Some father-son bonding. Plus an elephant & time away from the madding crowd.

It's around 4PM last Sunday evening & my son had just woken up from his afternoon nap.
As on most days, he was quite irritable after waking up. Since my wife had some chores to attend to, I decide to take him out to change his mood.

As we get into the car, my Dad looks up from the newspaper with an enquiring look.

"We are going to the nearby temple", I tell him.

I can see a puzzled expression on his face. For many months, there has been this minor disagreement between us about me skipping Sunday mass at church. And since I don't
go, my wife & son also skip the ritual. And to top it all, I am now visiting a temple. :-)

I allay his fears over my converting to Hinduism by telling him that the idea of going to
the temple is only to spend some time with the elephant that belongs to the temple, or
Kutti-Aana (Malluspeak for little-elephant) as my son calls it. I know that the short drive
and some time spent watching the elephant will cheer my son up.

A 5-min drive takes us to the temple. There are some elderly people sitting at the gate
and talking, which I guess must be a daily ritual for them. Not much activity inside the
temple though. We leave our footwear outside and walk on the fine sand in the premises
and reach the place where the elephant is tethered. My son walking on the soft sandy
premises of the temple.


As is our usual practice,we sit on the soft sandy earth some 15 metres away from the
pachyderm and watch it as it munches on cocount tree leaves. Even though very young,
this particular elephant (it's name is Premshankar) is known to be a little roguish at times.

Usually you can make out how calm an elephant is by its activity. It would just stand still,
almost motionless, occasionally swatting flies with its tail. But this guy is always swaying
this way and that, occasionally stretching at the chains that bind 2 of its legs to 2 trees.


We sit and watch it for sometime. Slowly the sun is setting and since my son is bored of
gawking at the elephant, we decide to walk around the temple. There is a pathway running around the temple made of thick stone slabs and we walk on it, taking in the view. This is
the aal-thara (banian tree with a base at the bottom, with some idols placed there).


During a previous visit, me and my wife noticed that meshed inside the banian tree's grip
is a palm tree, which is not normally visible. We can see the upper half of the palm, but the
bottom half is not visible at all.

It is so silent and serene out there. I have been to many temples in Tamilnadu, but I don't
think they have the ambience of a Kerala temple or "Kshetram" as a temple is known here. Maybe because space is at a premium in Chennai. This particular temple is spread over
some 2-3 acres of land.

You can see the stone-slab walkway that runs around the sanctum-sanctorum.


Another view of the temple.



The silence, the fresh air, the ambience, everything is so soothing and rejuvenating.
We spend some time walking around the temple and by now my son is back in a
happy mood. Time to go home, where my wife would have prepared some snacks
for him.