Kadaimugam 2016

It was a different Kadaimugam trip for a reason, to be explained later elsewhere in this post.

It is the 6^th consecutive year of the annual Kadaimugam trip, taking a bath in Kaveri river on the final day of the Aippasi month, in the ‘Lagadam’ ghat. This would not be possible without the blessings of the duo of Mayiladuthurai (Mayuranathar and Parimala Ranganathar).

As always, tickets in Uzhavan Express were booked well in advance for 11 pax. There were five drop outs – Srini and Sakthi due to business exigencies, Ashok and Chithappa as Ashok had to travel that week, Sivakumar mama as he had an unplanned travel. Two new additions this year – Subram and Muralirajan. We ended up being a group of six, which was enough to fit in the Xylo brought by our good ol’ friend, Dinesh. He met us promptly at 5 AM at Junction. As we were a bit early (35 minutes before time for the WTT), we roamed around the Junction for some time before Dinesh gave us an idea of having a coffee and an early morning snack on the way to the Town.

So, it all boiled down to checking in at Ayyappa Coffee Shop in Pattamangala Veedhi in the (Mayiladuthurai) Town for a degree coffee in copper tumbler and a few really hot-from-the-vaanali Medhu vadais. That being done, our next stop was in Dilip’s house in Sannadhi Street. Dilip’s appa was already awake by 6 AM, ready to join us for the march to Lagadam. Business as usual, we took the route via Clock Tower to go to the North bank of Kaveri river. All our early morning enthusiasm went ‘bussss’ when we crossed the Kaveri river bridge as the river was bone dry. It was so dry that it cannot be any more drier than that! Unusual scene it was to digest for monsoon season as we have always seen it running full to the brim… the Municipal authorities have made elaborate efforts as stop-gap arrangements: 1. They made two artificial dam type embankments on either side of the Nandi mandapam in Lagadam so that water can be collected and stored 2. Two big size pump sets were installed to draw water from the river bed 3. A spray shower type arrangement exclusively for seniors and ladies 4. Two hose pipes attached to the pump set so that it can be made flexible. It was very thoughtful on the part of the authorities to have made so much arrangements. We had a satisfactory bath in the mega pumpset and proceeded to Mayuranathar Koil, the customary first stop.

After a satisfactory darshan of Mayuranathar and Abhayambigai, we started to our customary second stop, Parimala Ranganathar temple in Indhalur, but not before finishing a sumptuous breakfast in Kaliyagudi mess. The grill gate of moolavar sannidhi was closed as everyone was busy in the ‘Ther’ festival. This did not hamper us from getting a good sevai of the fifth of the five ‘Rangan’s, the others being Srirangapattinam, Madhya rangam, Srirangam and Koviladi (Appaalaa rangam). Being a bit late on that day, the Ther was about to be moved out of nilai… I was fortunate enough to ‘catch the vatam’ and join in pulling it for some distance.

The plan for the day, atleast how it stood at that point of the day, was to cover some temples along the North Bank of Kaveri from Mayuram to Kumbakonam and if time permits, a bit further too. The first halt was at Kozhikuthi Vaanamutti Perumal temple. He was a gigantic 16 ft standing Perumal made of a single ‘aththi’ tree trunk and coated with herbal paint. The photo panel showing how the temple and the sannidhi were before renovation tells how much efforts have gone in during renovation. The temple is well maintained and is a must visit for anyone going near Mayuram.

The next stop was at Thirukodikaval, after taking a decision to bypass Pandanallur. A typical Sivan temple from Chola era with huge prakarams, beautiful goshtams, vavvaal neththi mandapams, no crowd at all and with lots and lots of serenity in it. Anand expressed his wish to visit Kanjanoor as I spilled the beans that it was nearby – we made it to that temple. There were not more than 50 people in the temple as it was around 10 AM.  The next stop was at Thirumangalakudi, heeding to Prabhu’s request. While appa was a bit upset that we were so near but so far for Thiruvelliyangudi, I pacified him by my usual statement, “okay noted, we will visit if time permits”. Fortunately for him, there was a board in the Thirupanandal Road we were travelling, announcing that Thiruvelliyangudi was 3 km away on our left. With no sufficient reason for me to offer for a skip, we took the single road to Thiruvelliyangudi and had an excellent sevai of Kolavilliraman Perumal. Back to the same koot road and a few km North-bound, we reached Thirupanandal. Again, a huge temple complex with huge mandapams and prakarams. It was a very satisfying darshan followed by panneer soda in the petty shop outside the main gopuram towards Madras road. We took the NH from there and reached the next village, Thiruvoipadi. The Sivachariar was unavailable, and one of his family members was kind enough to open the gates for us to have a darshan. This is the place where Sandikeswarar got mukthi from Sivan. Our next scheduled stop was Senganur, the birth place of Sandikeswarar and Periyavaachaan pillai. However, both the temples were closed by the time we went there around 12.15 PM. However, there was an unexpected bonus darshan at Nandaan Koil on the way to Kumbakonam to compensate it! Nandaan koil is 3 km off the highway; is a beautiful temple surrounded by lush green paddy fields on all the sides. A big moat surrounds the temple on all the sides. We wrapped our forenoon session here and went inside Kumbakonam town for lunch, at our favourite jaunts, Venkataramana mess near Yaanaiyadi.

The afternoon break was well spent in the outer garden at Darasuram temple. There was a big lush green grass lawn interspersed with trees with big canopies. I slept like a log for 2 hours from 1.30 to 3.30 by the time Prabhu announced that the temple main doors were open.  Darasuram is a UNESCO world heritage monument with architectural marvels in it… lots of opportunites for selfies, groupfies and post card photos. There were only two sannidhis in the temple. Not much if you have more religious flair than love for architecture. The next scheduled stop was Innambar, just North of Kottaiyur/ Swamimalai. The Swamy in this temple is ‘Aksharapureeswarar’, who grants wisdom and knowledge. We had planned earlier and brought note books and pencil boxes to be offered during the archanai poojai. The Sivachariar was not available at that time as he had gone to a nearby village for personal work. We took a call to cover two more temples and come back later in the evening.

The next stop was the one which is more closer to my heart, one village which I was very much looking forward to visit for a very long time, 10 years to be precise – the day when I read the chapter ‘Pagaivanin Pallippadai’ in Volume I of Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan. The same village where readers get to meet Ravidasan & Co revealing their secrets without knowing that Thirumalai Nambi was hiding in the bushes spying on them. You got it right, it is Thirupurambiyam. The one village, host of that one battle, that determined what would be Tamil Nadu’s history for the next three or four centuries.

The Saatchinatha swamy temple was a marvel by itself. More than anything else, I was very happy to see the sthalavruksham, Punnai (Alexandrian Laurel) was in full bloom. I collected a handful of fresh Punnai flowers for Vaibhav! He will use it to decorate his Parthasarathy Perumal photo at home. Pralayam kaatha Vinayakar, popularly known as Then Abhisheka Pillayar, has a separate East facing sannidhi inside the main mandapam. This is unique considering the fact that He usually gets a place in the South East corner (Kanni moola ganapathy). The next stop, Thiruvijayamangai, was covered by taking a bumpy road for 4 km. We came back to Innambar and spent good time in doing an elaborate poojai to the moorthy.

Hunger pangs caught us up and we had to cut short our further program towards Tiruvaiyaru – we came back to Kumbakonam town instead, checked into our favourite hotel again – Venkataramana mess. We had hot bondas and delicious Bombay Halwa wrapped up by hot degree coffee in copper tumblers. A few of the local temples were covered next – Sarangapani temple, Ramaswamy temple (we got hot Pongal here!) and Mahamaham tank. We still were around 7 PM only and saw that it was a bit early for a dinner. So, we took a call to go to Oppiliappan temple… the temple was almost empty and we had peaceful sevai of Venkatachalapathy swamy. Back to the town, we finished our dinner in Raya’s Grand; came back to mosquitoes-filled Kumbakonam station to board Uzhavan back home. I was super tired to be awake during the trip and ended up waking when the train was entering ‘A’ line platform at Mambalam at 4 AM the next day.

A wonderful trip thus got wrapped up with a ‘Subham’ title card at the end. Looking forward to the next trip, until then… later!