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MUTTHU TAANDAVAR

 

In 1560, in the temple town of Seergazhi, a son was born to a family

of temple musicians. It was a resonant old year in history: Akbar had

literally thrown off his regent, Bairam Khan, and assumed full power;

the Roman Catholic church was overthrown and the Protestant faith

established in Scotland as the national religion. John Knox's

macho `Scot Confession' began: "We confess and acknowledge one God

alone, to whom alone we must serve, whom alone we must cleave, whom

alone we must worship and in whom alone we must put our trust." It

spurned "idolatry" and decreed a straight and narrow path to the One.

That very year, the first tulip bulb was brought from Turkey to the

Netherlands and Jean Nicot introduced tobacco as snuff to the French

court, meanwhile the family of the Isai Velala, makers and players of

musical instruments for Hindu temples, chose to call their

son `Taandavar' (he who dances) after Nataraja, the deity of nearby

Chidambaram.

 

But Taandavar proved a sickly child with severe skin infection. His

only friend was a musical neighbour called Shivabhagyam, who sang to

him daily of Shiva, though everyone protested. His own family turned

him so loathsome.

 

Crawling one day into the temple's palanquin store, he fainted away.

The priests put out the lamps and locked for the night. Awaking in

the dark, Taandavar called out weakly to God. The priests little

daughter soon appeared, carrying food. She fed and comforted the boy,

advising him to go to Chidambaram and compose a new song every day to

Nataraja with the first words he heard in the temple. Next morning,

the priests found Taandavar healed and glowing with luster that they

wonderingly named him `Mutthu Taandavar' (muthu means pearl). The boy

realised it was Parvati worshipped as `Lokanayaki' in Seergazhi, who

had come disguised to him.

 

Off went Mutthu Taandavar to the Kanaka Sabha (Golden Halls), an

euphemism for Chidambaram). One day, to his confusion, not a word was

spoken in the temple. Taandavar could only hear only his own

desperate heart beat. He cried aloud "Pesaade nenjamey!" (Speak not,

my mind) and so composed the day's song: his dependence in others was

over. One day, in 160, they say, a great light appeared in Nataraja's

sanctum and 80-year-old Mutthu Taandavar was absorbed into it. Aptly,

it was the day of the star `Poosham'; the very time Nataraja first

danced his Ananda Tandava at Chidambaram.

 

Copyright: The faith line-Indian express Daily.