In Ooty These Gods have No Visitors

Recently I had been to Ooty (Uthagamandalam). Apart from the normal places which we visited for two days, our friend took us to three religious places which tourists to the Queen of Hills couldn’t find it in any of the travel itineraries.

Our Hindu friend, who married to an amputated Christian girl after a stiff resistance from both the sides of families, took us first to a very old church, locally called “Kurusady” Church (St. Stephen's) in Kaandal area.

He told us that according to a local belief the church has a holy cross kept in a case which is believed to be made from a piece of wood used for crucification of Jesus Christ. Such pious atmosphere the Church has, the local populous come to this place and offer prayers. There is a belief that true prayers are generally answered by the Lord.

Our friend told his own love story, that how his fiancee lost her leg in an accident and the ordeals the couple had to undergo in fighting against the social acceptability from both the communities, to get married. The Church indeed was a major source of moral (he calls it divine) booster for the couple to get united.

From the main bus stand, one can get buses or autos to Kaandal and anyone would guide to this church from the bus stop. From the road one has to trek down in a narrow lane for one km to reach this beautiful church of historic relevance.

Another place which we visited was a temple situated just near to this church. It is a century-old Shiva temple. Legend goes that the temple, whose presiding deities are Kasi Vishwanath and Visalakshi was built by a temple sculptor after five generation of a local family failed to get “Shivalingam” sculpted for the temple. According to the temple priest, Shiva temples are generally built by rulers. Since the local family had no royal lineage, they faced a lot of divine hurdles to build the temple though they had enough funds to do so.

As the family members died one after another without accomplishing the task, the last one from the family, a woman saint, gave the responsibility to a temple sculptor before she passed away in 1884. Though reluctant, the sculptor, went to Kancheepuram to meet the then Shankaracharya.

He told the pontiff that he would acquire sin if he construct the temple as he was not from the royal family and if he did not do so, he would again get sin for failing to fulfill the vow he had taken up to build the temple. The pontiff asked the sculptor to go the Varanasi to have a holly dip in River Ganga to ward off any sin he inherits in this life. When the sculptor immersed himself at the Ganges he saw a Shivalingam beneath the water. When he took it to the Shankaracharya, the later asked him to keep it at the temple site and build a temple for Kasi Vishwanath.



The temple has a prayer hall which houses five shivalingams depicting the names of five of the family who were unsuccessful in building this temple. The place is apt for meditation.

The temple has not much visitors coming even during festival seasons, so no revenue, revealed the head priest, whose two sons are also working in this temple. Lack of funds forced the temple administration to postpone the consecration ceremony. My friend informed me that he married his (Christian) wife in this temple with the help of some true friends.

The third place, I can call it one of the wonders in Ooty apart from the scenic beauties, is a twin Ganesha temple. Like other two places, this place too wants public attention, and hence not much devotes flocking this temple. Only local people visit this temple during the festival seasons.

This temple is situated just 500 m from the main bus stand on the main road itself.

Save Water Today or be Sorry Tomorrow

As India celebrates her 63rd Independence Day on Saturday, the country, which boasts of one billion head count, still lacks the basic needs for people like Water, Power, Food etc. Since Water plays a major role in linking most of the basic amenities a man needs, due to short-sightedness of our successive governments, political unsteadiness, lack of political will to nationalize all major rivers and excessive usage of underground water many states are reeling under acute water shortage.

The words of famous Tamil patriotic poet Subramanya Bharati who once said, "Irrigate central land with rain water getting wasted in Bay of Bangal" are still relevant in the present day context. But who bothers? We conveniently forgot Bharati and his golden words too.

On one side, some states have faced flood situation in the months of May and June while other states cry for a drop of rain water. The funny side of the story is that while one part of Gujarat and Maharashtra had witnessed worst flood in the month of July, people from the respective states had to stand in queues for hours for a bucket-full of water.

The situation is not all the very different in states like Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Punjab and Haryana.

While the Centre has decided to declare the 2009-10 seasonal year as drought-hit year, the question which comes to the mind of a common man is, what has happened to the excessive water which made people suffer in states like Maharashtra, Assam, Gujarat, et al and why these water had not been used to irrigate the fields and quench the thirst of people in the respective states?

When Chief Ministers are busy in opening up statues, they hardly find time to think about the problems of the common man. Take for example Uttar Pradesh. Chief Minister Mahawati has decided to declare more than half of the districts of UP as drought hit and asked the centre a draught relief millions of rupees. Now many states will follow the suit and centre too will dutifully dispatch the relief funds from its central pool, which is of course tax payers’ money.

Instead of finding a long lasting solution to the perennial problems like floods and drought, the governments give relief materials and money to the affected people year after year. All most every year parts of Tamil Nadu, face flood situation during the months of November and December. Every time the government provides essential commodities to the poor and also money to the worst hit families. Once the water recedes people would start colonizing the same area. No arrangements had been made to displace them or take measures to prevent flooding in a particular area year after year.

Had they spent the money to strengthen the infrastructure like construction of storage dams, diverting water which was going waste to the sea to the irrigating fields and generate more hydro-electric power plants near the dam sites etc, life wouldn’t have been difficult for the people.

Still the time is not lost. We shall make this happen in five years time provided the government amend rules to interconnect all major rivers in the country, speedy disposal of all water-related disputes pending in the designated courts across the country, make an expert panel comprising of intellectuals of respective fields to over see the equal water distribution to various terrains from North to South and West to East part of the country. Am I expecting too much folks?

Dying for Leaders - Height of Madness!

K Ramanathan Iyer

It's very sad that Congress has lost one of its mass leaders. What is more pathetic and regrettable is that about 150 families had lost their dearest ones – fathers, mothers, brothers or plainly bread winners.

Yes, I am talking about the untimely demise of Andhra Chief Minster Y S Rajashekara Reddy and deaths of over 150 of his followers. One of those followers, who had committed suicide, has written in his note that since YSR has dedicated his life for the masses, he was dedicating his life for YSR before consuming pesticide. Height of madness, indeed?

In Tamil Nadu too, when matinee idol and former CM MG Ramachandran died in US , followers back home went on a rampage torching and attacking vehicles and homes of opposition party followers and leaders and several people in the rural areas had even committed suicide to show their "love" to their leader. Not long ago, we have seen a spurt in suicides over Sri Lankan issues.

What happened to those families who had lost their breadwinners? None of the political parties/leaders had ever turned back at them and I am sure these families would be languishing in penury.

What is Vaiko doing and where is VCK leader Thiruma? The latter even rode on the sympathy wave and became an MP. Did he do anything for the families whose main members had committed suicide for "his" (personal) cause?

You love a leader and you follow his principle. Nothing wrong in it. But when the love becomes obsession, madness creeps in and family comes last for these people.

Idol worshipping is a big political gamble down south. Be it in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Andhra, people just follow what their silverscreen heroes order them to do. They would do anything for their 'Thalaiver (leader)'. They would even die for them. Will they die for their own mother or father? They won't. Because they are not good orators, they don't know how to make them live in a dream world or virtual world and they don’t help them to do wrong things.

If 67 people died for YSR, some six lakh people should have died for Mahatma Gandhi? If one wants to show respect to his/her leader, he or she should follow the path shown by him. By committing suicide would no way help anyone, at the same time, this would put unnecessary pressure on the family. Did any one think about how their spouses are going to raise their children?

To think on this line, education is paramount. Most of those killed themselves for the sake of their leader, are poor and uneducated who got scared of their existence in the absence of YSR who dolled out several pro-poor developmental schemes for them.

To stop such unnecessary deaths in the event of a leader's sudden demise, parties concerned should assure all support and assistance to people in the absence of any leader. No leader should be considered taller than the party.

There should always be a political successor in a party. Take a cue from DMK in Tamil Nadu. Everyone knows for sure that after DMK patriarch’s time, there will be a smooth transformation of power to his son MK Stalin (since trouble maker son MK Azagiri has got a central ministry). But this is not the case with AIADMK where the party will go for a spin in the absence of Jayalalithaa.