Oh My God! Episode 10

Dear Vidya,
Oh, thanks for those great words. You are right. The earliest memory I have of God is when some elderly aunt told me in a threatening whisper 'umachi kanna kuthirum' God will blind you. That first instilled a kind of fear in me. But soon I learnt that he is the very sight behind my eyes, the hearing power of my ears, and thinking power of my mind. How can the very substratum of existence do something as nasty and as silly as punishing somebody created and protected by Him?
Fear went away. And a burning love took its place. God showed me His love in ways I can't even begin to understand. Even to thank God, I now think will be a blasphemy. Let's say that a person is drowning. No body could save him. He is slowly sinking. Even his parents could not venture to save him. At that time somebody jumps in and after a great struggle pulls him out to safety.
Now if the saved man should say thank you and walk away, will it not be an insult to the saviour? God is doing to us a billion times more than that saviour. So how can we say thanks to him. Thanks is the word you say to the bus conductor if he gives the correct change. It's something you say to the lift operator when you get out of the life. that word is not for the Lord. For him we should simply die in eternal, overflowing gratitude. Even that is not enough. Sorry I got emotional. The naughty Lord always does that on me! May He be blessed!

I am very happy vidya that I rekindled some of the pleasant memories of your life, your honeymooning in Kerala. Yes. It's God's own country. But tell me which country is not.

Thanks for the nice fb. Expecting you to be there on 5th June for OMG 11, well on time.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Ramya,

thanks. One major reason for the love of each of the characters remaining supreme and incomparable is that it was quite spontaneous and unforced. But most of the time the love we show is propelled by a sense of guilt or shame. We see others showing love and we feel that we should not be less than those people and are in a hurry to do something.

Just see when Alavandar was ill none of the other disciples offered to take his disease on them. They did not feel like it and they did not do it.
To shower spontaneous love is the quality of God. That's why God's love, Perianambi's love and Maraneri's love, all shine with equal brightness.

Many times the quality of packaging is influenced by the value and preciousness of the item packaged. When you are asked to pack the Kohinoor diamond normally you throw away all your other work and go out of the way to do the job to perfection. So if my packaging is good, the fault lies with the preciousness of the item packaged.

I was a little hesitant to add the epilogue as it would eat into your time. But then I decided to go for it and now I am happy to see that it has made you happy.

Tomorrow is another special day, Ramya. Please be there for OMG 11.
love,
sridhar

 

dear pad,
Rest assured Pad, that you have not hurt me at all. Otherwise I would not have given such a detailed reply. Otherwise I would not have even imitated your font.
And Pad I am still waiting for the information on that Thaniyan you posted.
I am only happy that my post has inspired you to write so much. Please continue to do like that for the future episodes as well.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Indhu,
I know there are at least a million writers who do a better job than what I do. And I know hundreds of them. But in one respect I have a privilege which they do not have. To have one's writings appreciated by ones wife. And that to being done publicly in an open forum. In fact after reading your fb I am even inclined to discredit the adage, No man is a hero to his wife. But dear please be careful with me. If you praise me too much then my ego will get bloated and I might start behaving in a funny way.

I chose Allepey for the only reason that we had been there on a holiday. A love story like this one has to be told only in the backdrop of the backwaters. That's the reason I shifted the story over there.

This Perianambi incident is quoted in the religious texts only to highlight this argument of Perianambi. I am happy that you have highlighted it in your reply.

Maraneri and Manavalan all had hearts full of love and had an apt occasion to express it nicely. That made the job of this packer and mover pretty easy. As I said in another response if the thing to be package is really valuable like a Kohinoor diamond the packer's job is usually done all right.

I am happy that you liked the epilogue too though I know that by writing the epilogue I made even greater inroads into your already sparse time. I hate to tell you this. But OMG 11 also comes with a three-part epilogue. On a totally different subject.

I can always bluff my way with the older people. But with the younger ones I will have to be very careful. Any wrong word then they'd lose their faith in the system for ever. The loving God did not let me down on that day.

thanks for the fb, dear. Looking forward to seeing you at the same place tomorrow evening.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Pushpavalli,
Your visiting this thread and dropping a line of fb is a sign that this thread is really blessed. In any race for Love the Lord wins hands down. We can only melt in love for him. We can only shed tears on his love. Never can we even begin to reciprocate a millionth of His pure love.
Thanks for the visit and blessings, PS.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Sudha,

I think that I have done a proper prayaschittham for the Ananda Vikatan story which appeared two weeks ago.

You are right, Sudha. These days it is very difficult to find such pure love. Everything is done with the reason.

The other day I was browsing a spiritual magazine that comes from Chennai. Page after page it says, "If you want your stomach pain to go, then go to this temple. This Lord helps you in recovering the money you lent."And it goes on to describe in minute detail what pooja one has to do if one's child should have a fair complexion.

It talks about everything except love.

Stories like this are documented in the temple logs (Koil Ozhuku) and are also incorporated in to the commentaries on Divya Prabandam. When the commentator wants to drive home a point he simply narrates the story and then says, Did not God wait at Perianambi's place on that day?

People were poor those days. In spite of being the primary disciple of the Greatest Acharyas of his day Koorathazhwan did not have enough food in his house. But to day even the smallest of fake swamijis go in Toyota Innova. Probably the accumulation of wealth has removed all traces of love from religion.

You are right I do enjoy writing these episodes. And reliving them. Again and again. for example I should have read OMG 11 at least a 100 times by now. I am yet to run the spell check on it because I am sure I may make a few last minute changes. I am happy that my work has reached so many people spread throughout the world.
Nammazhwar (blessed be his soul) concludes in the last canto.. "He sang about himself through me..." Anything that is written about God is written only by him. May be he uses my fingers, key-board and the system. But wait... what's mine.. .
thanks once again for the fb. see you tomorrow at the same time.
love,
sridhar