Aisola - Beyond the gopurams: a womans spiritual journey through South India

BEYOND THE

GOPURAMS

Priti Aisola

BEYOND THE

GOPURAMS

A Womans

Spiritual Journey

Through

South India

Priti Aisola, 2014

First published 2014

Cover painting: Shuchi Chawla

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwisewithout the prior permission of the author and the publisher.

ISBN 978-81-8328-368-7

Published by

Wisdom Tree
4779/23, Ansari Road
Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110 002
Ph.: 23247966/67/78
wisdomtreebooks@gmail.com

Printed in India

I dedicate this book to my parents,

my husband Ravi,

and our friend Chandrasekar,

an invaluable guide and companion

on many journeys.

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

I Am Home 1

Monkey Business and Mahabalipuram 9

Chidambaram 13

Vaitheeswaran Koil 29

Our Guide at Darasuram 43

Sweta Vinayakar and Tiruvaiyaru 52

Mysore and Nanjangud 63

Talakaveri 75

Bhagamandala and Triveni Sangam 85

Madikeri: Mother Kaveri and Mditerrane 95

Murudeshwar 102

Kollur 110

Sringeri 121

Horanadu 131

Marudamalai 135

Isha Centre and the Dhyanalingam 141

Ootys Thread Flower Garden 152

Mudumalai 155

My First Experience of Art in Hyderabad 166

Ganesha Doing Linga Abhishekam 171

Paris: A Very Different Journey 175

Guimet: A Truncated Visit 182

Museum of Modern Art on Avenue du Prsident Wilson 187

Kancheepuram 194

Simhachalam 210

Pithapuram 220

Draksharama 229

Sri Kurmam 235

Salihundam 243

My Nameless Tree 248

A Healer 253

Lamps 266

Connections in Unlikely Places 271

Chikamagalur 276

Thiruvalangadu 280

Images of Death 288

A Postscript 297

Glossary

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks to the following people: Shyamala Sanketti for telling me about Wisdom Tree and persuading me to write to them; Chandrasekar Ramaswami for being a patient guide on our travels; Vidya and Venkat for their generous hospitality which facilitated our journeys from Chennai to the many temple towns in Tamil Nadu and made them a beautiful reality; my friend Mini Agarwal Dang for her sweet encouragement; Alex and Chitra for offering their home in Paris which made our trip to France a deeply cherished visit; Aparna, Sreedhar and their lovely twins for being there for us in Paris and India; Prof Subbarayudu for help with nagging grammar concerns; my parents, and family on both sides, for their love and unconditional support; my husband Ravi and my son Ananda for their heartwarming interest in my writing while pretending otherwise; my sister Shuchi Chawla for her painting (a labour of love), which is now the front cover image of this book; my publisher Shobit Arya for taking a keen personal interest in the shaping of this book; Papri Sri Raman for being a considerate and meticulous editor.

And to all the friends who havent been named, all the guardian angels and invisible gracious guides and kindly spirits who cant be named, I offer my deepest gratitude.

Ill Renovate My Heart

Each day strips a beam from the roof

Each night loosens a brick, shifts a stone

Some mortar falls in the twilight hours

Do not collapse my house, my home

Outside the grass is seared brown, no bed

And there are no stars to gaze at

Grey-gripped the sky grimaces

Go where?

Home is where the heart is

I Am Home

Home is where the heart is

Its where we started

Where we belong

McFly (British Pop Rock Band)

ome is where the heart is. Now, after a stay of close to six years in Hyderabad, the concrete form and delicate essence of this truism come to me with chiselled clarity. On the verge of our posting to Vancouver, I look back at our stay here with mixed feelings of pain, pleasure and gratitudepain because of illness in the family and the loss of some dear ones and pleasure because of the exceptional opportunity it offered to reconnect with family and friends and forge new bonds with several others.

My husband, Ravi, is in the Indian Foreign Service. Apart from our visits to India during home leave, we had been away for nearly ten years. After a three-and-a-half-year stay in Paris, in August 2006 we came to Hyderabad, our home town. A home posting is rather unusual but we were lucky. The Ministry of External Affairs had opened a Branch Secretariat and a post to head it was vacant. Ravi requested for the post. My father-in-law

was ill with a serious lung disease at that time. A Hyderabad posting would give us a chance to be with him and my parents who are settled here. Sadly, my father-in-law passed away a few weeks before we got here. This grievous loss cast a shadow on our homecoming.

I returned home with carefully garnered memories for company in backward-glancing moments. And the manuscript of a novel to keep me focussed in floundering moments. It was partly set in Paris, the attractive city that I had ventured to get to know a littleshyly at first and then with more ease and alacrity. Minutes before our arrival, as the aircraft began its descent into Hyderabad on 13 August, I am finally home, I told myself, yet I was apprehensive about the implications of this homecoming. I hoped it would be as simple as I tried to make it sound.

The monsoon was in full swingvery pleasant weather. It was certainly a great relief after Delhis heat and unbearable humidity. I had spent the previous week in Delhi in a daze, shutting out all unpleasant sights and sounds, counting the minutes till I would be in Hyderabad in my parents place in a green and agreeable colony. The only places where I felt at ease were my grandparents home and Saravana Bhavan, where we would go for practically all our meals. I just felt vaguely threatened by something indefinable all the days that I was in Delhi. I have always feared Delhi. A city of savvy shopkeepers and astute politicians, its size, its belligerent commerce, its survival-of-the-pushiest code and ones own anonymity there, had made me shrink away from staying there beyond a few days. Coming from Paris, my eyes searched for beauty, craved for it.

A few days after we returned to Hyderabad, I had to go to the Shringeri Math, not far from our place, for my father-in-laws masikam , the monthly shraadh ceremony. I was unfamiliar with the

Beyond the Gopurams

nature of this ceremony. I felt comfortable and secure going to the Shringeri Math the first time because my sister-in-law and her husband were with me, while Ravi participated in the ceremony in the large rectangular room with four others, who were also performing it for one of their elders. After this, in the coming months, for the most part, I attended the masikam alone, with the exception of Ravi who was involved in this monthly ritual. On three occasions, my son Ananda was with me until he left for Montreal in December 2006. I used to be unsure of myself because, while I understand Telugu, I do not speak it fluently. This would make me vulnerable to the queries and looks of other people (the relatives of the deceased) who waited in the room with me while the ceremony was being performed. The whole thing would take around three hours, during which time I would sit along with the others in a different room before we were called for the ritual lunch.