Recently, myself and my wife Raj had been to Madurai to attend the wedding of one of our family friends Ms Sarika with Mr Arrun. We reached Madurai a day in advance of the wedding day (25 Nov 2010) so that we will have some time to visit the temples in and around Madurai.
It was raining with small drizzling showers when we entered the Holy Meenakshi Temple, Madurai. We were forewarned of the imminent crowd at the Temple as usually found there. But, to our surprise, the crowd was quite thin and we could cover the visits to important points inside the temple which included, the Ambal Sannadhi, Sundareshwarar Sannadhi, Mukkuruni Pillaiyar, Theppakkulam and other places. Our visit was over within an hour from the time we entered the temple which would take over two hours on any normal day. It was a blessing in disguise that the drizzling rain had helped us in going to the temple on such a day when we could have good dharshan of the deities without any waiting. We prayed for the good health and well being of all our family members. We gratuitously offered a ten rupee note to the priest (normally we used to offer one rupee only) and also put another ten rupee note in the donation box. Having finished our rounds, we exited the temple from the Southern Gate.
As we were taking our walk on the service road around the temple , we saw a couple of very young boys – may be about 4 or 5 years old, practicing acrobatic movements like somersaulting, walking with one leg up etc. We stopped a while and watched these two engaged in their practice session unmindful of what was happening around them. They were very playful and no elders were seen around them to oversee and monitor them. With a sense of great feeling that all our sins cleaned inside the temple with our sincere prayers to the deities inside, we felt, as any fools like us would also feel, that we should offer these kids something – eatable or money . I had a few biscuits in my shoulder bag and with the consent of my wife (which every husband does), I offered them to the kids with a request to take and eat them. They smiled at us and politely refused our offer. For a while, we were surprised and we did not get any clue for their refusal to take our offer. Perhaps, it was the first time when someone has refused such offers from us and it made us feel puzzled. Then we offered a few coins. They again refused. In fact, they simply darted away from us to a distant place where they resumed their practice.
As we were returning to our hotel, we were discussing within ourselves the reasons for the refusal of our offer by the kids. Perhaps, the Deities inside the temple are sitting silently and taking all our offers which are made and accompanied with some of our requests to be fulfilled by them. Perhaps, these Deities have appointed these kids as their representatives to give a clear to message to people like us to be more pure in our heart in serving the humanity and not come to the temple with selfish motives. So, it is true to the aphorism that ‘Bhagwan Manushya Rupena’ I felt that I met the God outside the Temple in the form of two kids who gave us an excellent message for our good.
