Thalai Aatti Amman Temple

Note: This story is a work of fiction and is not based on true incidents. The story is an exploration of the many meanings of religion and how it affects different people differently.

As you enter my village, you will find a temple on the left side of the approach road. It is called Thalai Aatti Amman Temple. Most people go into the temple and pray before entering the village. If they are in a hurry or tired, they fold their hands while standing on the road or throw a few coins into the temple as an offering.

The deity is believed to protect our village against calamities, and a number of incidents can be recounted to prove that the faith of the villagers is not ill-founded.

Inside the temple, in the sanctum sanctorum, there is the ten-feet tall stone idol of Goddess Kali with her usual angry face and weapons in her many hands. In front of the idol is a statue of a man sitting with folded hands perpetually praying to the goddess. This statue is of Thalai Aatti.

When Thalai Aatti came to our village, I was ten years old and was studying in the fourth standard. No one knows where he came from and who he was. One day a child found a man in the Englishman's Bungalow and screamed, "Ghost! Ghost!"

Englishman's Bungalow was a single room standing away from the village and was badly dilapitated. The village lengend said that a mad Englishman used to live in that room during the pre-independence days. One day he was found hanging from the ceiling. The British police suspected that some young freedom fighters from our village had hanged him as symbolic punishment for the sins of the colonial British. The police picked up these youngsters and interrogated them brutally, but had to be contented with the conclusion that the Englishman had committed suicide.

All this happened much before I was born. From my childhood I had only seen the Englishman's Bungalow as a dilapidated and deserted single-room building surrounded by tall grasses.

It was believed that the Englishman's ghost lived in that room. Many vouchsafed that they had seen him sitting pensively at night and smoking a cigar. Some even said that they had seen him dancing with a woman to mild and pleasant music.

No one ever went inside the Englishman's Bungalow or peep through the tall grasses to see what was inside. Children like me would take a circuitous route on our way to the school to avoid passing by the Bungalow.

When the young child saw someone inside the Bungalow, he was convinced that it was a ghost. He screamed and ran to the village. The villagers took sticks and iron rods and went to see who was there. They questioned the man who maintained complete silence and calmly received the blows given by the more enthusiastic among the crowd. Finally, the villagers concluded that the man was mad and dumb, and went back. 

Shaalu's Mother, who was a soft-hearted woman felt pity for the man living alone in the deserted Bungalow and sent him food and water. Gradually the others also started sending him something or the other to eat, as it got established that the man was harmless and poor.

Someone noticed that the man's head kept shaking slightly. He started calling the man "Thalai Aatti" --- one whose head shakes --- and the name stuck.

Thalai Aatti would show no interest in mingling with others or coming out of the Bungalow. He would remain completely silent and would not even produce the usual "Baa...baa...boo...boo" sounds typical of the dumb. Within a few days, the villagers grew somewhat warm towards him and cleared up the grasses around the Bungalow, cleaned its floor and removed the cobwebs.

One day the Station Officer from a nearby police station, having come to know that a stranger was lingering in the village, came to take Thalai Aatti's finger prints, but the villagers surrounded the Officer and he had to leave.

Farmer women on their way to the field would sometimes throw a few coins into the Bungalow. Thalai Aatti took these coins and brought from the nearby market a small idol of goddess Kali.

The arrival of the goddess transformed the Englishman's Bungalow into a temple and women and children began to visit the temple in the evenings. Thalai Aatti would sit in a corner while devlotees came and worshipped the goddess. His visage would be the same, as if he was not of this world.

The village Headman appointed a priest to take care of the temple activities. The small idol of the goddess was replaced with the ten-foot idol one sees now. The building was whitewashed and was given a flooring of grind-stone. Thalai Aatti was accommodated in a thatched hut at some distance. He would often come and sit in front of the idol. Many among the temple-goers believed that he was a great saint in direct communion with the goddess. 

A number of the village festivals were celebrated by connecting them with the temple and this popularised the temple in the neighbouring areas also. As the temple gained popularity, the collection of money-offerings grew. More rooms and corridors were added around the single room that existed earlier and the temple premises became massive. All prominent persons in the village claimed credit for the growth of the temple except Thalai Aatti who seemed to live in another world. Looking at him one would feel that for him the idol was the temple and nothing else around it mattered. 

As the temple grew in size and fame, its administration became the arena of politics between the big shots in the village. For many years the village had been the scene of the struggle for dominance between Rajan Babu's family and Dhana Raj's family. Now, their struggle for dominance entered into the temple committee.

The rivalry suddenly came to a head one day when posters appeared on behalf of Dhana Raj declaring that the three-day Pongal festival would be celebrated in the temple by holding religious sermons, singing of devotional songs and special worship during the three times of the day. 

"Who has given Dhana Raj the right to decide about such festivals? The temple is not his!" shouted Babu Rao angrily. What angered him even more was that in all the sessions of special worship the first place of honour was reserved for the members of Dhana Raj's family. 

Babu Rao sent message to Dhana Raj to either include him in the celebrations or cancel them. Dhana Raj reacted by saying that the posters were everywhere and it was now a matter of prestige for him. He said even God would not be able to stop him now.

Tension began to grow in the village and everyone was scared of a possible bloody clash between the two groups. But Babu Rao acted sanely and obtained a stay order from the court. The order ruled that no special worship would be conducted in the temple till the matter was settled by the court according to the laws.

A sudden turn of events came in the evening of Mattu Pongal. People were busy celebrating the Mattu Pongal when news reached Babu Rao that Dhana Raj with his men was conducting a special worship in the temple. Dhana Raj collected his men and marched to the temple, long sticks and spears in hand.

Soon, the two rivals stood face to face along with their supporters in front of the deity. Babu Rao told Dhana Raj to stop the worship and leave the temple premises. Dhana Raj scoffed at his arrogance. Babu Rao angrily lifted a spear and pointed it towards Dhana Raj. The atmosphere became extremely tense. 

Just then Thalai Aatti appeared from somewhere. He stood between the two and implored, "Don't defile the deity. For God's sake, please don't fight inside the temple."

Everyone was taken aback by Thalai Aatti's using his voice so articulately. Was he faking so far or had the goddess suddenly given back his voice? They wondered.

Using the opportunity created by Thalai Aatti's intervention, Dhana Raj resumed the worship. This angered Babu Rao furthermore. He shouted angrily and proceeded to physically grab Dhana Raj. Thalai Atti again moved between them and held Babu Rao's arms. "You'll enrage the goddess," he said.

Babu Rao's wrath broke out of its bounds. He caught Thalai Aatti by hair and swirled him and threw him down with force. Thalai Aatti fell with his forehead hitting the feet of the goddess and his body flat in front of her, as if he was doing a saashtaang namaskaar to her.

Babu Rao and others looked at Thalai Aatti and expected him to get up, but he remained in the same saashtaang position. Within the next few seconds, a stream of blood flowed out of his forehead and collected as a pool.

"Look, the blackguard has killed such a pious man!" shouted Dhana Raj.

Babu Rao did not wait for a second and took to his heels.

The shocked villagers cremated the dead body of Thalai Aatti while chanting mantras. The news of his having regained his voice in his last moments reached far and wide and everyone believed that the goddess had returned his voice to him. Only Professor Dhamija, who always looked at everything sceptically said to himself, "What if he was actually a criminal who had come to the village to escape from the police?" But he never voiced his opinion for fear of being misunderstood. 

The temple was renamed as Thalai Aatti Amman Temple and its administration was taken over by a math.   A life-size statue of Thalai Aatti was placed at exactly the place where he used to sit and keep looking at the goddess. Even now if you see from a distance you might feel that he is still stitting in communion with the goddess. 

People believe that Thalai Aatti's spirit lives in his statue and protects the village from evil. That is why before entering the village, people pray in the temple, as if to rid themselves of evil and purify themselves before getting into the village.