In the Name of Faith

Hey everyone,

Today’s story is about another trip I made with my family in the name of faith. In other words, it was a pilgrimage of sorts.

It all began with my mother and uncle visiting an astrologer, who claimed that my sister and cousin (the said uncle’s son) have ‘Kala Sarpa Dosham’. For those of you who don’t know what ‘Kala Sarpa Dosham’ is, ‘Kala’ is time, ‘Sarpa’ is serpent and ‘Dosham’ is curse (in this context).

Let me explain that a little more clearly. Most Indians would know the concept of Nagas; not least because of the the Naagin serials and maybe the books by Amish Tripathi. Sarpams are a similar concept native to Kerala; not synonymous though. The difference between the two would probably take another blog post, so not getting into it here.

‘Kala Sarpa Dosham’, however, has to do with ‘Rahu and Ketu’ controlling your horoscope. ‘Rahu’ and ‘Ketu’ are called the great serpent in the Indian brand of astrology (also called Jodisham). Both these beings are actually one, though they’re described as two. Rahu is the head, while Ketu is the rest of the body.

There is a very interesting myth to do with Rahu and Ketu. The story goes that once the Devas were cursed to age and die by the Rishi Durvasav because of some affront caused to him by the King of the Devas, Lord Indra. When the devas begged for forgiveness, Durvasav calmed and told them to churn the Milky Way to bring Amrit (or the Nectar of the Gods that provides immortality) and drink it.

The Devas agreed but soon realized that they couldn’t churn the Milky Way all by themselves. So they went to Lord Vishnu for help. He suggested that they take the help of the Asuras to do the deed. Putting their differences aside, the Devas asked the Asuras for help and offered a bit of the Amrit to them if they agreed.

The Asuras in their greed for immortality did agree and soon the churning began. The mountain Mandara was used as the churning rod and the Naga King Vasuki offered to be the rope. Many things rose out of the Milky Way including the Goddess Lakshmi, whom Lord Vishnu claimed to be his consort.

Finally the Amrit rose and Lord Vishnu in the guise of a beautiful woman named Mohini offered to distribute it equally between all the Devas and the Asuras. Everyone agreed and were made to sit with their eyes closed while she distributed the Amrit.

It was a trick by Lord Vishnu, so that he could provide the Amrit only to the Devas and not to the Asuras. He did so because he knew that if the Asuras became immortal, they would cause total chaos in the world. However, one Asura by the name of Swarbhanu discovered the trick and sat with the Devas in disguise to drink the Amrit.

He managed to drink it before his disguise was discovered. So, when Mohini cut of his head with the Sudarshan Chakra, he didn’t die. Instead his head became Rahu and his body became Ketu, and now his head and body patrol the heavens causing trouble.

Coming back to the original story of the Kala Sarpa Dosham of my sister and cousin; the astrologer claimed that it was caused because our ancestors destroyed a ‘Sarpa Kaavu’ and didn’t replace it.

Now a ‘Sarpa Kaavu’ is a piece of protected forest area associated with a temple. In the olden days in Kerala, every major house or ‘Tharavadu’ as they’re called in Malayalam would have a Kaavu nearby, either in their grounds or associated with the family.

This concept of ‘Sarpa Kaavus’ are restricted to Kerala as far as I know. There is also no other place in India where ‘Naga’ worship is such a huge affair. There is a story behind this as well and it goes like this.

You see, Kerala was formed by Lord Parashuram throwing his ‘Parashu’ or Axe into the sea to reclaim some land. However, this reclaimed land originally belonged to the Nagas, namely Vasuki and his co., and was very poisonous. Nothing the people planted would grow.

So, the people prayed to Lord Parashuram and told him the problem. He, in turn, spoke to the Nagas who asked the people to plow the land with salt to remove the poison. The people followed this instruction and the land turned really fertile.

The people were so grateful to the Nagas for this that they began to leave certain patches of land untouched in their honour. This land eventually became populated by serpents or sarpams (who are said to be the descendants of the Nagas) and are called ‘Sarpa Kaavus.’

Now some ancestor of ours had destroyed a Kaavu in the name of development and didn’t replace it, causing the sarpams to be angry and curse our family. And according to the astrologer that my uncle and mom visited this was the cause of the troubles in our family.

To be released from the curse, he asked them to do a Rahu-Ketu pooja at this temple in a little town on the Andhra-Tamil Nadu border called Kalahasthi. The deity at this temple is Lord Shiva in the form of a Vaayu Linga. It is called that because according to legend Lord Vaayu was the one who established the Linga in the temple.

My sister, cousins and I weren’t really given a choice about this, so we had to go do the pooja. I wasn’t too unhappy though, because I really like visiting new places. We all met in Chennai and traveled by road from there till this town. It was around a 3 and a half hour drive.

We checked in to the hotel MGM Grande where we had booked rooms earlier. Being a small temple town, this was pretty much the only 4 Star hotel Kalahasthi had. Moreover, it was only around a 5 minute walk away from the temple.

We had a little rest, freshened up and paid a visit to the temple in the evening. The pooja was scheduled for early the next morning so this visit was just for ‘darshan’ as it is called in Hindi. Though the place was pretty crowded, we still managed to get a good ‘darshan’.

Now, I am not really religious, but I am spiritual and I do believe in the forces of nature and the power of energy and vibes. And the energy I felt while I was near the main deity was powerful and calming. All around me there were people and lots of noise and I felt calm in the middle of that, like being in the eye of a storm.

The rest of the time we were inside the temple I was more interested in people watching than praying. The temple is a famous one and so there were people from across the country- so many potential stories.

After the darshan we went to have dinner at the restaurant of the hotel we were staying in and then later retired to bed. We had to be up at the crack of dawn the next morning for the pooja. I must mention the food here; it was pretty okay. What I liked best was the filter coffee they provided. It was among the best I’ve ever had.

We were ready by 5:30 the next morning and headed to the temple. Since we had already arranged everything with someone at the temple, we easily got past the crowd and entered the hall where the pooja was held. We still had to wait till the current lot was done before our turn came though.

The pooja itself did not seem like anything special to me since all we were doing was repeating Sanskrit mantras and throwing shredded flowers – and later turmeric and vermilion powder – onto little snake idols made of silver.

I did like those snake idols though, they were cute – though they were meant to represent Rahu and Ketu. I also enjoyed playing with the red and yellow powder because its texture was very smooth.

Anyway, I think I would have appreciated the pooja more if it had seemed less like a money-spinner.

The actual adventure though was what happened next. I’m sure that if we did have a curse on us, it would have been nullified by the effort we put in for this next bit.

You see, after the pooja was done, we were asked to take the little snake idols to the main deity and put them in one of the boxes kept to collect money. Now, this doesn’t seem like a big task, since all we had to do was walk to sanctum of the main deity. And in the beginning it wasn’t too bad either. We followed the crowd with our idols in hand, but the closer we got to the hall, the narrower the path got.

Crowds in India have a problem; they cannot for the life of them follow a queue unless they are absolutely forced to. And this was exactly what happened there too. People started pushing to get ahead and it became difficult to stay together in a group. Moreover it was hot and humid and everyone was sweaty.

If you’ve been at the Dadar local train station in Mumbai during peak hours, I’m sure you’ll know how it felt. I have immense respect now for people who go through that on a daily basis just to get to places. Y’all shouldn’t have curses on you at all.

Anyway, coming back to the story, we pushed through the crowd (got stepped on a couple of times too) and finally managed to arrive at the hall of the main deity to drop our idols in the collection boxes. It was such a relief to come outside after that. You really do appreciate breathing space after being denied it for so long (it seemed like a lifetime though it couldn’t have been more than an hour and a half at most).

Once we got out of the temple after the pooja, we went to the hotel and, as instructed, bathed and discarded the clothing we wore for the pooja (it probably wouldn’t have been much use after that ordeal anyway). We then had breakfast and got ready to head back. That’s it… end of story.

The point of me writing this story is simple. We do a lot of things simply based on faith and often superstition. I’m not saying that these things are not true or real, all I say is don’t believe it until it is true in your experience. Until then, you can simply say “I don’t know”. That leaves you open to seek!

Well, I guess that’s it for today… Until next time folks!