Magazines !

Despite the fact that live has been at its lively best and eventful over the last year or so, it was only yesterday's ten minute long wait in Guindy Railway station that supplied me with some blogable ideas. Three strong reasons made me walk towards the magazine stall and browse at what is available - To kill time, To distract myself from the disgust I felt every time I see someone spit right in the middle of the platform, To keep myself away from the shop that sells Lays, Kurkure, Groundnuts et al. Predominantly, I saw a bulk of the bollywood crap with glossy pics of skinny women on front cover, a chunk of the Tamil weekly s with flashy pics of traditional looking Tam actors and actresses. ( You can find the non traditional ones in the middle page.) Lots of English Weekly with surveys and politics and movies and sports and other mundane stuff. There were also a couple of kids magazines which deeply interested me and that is what this post is going to be about.

Till I turned ten, as a kid I never did any reading but for the text books and occasional story books - once in a while. My father tried very hard to make me read novels ( Enid Blyton) when I was in class four. Noddy and Amelia Jane's Toy books just put me off mainly because I could never relate to them. Thus I never read anything consistently - An Amar Chitra Katha during the holidays or some other Indian simple story books. It was in Class V , one rainy October day when my friend Bhairavi, and some other girl was discussing some magazine called "Gokulam". I was not even aware that such a thing existed ! After listening to their animated discussions, I purchased my first issue( October) of Gokulam. I found it interesting and more important realistic. I could relate to the stories as a school girl. Then I waited anxiously from the monthly issues of Gokulam and fortnightly issues of Champak. I bugged the Magazine stall guy in the railway station and the Newspaper seller near my home every month end to grab the next month's copy. Somehow we never made any arrangements for the newspaper guy to deliver it at home. It was more exciting to buy your copy on your own!

Now I would like to recollect some of the most exciting things and some stories from these books. Champak had allegories in large quantum though I liked stories with real people rather than animals talking. So I always read the stories about read kids first and then read the stories with animals in them. Some of my favorites from Champak which I can still recall are ....

• A short story on one detective boy named Vijay who would help a King to track this treasure through a series of mysterious clues. The clues were very interesting and ingenious. It was published as a serious of seven parts across seven issues.
• An interesting story about a little boy who was told by his friend that "Seven" was his lucky number. The friend would have given a series of explanation on why "seven" should be his lucky number. Like - you were born in the seventh month, you like in flat number seven and the sum of your roll no is seven etc. But his sister crushes his superstition by giving a similar set of explanation for another number - "four". I felt that the sissy was very clever in forming those explanation !
  

• One boy comes to town from village to sell fruits with his cousin for a livelihood. They wait with ripe mangoes each in a cart at the threshold of the market place. The cousin was a strong believer of the concept of Boony or the first sale made that day and he insists that they sell the fruits for a price less than the cost price to make a good start. Mail me if you want to know the rest of the story ... ;)

Then there were the Undir series in Gokulam...Which a series of stories about a rat family. As a school kid I could relate to it so very well.

Then over a couple of years I grew of old for these books and I became voracious reader of the Famous Five, Secret Seven ... The Enid Blyton's books on boarding school... I simply loved them...Then came Nancy Drew... Then the conventional Sweet Valley Twins and friends....Then Robin Cook and Archer and Clarke so on....

In between I tied some Teen's Mags which was a utter disaster. There was nothing I could relate to.There were issues about Teen Love and other questions which was distant to me then.

Now all that I find interesting is Reader's Digest... sometimes The English Weekly s...
How I wish there were a good English Magazine with out the Masala and the hype and the glossy photos ... without endless surveys on which college is the best , which city is the best... without tips on how to reduce weight, stress .... without political content about the ridiculous fights at the parliament....But with interesting short stories, meaningful articles about people around us and nice cartoons ... Something that can rekindle the goodness in each of us.....

Some assorted thoughts !

I am sure all of us simply enjoy predicting the future. How will the next generations of storage devices look like. In what ways our children will be different from us ? I am sure they will have something new to teach us like we had something new to tell our parents. What will change. Will it be better or for the worse ? Obviously I have no answer.

Also sometimes it is extremely thrilling to realize that the future's stars are probably one among us. My lab mate may probably win the "Turing award". The girl who used to win prizes for the school in singing competitions may become synonymous with our era's music in our grandchildren's text books. Again GoK.

My mind was filled with such thoughts when I saw the following "Wiki Quote of the Day:"

" They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other. "
---------- ~ Eugène Delacroix

How extremely true. Every decade has something new to teach its children. In the form of inventions or wars or art. But that does not mean that the child should be deprived of some niceties which his parents got. Sometimes I wonder that if we dont pass on what we have to the next generation, probably down the line someone would keep reinventing the wheel. Also suddenly i understand the importance of keeping up some traditions, doing some rituals and sticking to some culture. But how I wish that my forefathers had passed it on to me with more care and rigor than just as a bunch of rules. That way I do not need to spend time questioning and brooding over them.

It is very good to think of finer ways of doing things. To expand our knowledge base and to redefine rules. Every man ought to do it to full fill the purpose of his life. But shunning our predecessor's lifestyle completely is slightly uncomfortable. This is slight hypocrisy on my part
because many a times owing to other comforts I want to do away with certain practices.

We can in no way get the total essence of all our ancestor's knowledge. We should at least pass on what we have acquired and what we have refined with logic and reason to the next generation.

Temple tour : part I

Pilgrimage trips have become more and more enjoyable and interesting over the past few years...
It somehow makes the trip "purposeful" to the elders at home.The stopover at my aunt's home in a near by village ( vishnupuram), the long never ending drive and decent good food leaves me happy and engaged in various ways over the course of the trip.
If we choose to visit the celebrated temples like tirupathi there is this fear(and fun) of waiting in long queues for ages before we get a glimpse of the "murthy" amidst all "jargandi".But the "not so famous" temples offer a lot of calm and a quiet corner to sit and dream(or meditate).

Our first stop was at the "Koothanur" Saraswathi temple. It is I believe the only temple to have a "murthy" for goddess saraswathi.The temple has got lots of fame and loads of devotees off late after the publication of many articles in "Bakthi" type tamil magazines.Its renovated .(after a kumbabishekam a couple of years back).The temple is thronged by youngsters(like me) who pray for excellence in education(kalvi) and art(kalai).The vigraham is clad in beautiful white Saree and lotus is offered.Also the temple authorities have kept a black board where kids write their school roll numbers( of course even i wrote) with the belief the goodness will be showered.The Almighty does not need a uniquely identifiable roll number to be written on the board to bless us nevertheless such trivial practises are a prototype for belief and in turn confidence.

We had a overnight stay in vishnupuram (not very far from koothanur) at my aunt's home.Next day was a "kula deivam" visiting routine for me. Our ancestors were initially settled in a village called senthangudi very close to mayavaram.But they migrated to another village Ponsai later. So our family considers both the temples "Kula deivam".

Senthangudi has a Mariamman temple. It is a very small temple and they distribute excellent Chakkara Pongal prasadam.This one in a village corner is a classic example of old beautiful temples spoilt in the name of renovations and donations.Gaudy , flashy tiles in all possible shapes and sizes are pasted on every possible wall and floor. Some tiles had irrelevant writings also on it like "Brook bond tea".The temple itself is painted in some cheap quality artificial looking colours.But the worst vandalism was by the donators themselves.Just because they have donated a ceiling fan or have sponsored money to fix a tube light there is no need to emboss their names on the fixtures.Every equipment in the temple comes with the a tag consisting of the donator list and their details et all.Somehow these issues are at present beyond my reach .But I believe when people renovate old structures they ought not to spoil existing architectural theme. Just because newly built temples have marble or the like flooring we don't need to redo the existing mud/cement/rock flooring in every temple.Such masking sometimes coagulates the mind and removes the sanctum of the temple itself sadly.

Next we headed to Ponsai .Ponsai can be broken as Pon(gold) +Sai(do). Meaning the crops grow like gold.Here again we visited 3 temples.The spacious Shiva temple, Mariamman and the Aiiyanar temple.

Shiva temple: It is a very beautiful temple.Period.Decently maintained.It is one of those very few temples where the inner praharam( ie where the mulavar is placed) is so huge that an elephant can circumambulate.The Koothadum pillayar which literally means a dancing pillayar is the first vigraham to be seen.The temple has a Shiva lingam, Subramaniya and ambal sannadhi.

Mariamman Temple: The rituals performed here was very similar to the ditto temple in Senthangudi.
Aiiyanar temple:This temple has load Aiiyanar(Aiiyappa) and goddess Buvaneshwari as Mulavar. Apart from this the Veeran present in all Aiiyanar temples are also present. It is a family custom to pray god with Mavillakku ( Mavu + Villakku). Rice floor, Ghee , Jaggery and grated coconut are used to make a tasty mixture.This is further placed in the shape of a Villakku . Ghee is used as the fuel to light the lamp and this is decorated with flowers and Agarbathi and Kumkum.
Later the mixture is distributed as prasadam to everyone in the temple.

That evening back at home in Vishnupuram I visited all the temples of the village ( similar ones). Then I had the pleasure of crossing the arasalaaru ( kaveri) with waist deep cold water . The dis tributary of Kaveri is not so proper these days owing to quarrying for mud and other bad maintenance. A great part of the river channel is chocked with wild bushes. The approach path is also very thorny and bushy.

To be contd in Part II
( Visits to vaitheshwaran Kovil, Seergazhi sattanathaswamy Kovil and Madhuranthagam Ram temple ;) ;) ;)