Pandiyan and his animals
Pandiyan is a great photographer. I met him on Flickr and have been watching his photographs in awe. He has a blog too, about India’s endangered animals. Do visit him, meet his friends, the animals, and get more aware.
The Mughals
For all their brutality and military power, the Mughal empire in India didn’t last really long did it? At best, 200 odd years, for by then (1700s), the British and French were at loggerheads for Madras
The Scian Melt
The Scian Melt is on, and this one’s hosted by me. But, you say, what is a Scian Melt? Well then, listen up.
Inspired by the wonderful carnivals (you know, crazy people dancing with joy) around the blogosphere, The Scientific Indian brings you its own version. We would like to introduce you to The Scian Melt, a showcase of good weblogging about Science and India.Twice a month, you, our dear reader, will send us links to weblog posts that caught your attention and kept it. The posts would, on the whole, have a scientific tone. They could be about anything under the sun, around the sun and far beyond it. We expect to receive and host posts from folks of many interesting backgrounds. Those posts will be collected and introduced by a host in that edition of The Scian Melt.
-From The Scian Melt Page
Now that you know, it’s time to act. Nominate, and by the dozens. If you find posts that deals with science, research & technology and has particular reference to India, that’s the kind of posts we are looking for. Leave a comment, with a link to the post or mail it to chandrachoodan@gmail.com
For a sample Scian Melt, check out Melted and Served Fresh or Scian Melt #3
The final listing of nominated entries will be put up on the 15th of August, 2005. But first, nominate
A break
The air’s kinda getting musty and I can almost smell that incense. So a break from all that religion and spirituality, and some good-hearted, rib-tickling bitchiness, from the guy who’s mastered the art of being acidic. Sulfury: Celebrity Endorsements We’d Love 2 See
1. Laloo Prasad Yadav For Kohinoor Extra Time Condoms.
Logic for using him: He’s screwed Bihar for so long. And is yet to climax.
...
3. Karunanidhi for Ray Ban Sunglasses.
Logic for using him: He’s taken coolers to the masses. He’s not afraid of the rising sun. And he might write just a Tamil jingle for ray ban on the lines of: Sooriyanai paarkum vinaadi, podu nee indha kannaadi.
Road to Salvation
The last photo I shot, and the most welcome sign I’ve seen ever.
Some people have called me crazy, for such inane things as talking back to a professor or drinking 5 cups of coffee in 2 hours. If only they knew what I did last Sunday.
I shall begin though, at the beginning. There was a star we called the Sun. Then there were 9 rocks, each called by different names. The one I know best is the third one. Called Earth, it is pretty tiny. On that is a tiny country called India, part of which is a tinier state called Tamil Nadu. But nothing about Tamil Nadu is tiny. The people, the places, the temples. But the biggest of them all is the people’s belief in god, and in Salvation. And no place knows more about Salvation than Chidambaram.
Shiva, the destroyer/regenerator of Indian mythology is considered the ultimate, for he holds in him the power of death and Salvation. Usually represented as the Lingam (a sign of harmony, the Lingam is the union of the female and the male, of Shakthi and Shivam, of energy and matter)
An important aspect of the Indian religion is the worship of the elements of nature. And in this, Tamil Nadu preserves a much earlier, pantheistic religion in its representation of the five basic elements (pancha-bhutankal) – Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Ether/Space.
These five elements are represented by five special lingams in five different temples. Chidambaram is the seat of the Ether Lingam.
Allow me now to take a back seat, and let my great grandfather continue this little story.
The apprehension of God in the last of these five as ether is, according to the Saiva school of philosophy, the highest form of worship, for, it is not the worship of god in a tangible form, but the worship of what, to ordinary minds, is vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of a knowledge of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the shape of any linga, which is, after all, an emblem.
That this is the case in Chidambaram is known to every hindu, for if he ever asks the priests to show him the god in the temple he is pointed to an empty space in the most holy of the holies, which has been termed the akasha, or the ether-linga. In this lies the so called Chidambaram rahasya – the secret of worship in the sacred city of Chidambaram. When any devotee has reached the stage of worshipping God in this manner, he is, according to the Saiva Doctrine, deemed to be exempt from all future births and is supposed to secure absorption in the supreme essence of God.
Pandit Natesa Shastri in the NRI Bhakta.After listening patiently to what the priest had to say of the temple and its history, and not finding any answers to the one question I had (viz. why are the pillars each in a different style?). I head out to Sirgazhi.
The river Kollidam, the most major distributory/arm of Cauveri, lies between Chidambaram and Sirgazhi. Riding on a deserted bridge, with the river bed gleaming in the sun, and tiny trickles of water forming pools here and there is a sight I will always hold dear. Across the bridge, and into Nagapattinam district is a matter of 5 minutes.
(to be continued)
About
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan is a copywriter, photographer and goofball from Chennai. He is also an archaeologist, historian and a city lover. He is currently a documentary film-maker and desk-monkey for a film production house.
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