Margazhi thingal

The Tamil month Margazhi (Dhanur masa in Sanskrit), spanning from the mid-December to mid-January is regarded to be the early morning for the day of the devas and devis. It is also said that this is one of the months to get ourselves involved in spiritual quest instead of getting bothered about the mundane things. It’s special to all devas and devis, but very much known for Aandal (said to be one of the incarnations of Lakshmi) and her Thiruppavai. My mom used to tell the story of Aandal – how she did a cute penance for these 30 days, told out the Thiruppavai, and got to merge with Lord Narayana with her Supreme love. Everyone in the family used to chant the Thiruppavai early in the morning, so anyways, if you are at home, you have to wake up!

One very exciting thing about the month is you get amazing tasty yummy hot prasadams in almost all temples in South India, early in the morning.:-) So, one thing that I used to do when I was in school is to get up in the morning, help my mom put kolam* in front of the house(my mom and sis might disagree to this;-)) , go to the nearby temples, one after another, collecting prasadams! By the way, it used to make my parents extremely happy and I used to get a lot of goodies in return, which added on to my interest in waking up early(at least most of the days!;-)).

*In this month very elaborate and intricate artistic patterns – we call it “Kolam” – are drawn at entrance of all houses. Most of the roads, atleast in Tamilnadu looks spic and span and fully decorated. This can be definitely seen on every road if you go into any village in Tamilnadu. All the houses will have lamps lit at the entrance.

One of amma’s Kolams

During this month we have the music festival, all the concert halls will have top to new carnatic artists performing. Apart from this, groups of people along with many children come on the roads with dolak, nadaswaram, mridangam singing the hyms of  the divine and would stop in front of each house(we call them bhajana ghostis).  On the last day of the month, we have the procession of Aandal and Rangamannar(Lord Narayana), nicely decorated and brought in front of every house – More like a reception after their wedding.

Aandal with Ranga Mannar

Vaikunta ekadashi, Thiruvadurai (again wait for the yummy “kaLi with kootu” prasadam on this day) and Hanumath Jayanti are the famous festivals in this month. It’s the same month when Christ was born, so even Christians spend a lot of time for the divine this month!

What makes me feel so proud in this is how in our culture, spirituality was induced through various means of art, food(yummy prasadams) right from the childhood and playfully got good habits in children! Over the years, this tradition has definitely seen a set back. It’s indeed very sad that nowadays very few parents know of these themselves. Most of them are busy thinking about how to manage the family, worried about various things and fail to tell their kids on our culture! Little do they know that all these not only add life into our living, but makes life much more easier even with a little amount of spiritual quiotent added to our life.

I do miss those days when I used to be in Chennai, going to the temples, but thanks to the habit induced right from my childhood – it’s changed to doing group sadhana these days early in the morning(though its much more challenging for the cold Bangalore weather)! Group of us get together and meditate and do kriya, listen to some nice knowledge! It used to be seeing the divine only outside, but now, its not only confined to seeing the divine outside, but also within! Isn’t that so cool?!

PS: Wait for more interesting details on Aandal, Kolams and Festivals mentioned!

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