Thaipusam 2017

  Thaipusam is celebrated as victory of good over evil. It is to be believed that on Thaipusam day goddess Parvati gave Vel to Lord Muruga to demolish Asuras. Offering Kavadi to Lord Muruga has its own significance – burden in one’s own life will be lessened. Thaipusam is widely celebrated across the globe and here in America Murugan devotees are lucky enough to participate in Shiva Murugan temple’s Thaipusam celebrations. Padhayatra is one such ritual where devotees take pilgrimage to temple. Living in a country where few drops of water on the floor is cautioned using a yellow board, pilgrimage must be a distant dream for many. A Trail in California which is pretty much straight for most part of the journey and all the way to temple – do we call this luck or do we call this a divine intervention?

   Volunteers – a word which gained more respect and meaning after seeing them in action. Young adults take off from their work, young ladies get together on a house and do mass cooking, Teenage boys do Bike patrolling, teenage girls help their mom on break spots, small girl gives napkins, 70-year-old lady does pandhi visaranai, so on and so forth. Food for breakfast, lunch and dinner is not catered but cooked by volunteers; Just to make sure people are not lost during the walk especially the out of station folks, leads are assigned and several folks are assigned on many intersections just to direct to the right path.

  Key to hosting a successful event for an organization is to plan things and execute them meticulously. If one can bridge the gap between planning and execution, then success story is on the making. Let me give you three examples. They had multiple counters for serving food and one volunteer gave plate, spoon and napkin together which reduces time rather than allowing people to pick each one from table. They had dedicated volunteer to collect plates, napkins, spoons by that way they can prevent trash bag getting filled with empty space. By this way they could fill in more and this on top of being environment friendly it also reduces number of trips to dispose trash. Next one is traffic control – with overwhelming numbers each passing year they came up with a strategy in how they want to control traffic amongst the walkers. They placed volunteers in appropriate junctions and basically the person did a traffic constable job in managing the overall flow of walkers. I love the concept of neither sodas in any of the break spots nor junk food. Liquid items were buttermilk, rosemilk, chai, coffee, Gatorade and panakkam which were all well made.

   Padhayatra is a wonderful experience to interact with nature – place your feet on the ground, look upto the glorious sky and feel the wonderful breeze of air and in the process, also thank nature of our existence in this world. There are more and more challenges for the organizers every year due to the overwhelming response from devotees across the country. Being religious is good in many ways and there are many ways to offer our prayers to almighty – Padha yatra is one such thing. ‘Seva’ actually means ‘Selfless service’ and just want to go over this term in detail. First and foremost as devotees we have to acknowledge the fact that many may not be able to do physically exhaustive tasks like Anga pradhesham, padha yatra etc., If we are being truly religious then we can encourage devotees and motivate them and if the other party still feel they cannot then it is our responsibility to give them the free space. Some offer money, some volunteer their time, some sing bhajans, some market the events etc., people can do anything to their capacity and lord will be happy to accept prayers of his/her devotees. The true devotion is the key and this is called ‘Bhakthi’. I know people who are now old who have not indulged in any padha yatra but still having a fulfilling life with good health, wealth, prosperity, good children etc., But there were truly devotional and always good at heart. If one can perform traditions like Padha yatra in a foreign land then that is well and good and should consider themselves very blessed and at the same time they should encourage more people to participate in future. I have been blessed to experience Padha yatra in USA for three consecutive years and would highly recommend you to participate in future. It just takes one experience for you to keep coming again and again.