The Great Indian Public Toilet!!!

My new year Eve was fantastic. i spent Last Sunday with Partha @ his home in Annan Koil, i also visited the famous Natraja Temple in Chidambaram . For one who has read about this temple in literature, it must be an splendid experience in waiting... You can say the entire city of Chidambaram revolves around the gopurams of this temple.

As i entered on one one of the gopuram, i saw some grill path way at the entrance. Like me, the person before me was inquisitive to know why such a structure in walk way... His friend explained it is to prevent cows not to enter the temple premises... An effort to leave the temple only to well grown/educated humans with an expectation that it will be maintained well. as you walk you pass through a tiny little garden before to reach inner gopuram... and then the praharam inside is really huge. A pleasant place to walk, sit any day evening.... There are more gardens around the outer praharam wall.

But the happiness was short lived until I walked past this little garden in the path way. To protect the garden around the outer praharam, they have built fence on the other side and wrote "Siva Siva" in the fence... All these adds to the grandeur of the temple... Guess what our educated people have done to this inner garden around the wall.. They are simply using it as a toilet. At least i saw two sides and both the stretches is used as a Great Indian public toilet. to add it, some sections of the fence also is used as a dust bin.

Also we saw some 10 - 15 cows inside the temple... i exclaimed to partha "how come they are roaming inside the praharams, despite protection in the entrance"... partha replied .. "may be they entered before the structure was laid and now they cannot go out!!!" I am sure the same scene exists in many such temples in Tamil Nadu......

I read about the huge cry in news papers, magazines, TV programs about demolition of temples in Indonesia and the protests by HINDRAF organization along with other requests for the ethinic Indians... Considering the plight of a temple like Chidambaram or any temple for the matter maintained similarly , we need a greater movement from the people to educate the visitor crowd to respect the place of worship of Gods, little common sense from the visitors for the temple can make big difference. I am sure no other community is causing the place of worship with their own dirt, only the temples in Tamil nadu are more prone to such dis respect.

Do you remember my previous blog topic about the great indian bike rider in bangalore roads. This person is no different from the visitors of the temple who are using this place as toilet. Again it lies in the mindset of people. Together we can make the difference.........

Until next
Raghu