For our family annual darshan of Chathapuram we visited Palghat in mid August 2014. We went to Coimbatore (since tickets were not available to Palghat at short notice) and then took a vehicle to reach Chathapuram. Even though we left early, we wasted half an hour since the person who had to issue the road permit had gone to have breakfast!. I thought we will miss the darshan. Since time was running out, I called my cousin and he said that the Prasanna Mahaganapathy temple closes around 9:30 am and the Manapulli Bhagawathy temple (KAVU) may be around 11 am. So instead of going first to Kavu, which is what we normally do, we went straight to Chathapuram Village. My cousin was kind enough to wait for us at the entrance since one of the roads were blocked and he did not want us to waste time taking a diversion. A great soul indeed.
At last we reached the Chathapuram Prasanna Mahaganapathy temple just around the time the Priest was thinking of closing the door. We were lucky and Mahaganapathy showed us the way. We were able to pray at the temple, give our offerings, and the Priest was kind enough to give us some prasadam also. Mahaganapathy was in Chandana Kappu and we were blessed. We also went behind the temple to have a quick look at the river, which was flowing due to copious rain recently. What a great sight. Then we moved back to visit our ancestral house, it is then that I watched the Agraharam. One person standing at the entrance of his house, in a typical Palgaht way, holding the rails outside his house with his hands up and asked my cousin who we were and he could recognize my eldest brother CK Sadasivan. Apart from this, we could see no one else on the road. There was one Banana vendor that is all. The village was completely quiet, peaceful and an old world charm. It looked as if God resides here and that is the why the QUITENESS. The body just relaxes. My fathers cousin saw us and I told I will visit her, but in the process of rushing to the Kavu we forgot to visit her. Unfortunate.
We went to our ancestral house, the typical house in a agraharam. My Periamma was waiting and we took her blessings. We had hot coffee. I saw the the photographs of my Periappa (no more) and explained to my son that he was embodiment of love with little desires. We went to the simple Kitchen (With some modern ameneties like fridge and gas stove etc.) and the small outlet in the kitchen which connects to the well outside. I showed my son the well and explained not sure for how long the well has been sustaining the family. The well is full of plants but the water is pure. My daughter who is doing architechture, I explained how natural sunlight enters the house through the glass in the roofs. She was impressed. We freshened up a bit, spoke for some time and rushed to the Kavu. Feel like spending lot more time at the Village and be close to God.
We rushed to the Kavu, and here again God is kind. The last pooja for the morning was going on, and we were sheer lucky to see the Bhagawathy. But the office was closed and we could not make our normal offerings. We wanted to offer something specific this time, but given the temple seemed to be closing we were not sure. God shows us the way. We finished our first round of the temple, and I came out and wanted to buy the offering. No one knew where it is available. One flower vendor (I am sure God herself) helped us by saying that we can buy the offering in the main Palghat market and we may be lucky since that day was the last date of Aadi masam. We rushed to the market, and as we were trying to park the vehicle one old shop, called us, and I along with my wife rushed to the shop. He was Gods representative since he had exactly what we wanted. We bought our offering, and he showed us the way back to the Kavu also. We rushed back to the Kavu, rushed back inside and made the offering. Just see how God is so kind, as soon as we made the offering, the main door of the temple was closed!!!. Unbelievable but actually believable. We came out of the side entrance, went to the river behind, touched the water and my son enjoyed that. We then finished our temple visit. When we were returning back to the vehicle, behold, the flower vendor has vanished. He is God in a different avatar. Want to go back.
After finishing the religious duties, we were relieved, and for the first time tried to see Palghat town on our return journey. Clean roads, paved roads, reasonable traffic, but still retaining the charm. Some flats have sprung up. But it seems this is where we would want to retire. That is for a different blog later.
Our vehicle took us back to Coimbatore and we had lunch and then in the evening participated in a bhajan and finished with dinner. My mother in law lives in a senior citizen complex, which has mainly people from Palghat. So it was a nice atmosphere. We then left for the station and boarded train back to Chennai.
Our journey ended but Gods presence could be felt everywhere, he is there, he can be felt, only if human beings try to see HIM. He is the true lover of the Universe.
Om Prasanna Mahaganapathy. Manapulli Bhagawathy. Saranam.
