Tag Chennai

Devotion Out Of Fear Is Fine

Ramani, we need Five hours to travel both ways, take one hour for darshan in Special Entrance, leave a buffer of an hour and we should be back by

One PM( we left Chennai by 6 AM)

I told him not to set a time frame to the One who sets Time for Every One, that too, to Lord Venkateswara.

He laughed off saying that I am a Superstitious Fool.

We reached Tirupati, entered the Special Entrance, queue,into the Single lane fenced by iron barrier, from where one can not come back before the darshan is over.

We were made to wait for Seventeen Hours to have the darshan .

Imagine my plight as my daughter refused to get down from my Hips and I had to attend to her calls of Nature, demand for Food!

From that day I stopped even discussing the plans.

As I remarked in one of my Posts, I leave for visiting Tempe,s with no fixed Plan and cover them as I go by and I have been Blessed with immediate and Easy darshan of the Deity, wherever I go.

It was against this background my son told me that I follow Religious Rites, believe In God,being Spiritual because of Fear.

I do not know.

Requiem for Identity Tamils Yet Non Tamils

I attended a close Relative's wedding recently.

The Bride's Family are Tamils settled in Mumbai about Forty years back.

They claim they are Tamils'speak Tamil at Home, their Mother Tongue is Tamil, declare they are originally(?) from Palghat.

The Marriage was conducted South Indian Brahmin style.

On the dais, when the final ceremonies of tying the Mangal Sutra(Thaali), Uncle of the bride, who was standing near me exclaimed, on a particular ceremony being performed(Aupaasana),

'Yeh, pehle Karna Thaa' ( this should have been performed earlier)

I asked him what his mother tongue is.

He replied 'Tamil"

The behavior of the Tamils who are settled or even on a short stay to the Northern States, particularly Mumbai, New Delhi, is funny to say the least.

They talk in Hindi, watch Hindi Channels when on a trip to their relatives Homes in their Native State and converse in Hindi< much to the discomfiture and embarrassment of their Hosts.

They add comments,

'ye madrasi ka practice hai'

They seem to imagine they are culturally superior to their people speaking their language, forgetting the fact that they are never accepted as a Northerner in the states where they are settled in.

You might have been living in these states for even fifty years, still you are a Madrasi'!

Yet for important functions they come back to their Native place or State!

They speak Hindi, English an Tamil, can not write or read Tamil, yet call Tamil as their Mother tongue.

Yet they follow Tamil Traditions.

They just do not seem to know their Identity.

They belong neither here nor there.