scribblings

The recent video of an incident during Parthasarathy Perumal's Garuda sevai reminds one of an incident from about 35 years ago.

We lived in a house situated at a street corner. One of them was road leading to Vasantha bungalow and the other was known to be the milkbowl.

True to its name, it had many families which maintained cattle.

One fine evening during vasantha utsavam, Parthasarathy Perumal was on his way to his bungalow. He came to a halt at the said street junction, for aarthi and mandagapadi.

As we were all standing...

We were all standing and having darshan. It was eventless till a particular cow decided she wanted to have darshan of the Lord. There she came towards the Lord. She couldn't find a comfortable way.

That's when she decided to do whatever is necessary to see the Lord

She started to make a dash and came with full force. Charged with all her energy, she pushed all people on their way. And then in her energy and vigour she came and pushed everyone including those who were carrying the Lord.

And she couldn't control herself there after all.

The final target was Parthasarathy Perumal himself. Unable to bear the impact of her push, he came crashing down.

After seeing him to her content, she happily went back like a silent girl.

In a few moments there was such a melee. Everyone was on the floor.

All people and the Lord were rattled. People then came to their senses, pulled themselves up and lifted Perumal back to his peedam. The entire procession then quickly returned to the temple.

Took some time for people to clean up the place.

Pieces of ornaments and other things which are used to do alankaram for the Perumal were found on the road for the next few days. They were all collected and returned to the temple.

Perumal was not bothered of the incident and he continued to come in his usual way.

Utsavam continued as usual from the next day.

Still in the memory.

As a 5 year old, one was snatched away into the house when the cow came charging. Saw the falling of people from the window.

Such incidents always stay in the memory. Mostly still fresh.