In the evening I arrive
in Palani, a great place of pilgrimage. The temple, where one can stay and eat
for free, is outside. Not 4 km and not 6 km away, as some volunteers assured,
but 11 kilometers in Kanatkanpatti.
I can't walk this
distance anymore, so I decide to take a auto. The fare is way above my
limited budget. I'm trying to keep the price down.
When we arrive at the
temple, the driver asked for more fare than we had agreed. I'm tough and don't
get involved.
He is leaving. I am
going towards the temple of the saint. Then I suddenly realised that I left the
small backpack in the back of the storage space of the auto. If I had given
him another small note, I would have noticed.
Brief panic arises
including remorseful insight into the consequences of my hardness. There's
another auto next door that I could drive after him. But no, pointless: They
always drive at full throttle and I suspect that we will not be able to catch
up with the others. - Because of my intransigence, I don't expect the driver to
drive the long way back to drop off the bag here
I can't yet see whether
there were important things in it. I also fail to see the pain of loss.
In the Mootai SwamigalTemple, my visit attracts a lot of attention. Maghesh, a 40 year old volunteer,
shows me everything, takes me to dinner, accompanies me to the bathroom ... he is
great.
For the pujas, the
Hindu prayer and worship rituals, he takes me into the interior of the temple.
We are sitting at the partition to the chancel and I see pictures of a nice man
named Sarguru Mahasree. He had lived next door and died 7 years ago. It is said
to have predicted the day of his death. But his special gift was that he could
tell people what diseases they have.
Now he is venerated as
a saint. Some say he is a god, a reincarnation of Shiva. If one sits behind the
altar in front of his picture from 0.15 am to 1.00 am, he can solve all the
problems that the believer has.
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