What I Missed While Walking Past the Kanchi Mutt

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A place I passed every day without really understanding it. As a kid growing up in Malleswaram, devotion wasn’t something we discussed — it was just in the air. The smell of agarbathi in the evenings. The noise of vendors lining up on 8th cross before a festival. The quiet expectation that you showed up, bowed your head, and moved on. Ganesh Chaturthi. Varalakshmi Vratam. Deepavali. Janmashtami. Ugadi. The calendar moved, but the pattern stayed. The Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham in Malleswaram was part of my daily route to school. Not something I questioned. Not something I deeply understood. Just… there. Every morning, on my way to school, I would slow down for a second in front of the Mutt. Just enough to bow my head toward Kanchi Kamakshi from outside the gate — and then hurry along before the school bell. It was a ritual for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if it came from devotion. I did it because my parents did it. The street...
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Avani Avattam

Hey! Wondering what this mysterious word is? It is nothing but one of the most sacred and religious ceremony of the Brahmins. It is the Upakarma. Belonging to the Yajur veda, the thread changing ceremony ( to be simple) fell today and the three of us in our room were ready with our waishtee ( dhoti ), vivudhi ( sacred ash) on our forehead, dharbe, new poonal ( thread ), pancha pathra ugruni, arisi ( rice) or to be appropriate akshadhai and of course water.

A scanned copy of the Kanchi madam upakarma copy was there on my lap and with great vigor and challenge, I was reciting the Sanskrit words written in Tamil. Never easy to get a good foothold in the subject if you've never read it before. All the time we are involved in science and technology that you realise what you've been missing in the long run. Vedic knowledge has always been a boon not for a particular community but for the whole wordly sphere. It encompasses all that we can think of and a lot more.

Life gets too intricate and complicated if we don't understand the real meaning of our deeds. I think with the advancement of science and technology, the values, morals and ethics are taking a backseat. The competitive edge is so razor sharp that fellow feelings are not anymore being administered in the right sense. Its always a trade off! Do you want to spend more time thinking about your progress or do you want to spend time for the society? Its a tough call considering the kind of circumstances that one has to go through to earn his bread.

Vedas, Upanishads and other religious manuscripts have mesmerised me as well as baffled me. It has so much of content that we pretend not to have time so as not to read them. The content is obviously over the head but the process is worth it. I would consider it a Once in a lifetime experience to come close to reciting the vedas let alone mastering them. I have always had this fancy of learning the miniscule of atleast one of the vedas - Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharvana veda but then I don't have time!!

It is never easy to change but a change for the better is really worth it whatever maybe the ordeal that one has to undergo for it.

A little too philosophical but I just hope that it does sound a lot pragmatic!!

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