Chasing Elephants... really!

Daddy spent two weeks with the kids and grandparents in Chennai when Mommy could not fly out thanks to insufficient vacation days and looming deadlines!

We spent a lot of quality time that week by making many visits to dads favorite Chennai hangout, the Kapaleeshwar Temple.

It happens to be a favorite for the kids too, with the star attraction being the stone elephants. They remembered the last encounter with the elephants, Jr. from memory and the little one from revisiting the blog.

We went there before "mottai"...and the little one started her termite act. Every 5 minutes she would make a request to see a real elephant and have it bless her. So I told her that we will see a real one when we get the mottai in Gunaseelam.

She was very happy and played to her hearts content. She reminded me so much of my brother because he would do the exact same thing, sit dangerously on the top and beat the head of the elephant!

We kept looking out for elephants between the Trichy station and Gunaseelam temple with no luck. There were none on that route this time. No elephants at Gunaseelam temple either. So the little one was really disappointed.

To make her happy we took her back to Kabali temple after "mottai" to play with the stone elephants again. Given a choice she would have stayed on that elephant forever.

It was pretty late and she came out crying "I want to see a real elephant and make it do buchchu for me!"

That was when we started asking all relatives, auto drivers, strangers on where we could possibly find an elephant that would accept our money/bananas and bless us in return.

Only temple elephants do that. So the few elephants in the Guindy / Vandalur zoo's didn't count. Apparently it is not easy to access these elephants either as they are sleeping or hard to find within the park/zoo.

A wise auto driver suggested "Maangaadu Kaamakshi temple". He remembered seeing an elephant there 6 months earlier. So a trip was made to that temple. Nice temple, but no elephant.

Another wise auto driver in the "maangaadu" auto stand told us that an elephant did visit this temple every alternate week or so on auspicious days, but it possibly came from Thiruverkaadu Karumaariamman temple! So off we went searching for that temple.

The little one was praying frantically to every "pillaiyaar ummachhi" (the elephant headed god) she saw on the auto route for one thing and one thing only. An encounter with a blessing elephant.

So she was almost heart broken when we went behind the temple to find "no elephant" where there was supposed to be one. We could smell elephant, but it was nowhere to be found. Then the temple authorities took pity on the little one and dispatched the elephant manager to help us view "Ganesh" (he had already been named .. even if the he was really a she). We walked behind the temple to a padlocked shed to view this gorgeous elephant. You should have seen the smile on the little one's face!

This beautiful creature took the money from the little one and gave us both a long blessing! Brought back so many memories.

Later when we were in Manali and driving towards Bilaspur we saw two elephants that were used to carry heavy loads on the mountains. They were shorter and stockier than the elephants we see(or used to see)in south India.They looked a lot healthier and happier.

Well who wouldn't be with that fresh air and fresh water in Manali?!

Not sure if Jr. and the little one will be able to give their kids this experience.

Elephants are more and more difficult to find these days, but we were glad that we got this on camera.

One thought kept coming back to my mind. We are leaving the world in a lot worse state for our kids than our parents did for us. That is really sad.

On the bright side, the stone elephants haven't changed a bit in 35 years!

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Maruthis and Mustangs, move over ...

When six hundred or so folk pull a ther (car) with 8 foot wheels around a temple tank for over 5 hours followed by a few mini ther's, it is not fair to compare it to any modern day car.

This is one event where no writeup can do justice. It was just spectacular. There was a public exam scheduled for the government schools that monday morning and in spite of that, this was the crowd!

There are only happy tears, when words fail you.

My grandpa got to see this video and he could not speak. He just lifted his hand and moved it to show "I bless you". That made my day, that made my "trip" and somehow for a fleeting moment, erased that image that I had of myself as the grandson who lived far away, unable to help his grandpa in any way.

A few photo highlights..

The remover of obstacles, literally! Vinayagar goes and clears the mylapore morning traffic for the other chariots.

The lineup from behind

The main Chariot (Ther)

Munnazhagu!

Pinnazhagu? Jr. was so envious of Ambaal's long hair!

Subramanya, Valli and Devaanai

A stitch shot of the main chariot.

This will be the last event summary post from the festival. I had to fly out the same night and missed the Arubathumoovar and another favorite, the China Potti fireworks! After this Chennai trip, there is a new belief. It is a small planet and there might be another chance to see this Utsavam in this lifetime, for one never knows.

ps. My original Video was rejected by Youtube because it was 47 seconds longer than the 10 minute limit. The next attempt was my edit of that video which ended up very grainy.. so the video posted above was the third or fourth attempt which should also be near high definition clarity!

Linking my two earlier attempts (1 and 2) of making this video out of almost 30 minutes of unedited footage, just to remind myself "if you try and fail, try again!"

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Viennese Waltz revisited

One of the most glorious sights and my all time favorite in the Kabali temple utsavam is the way the gods dance into the temple, just before sunrise on the Rishabam (White or Silver bull, Rishabam is the sign Taurus). They time it just right and the way they rock the god to 3 beats per bar is amazing!

The last time I saw this was almost two decades ago. At that time the strange draw to this dance was not understood. During my foray into ballroom dancing in the mid nineties, the Viennese waltz was a favorite and I never realized why. This year standing there listening to the drum beats and the band as the god started dancing, I closed my eyes to savor the music for a second and there was this sudden urge to do a viennese waltz in the middle of the Rishabam watching crowd.

My mind said "cut cut cut.. we are in the middle of a very eastern ritual here and you suddently want to waltz with the videocamera in hand?", but the body was swaying to what was definitely, ballroom music of the highest quality.

Lord Kapali was indeed doing his dance to waltz timing and the note they played was a very western note too(you can hear it in the video). Finally after so many years, it felt like a giant jigsaw puzzle clicked into place!

Will always cherish this memory for a long long time to come. Lore has it that watching the god enter the temple just prior to sunrise is equivalent to watching him ascend Mount Kailas or heaven.

This time I got goosebumps watching the dance. (Probably got goosebumps watching it 20 years ago as well, but do not remember it)

Now for the photos...

The silver Rishabam

The golden Rishabam for Karpagambaal

The golden peacock for Subramanya (still remember how my brother and me were always scared of the peacock because of the snake in its mouth)

The morning started so perfectly that day, as we (my mum and me) walked slowly in search of an autorickshaw. The large crowd has dispersed within a few minutes after the procession ended and there was a silence all round the temple tank. Decided to take stitch photos from the tank. This is the best stitch I could get of the 3 mada veedhis (3 sides of the temple tank)

The old Rishabam was a hand painted bull that resembled the tigers and lions. Looks like the Taurus has received a massive upgrade. This one is just awesome! You take one look into its eyes and it transports you to a magical realm.

What more can I say?

Kapali rocks!

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Polycephalitis and the mother of all cows

Part of the lure and the lore that mythology and the gods create, are provided by multi-headed creatures and human beasts.

They definitely make for fantastic stories, develop your imagination and get you ready to believe in Harry Potter almost thirty or so years later!

Did you know that the Lord of Mylapore has a night program as well during the festival season? Yep. His calendar is fully blocked for that week and he is out late at night, sometimes as late as 5AM!

In this video, we catch him getting warmed up for an all nighter, on his polycephalitic snake. There was a large crowd for this Friday night special.

As a kid, we would never get this close to the god because of the crowd and the fear of a kid getting lost in the crowd. Any tamizh movie fan knows that the number one way to lose a child is to walk the kid through a temple festival crowd.

Here are the pictures.

The many headed Naagam (snake)

Kamadhenu, aka the mother of all cows, giver of infinite gifts

The horned goat

My mom said "5 headed snake. you always loved this one". On careful inspection at home with the digital pictures and the video with a 120x zoom, one finds out that the snake actually has 7 heads, not five! Even grandma was surprised by this find.

We always learn something new, don't we?

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Manimals

Well, what exactly is a manimal? A man-animal aka "Purushaa-mirugham" in Tamil.

It is a scary looking stead for the gods. Oh, yes, the mind is still in Mylapore..

This one was on a weekday and there were high school examinations in the state government schools smack in the middle of the festival and the crowd was not as big or as enthusiastic. The local government is atheist and these days, the poor kids from Mylapore have to study while all the bands are playing outside. Now that, is tough!)

Just like the attendence on the last day of a cricket test match that was a definite draw, this crowd was comprised only of the real ardent devotees who were going for the record books to say "I attended every day!".

Still it was fun to watch as they did the rounds faster. The photo sampler follows..

Purushaa-mirugam (the manimal)

Singham (Lion)

Puli (Tiger)

All of them in series..

My theory? The whole idea of having a utsavam is to entertain kids and get them to like the temple and associated concepts at an early age.

This was the "catch them young" marketing campaign?

They definitely succeeded in catching me.

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