Returning to the city

Hello readers,
I am back from a break. I was occupied at my professional front. Thanks for the wait and also for the opinions and appreciations through Whats App, Face book and in person. 

In my first blog I gave an idea about some diversities in Palakkad. The second blog started with Malampuzha and  focused on Yakshi. My third blog was dedicated to the Malampuzha gardens and its attractions.

Now let's return to the other parts of Palakkad. While travelling back to other parts of Palakkad, from Malampuzha, the first stop is Fantasy Park. It is the first amusement park of Kerala as per my knowledge. An attraction among the tourists coming to Malampuzha. I am not going to explain much about what is in Fantasy Park as it's more than 2 decades that I have visited the place and I don't have much memories about that visit. Moving further ahead we pass the water purification and pumping station. Malampuzha Dam is the source of water for majority of the people in Palakkad town area. In the pumping station the water is chlorinated and aerated and then is pumped to the various consumers. This pumping station can be called as the heart of the drinking water distribution system of Palakkad. 

There are two ways to reach Palakkad from Malampuzha, one is a new 100 feet road which is as good as a high way passing through Puthur and gets connected to Kozhikode highway or Coimbatore highway and the other one the old long route which passes through Olavakkode ( Palakkad Junction Railway station). I am following the old route from Malampuzha to Palakkad deliberately to explain about some important places. 

When one travels through the old route the first important place is the Sree Emoor Bhagavathy temple or the Hemambika temple. The history behind the temple is that this temple is one among the 4 temple consecrated by Lord Parasurama for the safety of Kerala. Now a days with the political opportunism, religious conversion business, pseudo liberalism and pseudo modernism the actual meaning behind the rituals and practices are lost. Anyways... Consecration or Prana prathishta is the process used by our ancient sages, who knew much more about Science than what we know now, to create energy centers. They used to chose the place where earth's magnetic lines are vibrating in some particular way and then using a complex process energized the idol and then it was placed. These temples were to give positive energy to the people who are in their vicinity. The specialty of the temple is that the Goddess Hemambika is situated at the middle of a pond and the idol is only two palms.  

There is an interesting story behind the temple which is also depicted in the form of beautiful paintings in the temple.  I am reproducing the story from the temple website.  About 15 KM away from the present Malampuzha reservoir, in the inaccessible valley of the dense Vadamala forest, a section of the Western Ghats, locally known as Muthikulam, Mudiyolambi, Aduppukootty, Poonkavanam etc., there was a divine shrine of Goddess Durga. Two Nampoothiris (Malayali Bhramins) from Kurur and Kaimukku families used to visit this holy place daily for worship, crossing the protected mountains tracks on naked feet. Years passed on without any change in their daily routine. One day while returning home after worship, due to the vagaries of old age, they were forced to take rest under a tree. An old woman appeared before them and gave them some sweet fruits which they gladly accepted. They were suddenly relived of their fatigue and felt surprisingly refreshed. These two ardent devotees on their journey next day, reached near the tree to find a huge elephant standing before them. Beside the elephant they had the ‘Darshan’ of the golden coloured Goddess. From that day onwards, they started worshipping the Goddess under the tree. Kurur was incapacitated by old age and found it difficult to carry out the daily routine of worship in the mountain. One night, Goddess appeared before him in his dream and consoled him that she will be seen in the pond near his house and can worship her there. Early next morning the radiant devotees rushed towards the pond and found two beautiful hands coming out of water in the middle of the lake. Kurur, on his excitement, jumped into the pond, swam to the centre and caught of hold of the hands. Immediately, the hands turned into stone, becomes stationary. 


The specialty of this temple is that the goddess is worshipped in three different forms daily. In morning the Goddess is worshiped as Ma Saraswati, in noon she is worshiped as Ma Lakshmi and in evening she is worshiped as Ma Durga. I haven't heard about any temple where the deity assumes multiple forms in a single day. As per my knowledge the deities in a consecrated temple gives out some particular type of energy according to the Bhava in which the deity is in. So the same deity assuming three different forms in a day is possible only due to some highly complex consecration process. (Today several of the people mock at you if you speak about consecration process, the expertise in Science of our forefathers etc. For them just ignore the consecration part in the blog and read further). 
The erst while Royal Family of Palakkad was having their palace at Kallekulangara and they consider the Goddess Hemambika as their family goddess. It was them who have filled some portion of the pond and constructed the temple. 

For me memories of Kallekulangara or Hemambika temple is associated with my grandpa. One of those important personalities in my life who has made me what I am and also some one with whom I am emotionally attached. ( One of my friend call me as emotionally challenged by the way). My grandpa normally takes us to most of the important temple once a year in the Malayalam month of Karkadakam (Karkadakam is more or less like Shravan in north India). In Kerala the month of Karkadakam is considered as inauspicious and people visit temples and read the Holy Ramayanam or Ramayana at their home. If we go behind the science behind these rituals then we can know how visionaries our forefathers were. Karkadakam normally is the month of monsoon, with the kind of facilities available then there was a possibility of having illness and food shortages, people sitting idle at their house. So the prohibition of non veg is for ensuring that people are not eating any stale meat (they were not having any deep freezers or fridge then), the karkadaka kanji or the special medicinal rice broth made during the time ensured immunity, reading holy books at home ensured no gossiping and negative stuff at home. As a part of our Karkadakam observations my grandpa used to take us to various temples. He was the one who explained the story of Hemambika Temple. He was very good at telling stories and explaining historical facts about places. Being an employee of Indian Railways he has traveled to various parts of India where railway lines were being established. He was having a vast knowledge about places and histories associated with that. I think I inherited what ever writing skills that I have from him. 

Moving ahead we come to the common wealth tile factory which now no longer is there. Till 2010 it was an identity as well as a reminder of the vintage times. It was established by Basel Evangelical Mission in 1886 and was taken over by British after World War 2. It was renamed as Common Wealth Tile Factories. The red coloured factory with its tall chimney with lot of greenery in the background was a sight to see, especially during monsoon. I am fortunate enough to have that privilege. I tried a lot to get a picture of the tile factory, but all I could get was this paper cutting speaking about the Bungalow of the tile factory getting closed

 Further ahead we reach Jainimedu. The place is having one among the 11-12 Jain temples in Kerala and probably one of the very oldest among them. The history says that the temple was constructed by a family of  diamond merchants from Karnataka. My grandpa's ancestral house was some 20 something meters away from the temple. I used to pass in front of the temple every Tuesday and Friday during my childhood when we used to visit grandpa's house. 
Then some where in 90s and early 20s the temple was in a dilapidated condition. During my recent visit to my Grandpa's house I found that the temple is renovated.  One of the great poet of Kerala, Kumaranasan wrote his famous poem "Veena Poovu" or "The Fallen Flower" while staying at Jainimedu. He was staying at the house of a Jain family along with one of the greatest social reformer and Guru of the modern time Kerala, Shri Narayana Guru.


To keep this blog not too lengthy I am concluding this blog here. In my next blog I will take you to one of the most famous and unique temple of Palakkad, Vadakkanthara Bhagawathy temple, Melamuri or the big bazaar and Chunnambuthara before we enter Kalpathy a unique village with a colorful culture and cuisine. Signing off for now..... 

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