the mosque .

The dew of the grass touched my bare foot

It cooled my insides

I wanted to lie down

When I felt a presence

I knew who it was

It was her standing before me the veil removed with a beatific smile on her face !

And then I woke up it was deja vu 

Iam in Umayyad mosque in ancient city of Damascus ,Syria .

I knew i will find her 

I had searched the sepulchured city of Damascus ,its inner streets domed in ancient tunneled walkways ,sandstone fountains,walked its cobbled streets with a distant mandolin sounding its haunting strains .

The devout moved in silent piety 

I too walked and searched

I climbed a camel in sandy palmyra 

I saw Roman ruins sat in its broken strps of stadiums where gladiators had stabbed into giant lions or convicts and slaves fought to death

The hills of Sydnera and maloula searching for the hood and the lady

I was cold tired hungry and gazed into the fog and the distant city of Damascus from the Cassion hills 

I had limped through the bullet ridden walls of the old city nd its narrow streets where sufi dances and dervishes swirled on esctasy

I looked carefully amongst them for hooded mysteries 

And the i saw her standing in front of me 

The end if a search 

We walked out our hands interwined gazing into the moonlight and disappeared into the darkness .

Spun this from our visit to Sheik zayed mosue in Abu Dhabi and to Syria  .