Up and Close with Sudalai Madan: Warm up

Hollywood is just a movie industry for most people, but for some like me, it is the inspiration and life guide. I have watched many movies from all genres - action, thriller, comedy, drama, romance, but what I loved is a controversial subjects. Mikael Håfström's 1408 was in my mind, when I travelled down south to my native for the holy annual festival, 'Sudalaimada Swamy Kodai'. I always keep track of what I do at what time when I'm away from home in my diary. I caught this habit after maintaining the track diary when we make the pilgrimage to Sabarimala every year.

Back view of our Sudalaimada Swamy temple

I travelled with Athai and Chitapa to Thirunelveli by train; festival takes place at summer, to keep his elder sister comfortable my uncle booked an AC room near Nellai railway junction we stopped by dropped luggage and refreshed. I was happy he was there, someone who can guess what will be running in my mind. We reached Kumarapuram after going to Udhayathur soon we went to Sudalaimadan temple to see 'Paalabhisekam' then came back home. Chittappa helped me to push sometime by taking me to our ancestors home telling stories about them I wrote about this in the previous blog.

Then came the evening the time seriously to be watched, this might climax like 1408 or our own 'Kandhsamy'. My eyes were all around the place looking for some clue on where to start my first page on 'God, is he real?'. I befriend some relatives there, one was Mr Kumar I didn't know whether he caught my motivated eyes or randomly quipped 'every powerful God, many in the city don't know about Sudalaimadan'. I was asking myself was this a warning? sent by Sudalaimadan himself.

Temple bell : Gaanda mani? No, not that big. Kovil mani

My cousin is the senior priest of the shrine. He was in a trans-state all day long I was there from noon almost in front of his eye, when he returned home to bath looked at me and asked 'When did you come?' by then it was 7pm. So does this really work? was he in complete outta human mode? You must know they carried big sickles and swords in hand when they danced I'm not going to experiment. The swords were really sharp, sharp enough to cut goat's head in single nice cut :O

The important ceremony started at Amman kovil, just back to my cousin's home. They had all the folk musicians and priests assembled. Drums and band blasted the sky as the ritual started with Deepa aarathanai to Amman then my cousin came dancing out of the temple with 2 lighted torches in his hand and threw one in the direction of Sudailai mada Swamy kovil then transferred the other to the next ranked priest went in again came back dancing wearing flower garland reaching above his chest blocking his vision. Then musicians played high tune damaging ears for which my cousin and four more priests representing every caste in the village started dancing, not the I'm at pub dance, it was ritualistic dance. I don't exactly know why they did it but it cleared his vision :) then every priest was awarded a torch and came around the village by midnight they reached Sudalai mada Swamy temple in the middle of the cemetery.

Updated all photos and references to specifically highlight my experience in my ancestral village at the temple close to my family.

Next: Sudalai Madan : Mayana Kollai