The Calling - Darasuram Shiva Temple

Anecdotes

-Staff

By Staff

Friday, August 1, 2008, 12:16

It's a bright sunny morning, the smoke rises out of the kitchen as she gets the aroma of a delicious brahmin meal in the making. Her father heads to the temple next door, to do the routine abhishekam for the day, while her mother gets ready to weave the next silk saree.

She hums a little tune to herself as she freshens up and looks out at the trees dreamily as the shimmering leaves sway in the gentle breeze. She watches the birds with colorful feathers sing to each other as they make home. Dressed and ready for the day, she pins up the jasmine flowers onto her head and tucks the davani onto her waist and walks out of the house to head to the temple next door.

It's an old temple, not too big, not small either but simply beautiful. She rings the big brass bell hanging down at the hall, and the ring reverberates, sending ripples through the pillars. It's a calling, to the Lord that she has arrived to serve him again. She sings a melodious tune to herself as she sweeps through the hall while her father offers abhishekam to the deity within. She advances near the main shrine, the most beautiful shrine she has seen and been close to all her life.

She walks through the silence as the cool breeze shuffles her hair. She watches the fire dancing gentle as it clings to the wicks of the oil lamps. She observes the dancers all along the walls as they perform for the Lord, movement that she had wished she could grasp, movement that she saw even through stone. They danced and played the drum, they went in rhythmic motion, and she could swing with them and bring it all back alive, she could hear the music in her ears as she swayed with the wind following the poses on the wall.

True beauty, pure love, that no one could touch, pure music in her heart as she danced her way through the pillars, pure rhythm in the feet as she felt each sculptural pose in her fingers as she bent backwards feeling them on the wall. The wind rang the smaller bells on the temple doors in gentle motion, the fires seems to join the dance flow, as the idols in the niches watched on to see her, the performer on the floor.

She walked into the darkness, closer to the Lord, through the dark passage occasionally lit by patterns of sunlight. Her anklets made the only sound she could hear as she stepped closer to the Lord's chamber. She was now as close as she could get, in front of the dark room, where he stood. She looked at his stony self, a silent Linga, draped beautifully in the lamp light. The intoxication rising as she felt it right through her skin, rhythm still in her mind, she swayed with the beat as the Lord danced in her mind. The madness ever rising, the darkness giving way to the eternal light, she watched the fire flicker into haze as she swooned to the floor.

She had looked out of the grilled windows all these days, longing for her prince, wanting to know which land he would come from. He had been here, right by her side, always there, watching her every step in pure bliss as He took her in His arms, every day as she swooned listening to the rhythmic beat in his dancing feet.

P.S. Darasuram hosts a Shiva temple surrounding which live a lot of weavers who make the most famous silk sarees. This just brings alive the feelings of one such innocent life.