Paradise comes to Mylapore

By Venkataraman M

Viswam is a resident of Mylapore which is a place in the city of Chennai in India. Mylapore is an area famous for temples, churches and other religious and cultural places and is also historically, culturally and traditionally a very ancient one.

 

It was a time of Dasara, one of the important festival of the Hindus. Immediately prior to the beginning of Dasara, there is a period of fifteen days known as Mahalayam also called as Pitrupaksha. It is a fortnight of ancestors and people having faith in the Vedic religion used to perform certain religious austerities. Viswam is making arrangements for performance of these austerities.

 

Vishnu Sarma is the father of Viswam who passed away two years before. He comes to Viswam's place on the earth in a group along with his family and friends from the world of the ancestors to take part in the acceptance of the austerities being performed by his son. These ancestors, who are dead and gone, are coming in their subtle bodies invisible to people on earth. Vishnu Sarma also brings along with him the English poets William Wordsworth and Alfred Tennyson from their place in the Paradise.  Vishnu Sarma takes them along to the various places in Mylapore.

 

How does Wordsworth and Tennyson enjoy their visit to Mylapore? What is the significance of these austerities? What is the greatness of the temples and other places in Mylapore? It is a story which primarily explains these things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. VENKATARAMAN
• Release date: Oct 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393342106

Book preview

Paradise comes to Mylapore

M.Venkataraman

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Year of Publication -2019

Copyright - M. Venkataraman

Written and Published by:

M.Venkataraman,

G-10, Ground Floor,

Innovative Timberleaf,

Somasundarapalaya,

H.S.R. Layout, Sector 2,

Bengaluru-560102.

e-mail: [e-mail]

Contents

1. Mylapore

2. The city of Chennai

3. Viswam and Swayambu

4. The Kapaliswarar temple

5. The festival of Dasara

6. The ‘fortnight of ancestors’

7. Planet Pithro, Vishnu Sarma, Wordsworth and Tennyson

8. The journey of Vishnu Sarma and others from Pithro to Mylapore

9. Shaivism and Vaishnavism

10. Vishnu Sarma and group reaches Mylapore

11. The Santhome Cathedral

12. The Marina beach

13. Pillaiyar and his elephant face

14. The Nayanmars

15. Pillaiyar and his pot belly

16. Madhava Perumal Temple, Adi Kesava Perumal Temple, Srinivasa Temple and Mundagakanni Amman Temple

17. The Ramakrishna Universal Temple

18. Parthasarathy Swamy Temple

19. Return to Paradise

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1. Mylapore

IT WAS EARLY MORNING in the month of September. The Sun slowly rose from the sea filling the sky with shades of pink, orange, rose and amber. Shortly, the beautiful rays of the Sun began spreading across everywhere radiating a new hope and a new beginning. The morning Sun was so touching in its majesty. A sunrise is not only beautiful but is a powerful force which inspires and energises one and all.

It was the Marina Beach at Chennai earlier known as Madras. It is a long beach, reputed to be the second longest urban beach in the world. The beach became active with people quickly and steadily thronging the place. These people understand that the day’s sweetest moments are at dawn. A few of them walked briskly along the promenade; a few practiced to run; some others resorted to jogging; and a few senior citizens laboured to make a slow and leisurely walk.

Not that everyone became active, though. Nor any one lazy. Somewhere in the city, however, there were a few young couple who, as the sun peeped through the curtains in the morning, got disturbed as they lounged around in bed. And they, as imagined by John Donne, perhaps said:

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

In a few moments, the city of Chennai, the southern-most metropolis of India came to life.  Mylapore which is an area in Chennai very near the coast is probably one among the first to become brisk and active.

Mylapore is one of the important and famous areas of Chennai. The word Mylapore will reverberate in the heart of every resident of Chennai. Historically known as Vedapuri-the city of the Vedas, Mylapore is a thickly populated residential area on the sea coast off the Bay of Bengal. Historical and archaeological evidences indicate that this was one of the oldest part of Chennai with written records of early settlements going back to the first century BC. The city was known for an ancient port with a flourishing trade with the then Roman Empire, receiving gold in exchange for its products like pepper and fine cloth. With the seashore just about a kilometre away, this is one of the oldest yet culturally significant place of Chennai. Much before Madras became Chennai, and long before the city of Madras was even founded, there was Mylapore.

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There are a number of anecdotes about how the name of ‘Mylapore’ was given to this place. One such anecdote says that the peacocks used to thrive in this area and the region used to be reverberating with the screams