kudos to the new Adhyapaks at Thiruvallikkeni divyadesam 2020

In every walk of life – how would anyone ensure continuance:  – propagate the ideals, infuse youth .. .. !

Life in a divyadesam is always exhilarating – you get to mingle with so many persons whose life is entwined in service to Emperuman Sriman Narayana.  There would be purappadu on Uthsava kalams and on pancha parvams too.  There are Battacharyars whose exceptional dedication ensures that Emperuman comes out adorning the choicest of flowers, ornaments, dress and more.  There is the  Veda adhyapaka goshti – hundreds of them chant Nalayira divyaprabandham in front of Emperuman on the streets and  chanting Vedam  after the Perumal.   Of the many kainkaryams, Sripadham thangis are  physically associated too and can be very demanding.   

Divyaprabandha kainkaryam flows from Azhwargal, Acaryas, Swami Ramanujar, our Acaryar Manavala Mamunigal .. .. .. and continues to eternity.  Of those rendering ‘arulicheyal kainkaryam’ - Thiruvallikkeni Veda Adhyapaka goshti is extremely organized ~ doing kainkaryam in exceptionally meritorious manner.  In the present goshti, there are at least 3 Swamis (Sri U Ve Kavanur Srinivasaraghavan Swami, Sri Kooram Bashyam Swami and Sri Vanamamalai Deivanayagan Swami) who are more than 80+ and they are very regular too.  Then there Septugenarians  & Sexagenarians who are adhyapaks.    In Triplicane, the Adhyapaka sabai has legal sanctity too. 

My initiation to participating in Nalayira divyaprabandha goshti started in mid 1970s, when a bunch of school going students (close to 100+) were taught Peyalwar’s moonram thiruvanthathi by MA Venkatakrishnan swami, who himself was a college student those days.  To me personally, it flowed through my maternal grandfather Sri Athichozhamangalam Ramanujachar Swami, a tall personality, who was regular in attending to purappadu and was a muraikarar (who had the privilege of starting goshti on the given day of the week).  When I was young – my grandfather and my mother inculcated the habit of going to sandhai, learning divyaprabandham from MAV and attending thiruveethi purappadu without fail.

Those days, chinna mada veethi purappadu would take around 20 minutes and periya mada veethi purappadu approx 45 mins.  As I could remember, the first line was garnished by Sri U.Ve  :  Kavalkazhani Ananthachar swami, Desur Srinivasa iyengar swami, Anantheri Vathiyar, Kanthur vathiyar (fondly kittachi), Kuvalai Ramanujachar, Ashtagothram Parthasarathi Swami,  Athichozhamangalam Ramanujachar (my grand father),Vinjamoor Narasimhachar,  Thirucherai Ramanujachar, Vanamamalai Sampath swami ~  Sri Varadhanarayana iyengar, Vanamamalai Deivanayagam swami, Kooram Bashyam swami .. and more .. .. then there were: Dr VV Ramanujam, Sthalasayanathu Uraiyavar,  Sri Rangarajan,  MA Venkatakrishnan, Vinjamoor Raghavan, Sathish, Rajappa, TR Raghavan,  MS Srinivasan (MS Seenu)  .. .. ..  and more . .. (and all of them encouraged all the children who enthusiastically came for the purappadu) [obviously there are so many swamins who did great kainkaryam  over the period of time – if I had left out some names, please forgive me or put on the comments, so that I can correct and mention appropriately.]

The average of the goshti (more specifically of the Adhyapakas) naturally was getting higher.  2020 has started in a refreshing manner – understand that 3 youngsters (relatively) – Sri TA Bakthisaran, Sri S Krishnan and Sri Vadhyar Narayanan Swami have been inducted as ‘adhyapakas’ at Thiruvallikkeni.  Vadhyar Narayanan Swami is relatively the youngest of them all – in his early 40s probably or even younger.

Krishnan is of my age .. ..and on  Bakthisaran, I have to say more.  We studied together at Hindu High School (+2); share the same Nakshathira birthday; joined insurance industry together in 1985- while I left Oriental and joined Private Insurer, Bakthi continued at United India becoming a Divisional Manager.   Of the group that learnt santhai from MAV [Sekar, Murali, Me, Sundar, Ravisundar, Govar, Rajathi, Kovalai Raghavan, Baja, Garner Sampath, Vacha and more] – Bakthisaran was the first to sport a tuft – though all of us continue to attend divyaprabandha goshti in our own way, Bakthi had sikai, has been doing great kainkaryam at Sriperumpudur, Thirumalai and other divyadesangal besides Thiruvallikkeni.

Feeling happy that my close pal  Bakthisaran has become an adhyapakar at Thiruvallikkeni divyadesam at the age of 55 – kudos Bakthi – feel happy and proud of you.  Kudos to Krishnan and Narayanan Swami too.

Adiyen dhasan – S. Sampathkumar

4^th Jan 2020.