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From: M K Sudarshan (sudarsan_at_batelco.com.bh)
Date: Wed Apr 09 1997 - 23:57:27 PDT
Sri.Bharadwaj's nice little account of his sojourn with "Azhagiya-singar" truly transports one to Tiruvellore --- also to one's own little "Maanasika Aradhanam" to our Lord Malolan !! Thank you, Sri.BharadhwAj, for a most touching account of what certainly must have been a most eventful and unusual "vacation". I am sure you are richer in experience for it. mAlOla-priyan, sudarshan P.S. you wrote: Around 5:30 >Nadaswaram is played. Around the sametime a nearby mosque blares >"Allah Ho Akbar...". I used to enjoy this Muslim prayer when I lived >in Nagaland where there was no temple and this was the only thing to >remind me of God. Here I considered it to be an interference. Here >I was in the company of Parama Bhagavatas, while those chanting Allah >did not know that their Allah was only a few yards away here in the >form of Malolan or next door in the form of Veer RAghavan. I live in Bahrain where, as in most Islamic metropolis, there are as many mosques as supermarkets and ladies-boutiques! My own apartment is just a couple blocks away from a great mosque. 5 times a day the muezzin blares out his call for prayers through the public address and believe me, at 4.30 Am in the morning it does sound welcome to my ears like a strange but wholesome sort of "tirupallizEchi" wake-up call ! My thoughts go then instantly away to the cool stone-steps on "swami-pushkaraNI" where, at around the same time in the early hours (adjusted for time-zones), one can hear the strains of "sahasra-nama-archana" being performed to 'tiruvEngada-mUdaiyAn' inside the temple ! You don't know how thankful I feel then for these Muslim calls for prayer ! They promptly remind me that my own time for "sandhyAvandanam" has arrived !! Reversing your own logic, I am sometimes tempted to believe that the same Narayana I worship also sits invisibly inside the "holy walls" of that mosque around my street-corner and where devout "islamic-SriVaishnavaAs" bend their backs as deeply as their minds in deep prayer! Often when I drive by that spot, believe it or not, I find myself "reflexively" doing "anjali" in that direction in the same way I would to the Lord's "vImAna" from the step-ways of "kOnEri-theertham" !! sudarshan