The puRappAdu Experience!

[Guest guest]

Hello

I had a really great time at the 'Sri Manavaala MaamunigaL

thirunakshathram celebration' at Livermore temple, CA. First of all

I should thank Sri Venkatesh Elayavalli for his tireless efforts in

making this a very beautiful event. He was the one who initiated

this and got us all into it.

 

If I have to describe how I felt during the last two days in a

nutshell, I feel the jet lag! I felt like I was transported at the

speed of light to thiruvallikkENi, where I spent about a month

taking part in the festive, colourful, most traditional, very

beautiful uthsavam for one of the best loved Sri VaishNava AchAryAs

and then brought back to this alien land far far away... (I have

every reason to feel the jet lag, right?)

 

Given that the celebration was on a normal 2 day weekend and that

too falling right before the long weekend, we were slightly

concerned about the turnout. We were extremely blessed to have

bhAgavathAs from Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Atlanta and everywhere.

That was amazing. This is the first time I am seeing the

bhAgavathAs from Chicago area. In short, they are an amazing set of

very devoted, sincere, 'prabhandham rich' people. My hats off to

them! During the uthsavams at kanchipuram, there will be a set of

people from thiruvallikkENi as a group. This Chicago group was much

like that (special!).

 

The prabhandha sEvAkAlam was most wonderful. The best part of the

celebration was the puRappAdu. It was like a perfect puRappAdu as

in a dhivya dhEsam. Our dear perumAL was seated on the garuda

vAhanam and it was about 6 PM, getting dark. It was a perfect setting

outside the temple. There was a big group of people chanting

Prabhandham sonorously led by our priest Sri Sridharan from

Thirupathi. PerumAL eagerly followed us behind! And there was a

group chanting veda headed by Sri Srinivasan Iyengar. (As our

AchAryAs say, perumAl was chasing the prabhandham recitation eager

to be with them and peacefully listen and the vEdAs were chasing

perumAL! )

 

To my fullest personal satisfaction and my heart's content, the

puRappAdu was completely taken over by my dearest AzhvAr, none

other than thirumaN^gai mannan! We started off with the first 10

pAsurams from periya thirumozhi, "vAdinEn vAdi...". I can't believe

that all these happenend right here in california. It was a true

dhivya dhEsam experience to recite vAdinEn, so sloooowly and

sonorously, with the entire group singing at the perfect pitch,

together... It was a divine experience. Then we recited

'kaNNin^uN ...". By this time the puRappAdu had completed

a full circle around the temple and perumAL was seated comfortably

and was ready to get immersed in the sol amudham and chan^dha

azhagu (nectar like words and rhyming poetry) of SiRiya thirumadal.

And He enjoyed it completely.

 

The puRappAdu is still right in front of my eyes. PerumAL seated

on the garudan, with the late evening darkness setting in, the gas

lights and the dhIvattis providing the right amount of light

illuminating the perumAL, adorned by two big kudais (umbrellas),

big groups of people reciting prabhandham and vEdham... One of the

bhAgavathAs told me later that she had too many excellent options

to choose from. There was this great vEda recitation at the back

which made her stay at the back. Then she rushed to the front to

have one another good look of perumAL's soundharyam and having come

to the front she was greatly attracted by the sonorous prabhandham

recitation. She had to run back and forth! Thats exactly how

perumAL would have felt.

 

Prior to this, there were interesting talks by Sri Mani, Sri

Varadhan, Sri Anbil, Smt. Radha Rangarajan and Sri Raghavan. After

all the talks there was a carnatic music concert. Somebody would

have already written about all these. I just wanted to share my

joyful great experience of the puRappAdu and the good sath sangam

of people from Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Atlanta...

 

AzhvAr emberumAnAr dEsikar jIyar thiruvadigaLE SaraNam,

adiyEn

-Viji

(Vijay Triplicane)