Around 2020 onwards, I seem to have lost my ability to keep tabs on this important day. These three years had been a little difficult going out of the house and visiting temple.
This year on Saturday December 23, 2023, I was all ready but only after 1 pm and was not sure if the temple doors would still be open. Even in this doubt, I decided to clean up the pooja floor at home and rangoli the place and setup my lamp setting ritual.
Once it was done, I was still unhappy that I am not even trying to go to the temple. So, I decided that I would listen to Srimad Bhagavatham Sapthagam meaning it is a storytelling session for 7 days. The stories of Mahavishnu and his avatars and the aim is to gain moksha through bhakti.
Now I was greatly interested in the Upanayasam conducted by Sri U. Ve. Velukkudi Krishnan Swamigal. Sometimes, I feel that it is not so important that you enter the Swargal Vaasal, as much as you spend the entire day thinking of Satyanarayana Perumal in that there was joy in abundance.
This made me reflect on the Tamil calendar that I keep forgetting for the past three years and I set out to mark all the Ekadashi for next the year and follow my Satyanarayana Virat on a regular monthly basis on the Ekadashi’s.
Forgotten Indian Calendar
Mere reason being that I don’t,
I don’t look at the Calendar!
I know not, day or date sometimes,
But the hour of each moment
Is well calculated and accounted,
Yet, Day and Night are pass over,
For me, as years crowd around me.
My life ebbs and flows in a sequence,
To the tune set by the Lord!
Srividya Suryanarayanan
For the past few weeks, I have been watching television to such excess that a part of me was in ennui with it. Being tired and bored to my wits end, I switched to listening to songs and even that zapped me. I decided that I would find some poetry or discourse podcast that I could hear.
At that point, I remembered that once I listened in to a podcast from a Radio channel, so I scrolled down to the first podcast and listened in. It was a huge file and lasted two and half hour.
That irked me, I am half an hour slotter and suddenly a bulk of hours for discourse felt hard to spend. I felt a little disheartened but continued to listen to anything than suffer this boredom.
The discourse was interesting but too much distraction from the main point. It could have been edited. But the beginning and end of the discourse were lots of noise and the middle part was the topic though not clear to me was a bit interesting.
Some learned pandit said that listening to “Srimad Bhagavatham” would release you from the vicious circle of painful birth and death. I jump in as it was one of my favorite topics,
I wish for a break at least or a complete closure to the rebirth. After listening to the Periya Vanoli radio programs’ first podcast, I searched in Gaana if Srimad Bhagavatham was available in concentrated form.
I am a person who always liked to begin my day with some slokas or discourse on God. Whether I understood it or not, I loved listening in to discourses about and on this world, me, my Atma, and the One who created it all.
So, I was familiar with U V Velukkudi Krishnan Swamigal’s discourses and found him precise and comprehensive on the topic of spirituality. There is much that is happening inside me and the amalgamation of it all is the relentless search for the truth. This happens to me every December. I don’t know the reason why it happens, but it does. It is also the time when you have Vaikunta Ekadashi.
Ekadashi is the eleventh day of the Indian Calendar and comes twice every month. The rule of the day was that an individual needs to fast and to think of the lord. The fast is broken on the next day with special food which aids and supports the body’s fasting.
But then, Ekadashi in Marghazi is called Vaikunta Ekadashi and is super special. One needs to visit the temple and gain entrance to a special door that is opened only on that day. This month is special for Andal and her work Thiruppavai is revered and played on all the 30 days of the month.
Saturday was Vaikunta Ekadashi, I got this information from my maid. Usually, it is Appa who tells me about this day and instruct me to get ready by 4 am in the morning. Earlier I used to go with Appa and Amma. Then, we will be joined by Lallu and Ananthu Chittappas.
It so happened once when my father was getting ready to go to Sri Satyanarayana Perumal kovil, I asked him, “Why are you going to the temple, today?” My father replied it was Vaikunta Ekadashi and visiting the Paramapatha Vaasal was important karma of the Vaishnavism. I would say, it is more of a Hindu way of life.
So, making a quick mercurial decision I asked him to give me fifteen minutes to take a bath and join him. He reminded me to take a head bath while he waited for me. I must have been in the sixth grade. In 1986, I first went with Appa and Amma to Sri Satyanarayana Perumal kovil for my first Vaikunta Ekadashi.
From that year onwards I would go to the temple on that most important day of Tamil month Marghazi. Even after Appa and Amma left for US, I continued to visit the temple on that day.
Having missed the two opportunities of seeing the lord in 2022 and 2023, I decided that I would try to make a habit of leaving the apartment to visit the lord in his temple. But somehow, the small pooja shelf which holds my entire array of gods whom I revere with great faith and belief.
So, this year I may not have visited the lord for Vaikunta Ekadashi, but I enjoyed the Upanayasam of his leela and spent the day thinking of His grace in my life. There is a lot of difficulties living in the unstable and fickle material world and the only way out is to worship His presence and hope for His guidance and grace.
Itinerant Storyteller 