Vaikunda Ekadasi 2015

A Day In Srirangam

The day begins at 4:15 am with Nadaswaram followed by MLV’s beautiful rendering of Thiruppavai , broadcast from the temple . As we live in Chithrai street, the music is loud and clear and accompanies us as we go through the daily routine of cleaning the Vasal, doing the kolam,  and as we do this we can see different groups of bajanai ghoshti passing by singing ,playing the dolak and an harmonium. The feel is something one has to be here to understand. Sometimes the gentle rhythmic tinkle of the elephant bells goes by , calling us out to the street to just stare and see the pachyderms go by swinging.

Meanwhile the street rings with the cycle bells of milk vendors who sell cow’s milk in cans. Then it is one rush as we get ready to go into the temple to  have a darshan of Rangan Purappadu, during Pagal pathu. Back home it is all relaxed as we start cooking for the day and believe me slow cooking is also done in thirty minutes and then its daily chores. As we peep into the street its empty of people except for a few school going children and a few mamis walking slowly in their madisars.

Life slowly settles into a sort of Malgudi pace as we have an early lunch and retire to rest for sometime! The day sometimes drags into the late afternoon, as there is no Idiot box,  to tune into, no wifi to check mails and mobiles don’t have signals in the strongly built 250year old house. This house is chilly inside but has a quaint warm feeling of all the years that have passed . I never cease to wonder at how many children ,young couples ,old grandparents must have lived here enjoyed ,felt happy, sad ,elated sometimes  , depressed sometimes,  in this same house . It has definitely acquired a quality, a character of its own and inspite of the fact that I’ve not met anyone who lived here I have a strange connect to this house.

Come evening the street comes to life slowly gently with some veshti clad gentlemen walking with a purpose…..ladies going with bags ,the vegetable vendors in the streets opening their fare  and a general sense of living in a community hits one only now. The UPwala starts making his chapathis in his small cart and business is brisk….There is also a samosa vendor churning out freshly made samosas and the smell that wafts down is inviting, in between all this, are vegetable vendors spreading their  roughly hewn baskets full of garden vegetables , some grown on the banks of Cauvery river vegetables like raw banana, banana stems,  flowers, …….the yam variety found here is amazing.

The entire smalltime town is abuzz with activity 24 hours a day on Vailunta  ekadesi day . As we live on one of the inner streets we saw people walk by all day long. The beautiful part of this is it is celebrated by everyone, by wearing new silk sarees ,many young married women in the traditional nine yards trying to walk carefully,  the people from the villages near and far all here In their Sunday best .but all alike awake at 1 pm rushing to stand in a queue, to have a dharshan of Moolavar Ranganatha…..and to walk through the famed Paramapada Vasal.

The local women however know where to go ,so they decide to go in to what is called the Manal Veli ,a open expanse of sand where the Utsavar is waiting and once the crowd comes in He goes towards them and suddenly towards someone else. It seems as if He s floating on the sea of heads there..