I have always awed at the practice of maintaining a Family Tree which each family boasts from countries across
say Present.
I would not say that it is something new down here. We have our own share of history preserved through the granite writings, which sadly is mercilessly being sand blasted away in the name of temple renovations. Of the lucky few temples which had their share of lime light and recorded writings, for once the writing on the wall lived its purpose, passing the records, traveling through time.
Except for the esteemed monarchy which built the Granite marvels and the dynasties to follow which had access to these walls or bandwidth to erect their own marvels, the commoners have been in the dark, with no possibility to back trace the family trees beyond a maximum 3 generations.
The Experience
What I am about to share is a travel, back in time, literally. As tales passed by word of mouth in our family goes, we do not belong to the present place we live in. The place I am referring to is Magudanchavadi, A little village near
It was a regular morning except that I was crippled on my right knee cap with a ligament twist, thanks to a sudden brake from one of the enlightened Bus drivers in Chennai. But, excitement struck me as my Dad told that he was visiting the place alongside my grandpa. Since the travel was through our car, I did not feel the impact of not being comfortable to walk.
After a short but heavy breakfast in one of the authentic hotels, which is the worst on a scale for aesthetics and exactly opposite when it comes to taste, we took our ride back in time, Literally.
The buildings start shrinking along with the roads. The gaps start eating the bu
ildings and in no time, they emerge victorious and I am left with clay. Cracked and luckily not baked under the summer sun and the out of the blue tree with the leaves sprouting on either side of the roads add to the undulation.
We pass through an unmanned railway crossing, the scene reminding me of cow boy classics. Come aadi (a Tamil month) and the wind speeds pick up and we see sand rising in swirls reminding me of the mummy. Well, as a kid I would have expected Arnold Vosloo’s mouth widen out of proportion of his face in the swirls. But, approaching 30’s all I could do looking at it was think of Vortex.
Out of no where, a stone compound grows sky high or should I say high enough to make any one feel acrophobic. The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project which the compound guards is an example of the slow and steady pace with which our democracy is teething herself.
We reach Kandhalur and find that not a lot has changed in the 20 ye
ars since I started visiting the place. We go to meet the village leaders. Grandpa discusses a few points on our new temple construction and off we are, on the no road, no directions land with my
The land mass was flat, but confusingly featureless. Thanks to IT parks tags for Tier II and Tier III cities by the state government, even the remotest parts of Trichy are getting facelifts and eagerly await real estate customers. Except for a couple of tractors toiling the land mass flat, I find literally nothing around but metamorphic rocks spilled all around.
The Deity's
All of a sudden there appears an island of structure in this ever expanding landscape. Yes, it was where my grandpa and our Pangaali’s (brotherhood) as we call have built a simple temple structure with some prehistoric idols.
There, it all begins. I have not noted the historic importance of these deity’s before now. As I see them, I am astonished to find a Mahaveera statue amidst a couple more. This should be a minimum 400 year
old statue or my guess, even older since Jainism was literally wiped out much earlier than that at least in TamilNadu.
I only managed to laugh inside because most Tamil dynasties other than the pallavas have only evangelized Hinduism. A lot of them even went to an extent of defending it with their lives on the line. And come today, us, probably the descendants of the same set of rulers, are worshipping them. True it is. Time tills on priorities.
The next deity is the Lord of Death, The taker of Life, Lord Shiva. As Hinduism goes, God is every where and is in every form. Shiva Linga as the word goes has different forms. Thiruppattur, a tiny little village near Trichy, identifies itself to be a museum of different versions of the form of Lingam.
The differentiation is based on
- The Base to Lingam proportion,
- The shape of the Lingam and
- The height and diameter of the Lingam
This diversity of the lingam itself is reminiscent of Hindu belief of giving an earthly element and shape to God.
This lingam before whom I Stand is different. It is not by birth from granite quarry, a lingam. A little different from the other lingams I have seen, the Lingam was Cuboid.
Grandpa had to pit in to explain. The lingam is actually one wheel of the chariot with the spindle held as a part of the wheel itself.
The heaviness of the wheel simply personifies the robustness of the design, which owing to the geography where it was found, was very much a battle victim a few hundreds of years ago. Yes, even then, it would have been the cause of death, and later
becomes the Lord of Death.
I curiously asked the story behind why we had to move from the heartland of Cauvery Delta, being the vellalas(Old time landlords mainly into farming), to a place as dry as Magudanchavadi which was a no river land with rain being the only quencher of thirst.
It was like lightening strike on your forehead. The jolt was too eerie. I did not know that it could happen. A minority caste by number, we were into farming full time, at Kandalur a few hundreds of years ago (300+ years to be more precise), we were economically independent but a socially inclined society. The rule of the land was shared amongst a few other groups. Times were then too cruel to have had the modern concepts of socialism or equality. People died or killed, to bring pride to the groups they belonged.
So was the group of 7 families who resided there then. The case was an inter caste marriage proposal done from one other caste into ours. Being the bearers of the girl, at a time when such proposal was deemed disrespectful, the group took a decision which even now sends shock down my spine.
Not willing to proceed with this, the group moved out. The 7 families, move to
The Heart Stopper
But the list does not stop there. The committed, till date what I consider a gruesome murder. Yes , they buried the girl alive!!! And moved.
Till date, we have representatives of the Kandalooraan families (6. 1 family died off) living in Magudanchavadi. We get together whenever there is a festivity in our family Deity’s temple. We have other migrants of the same caste who migrated almost at the same time, but more in search of better prospects of labor. They include Vengooraan (near Trichy), Seeyaathamangaiaam (A village near Tanjore) and so on.
On hearing this story, I could not have any other expression other than hatred for the deeds. My grandpa shares the same feeling on this. He then shows me the third deity, which is different and has a distorted form. I ask him of who that Goddess is. Yes, it is her, our Matriarch who saved our clan by sacrificing herself, Even though my choice of words would be different if it were any time in our modern times. She has died and still continues to live as our deity.
Heavy hearted, I bow my head and close my eyes in absolute concentration and pray for her, to her. “Mother, cleanse us of the sins our ancestors committed. Bless us”. Our way of thanking her is to have come back after 350 years and built her a temple and pass through word of mouth and blogs J about her legacy. She lives as our Goddess.
