A Visit to Guruvayoor in Kerala

by Rajesh Anand

July 18, 2006

Two weeks back in our Bihari get-together at Singapore, we were attempting to sing a Malayalam mixed Hindi song (Jiya Jale Jaan Jale Nainon Tale.... Punjarithanji Konjikyon Munthrimutholi Chindrikyon Vanjanivarna Chundarivaave, Thaanginakka Thakdhimyadum Thanganilyave...), on that evening I only had a vague plan of visiting the Malayalam land in the near future. The land of snake boats, kalaripayathu, herbal massage, Sabarimala and the backwaters make Kerala very charming. Add to it the sing-song tone of their language (remember the joke - what did the Malayalee do when the bus caught fire - answer - He "jembed" out of the window and why did the Malayalee cross the road - answer - "simbly"). Naturally, when my family and I finalised our trip to Guruvayoor, I was quite excited.

Kerala, also famous as God's own country, has always fascinated me and I have never been tired of telling my Malyalee friends about the contrasts Bihar and Kerala offer. While Kerala is supposed to be the highest in literacy, Bihar is at the bottom. While Kerala represents most things bright and positive, the economists and social thinkers keep referring to Bihar as one of the BIMARU (Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP) states. Though, to be fair, I find Bihar doing better than Kerala in some respects e.g. Kerala's suicide rate is one of the highest in the country while Bihar's is one of the lowest. But Kerala seems to have a lot of good points which we Biharis can learn from them. Given a chance, therefore, I would want to propose to the government of India to make Kerala a mentor or a guardian state for Bihar. Bihar needs the literacy drive, which has been so successful in Kerala, while Biharis could teach Keralites a thing or two about how to keep on living no matter how adversarial the times may be.

While on the subject, let me also drive the point that we, north Indians also need to upgrade our knowledge of south India. It is heartening to note that dosa, idly and sambhar have started appearing in the north Indian homes as much as chapatis are becoming the in thing in the south Indian meals. Otherwise, for us south Indians just meant Madrasis and most of us do not appreciate the fact that each of the four south Indian state also has distinct languages, dance forms etc. To achieve a somewhat better north Indian - south Indian integration, apart from marriages, a working knowledge of their languages could also be a great starting point. Would it not be a great idea to make the working knowledge of spoken Hindi compulsory for all the four south Indian states while making the north Indian states learn one south Indian language in the schools/colleges e.g. make UPites learn Tamil, Biharis learn Malyalam, Rajasthanis learn Kannada etc?

With all such thoughts running amuck, as I boarded the VOLVO air conditioned bus from the KSRTC (aka Majestic) bus stop at Bangalore on my second journey to Kerala, I could not feel happier at seeing a great deal of improvement in the quality of road transportation. The bus had nearly all the facilities, which I recently saw while being on some long distance bus tours in Scandinavia except that there were hardly any announcements by the driver or the conductor and unlike the Swedish Volvo bus which had a uniquely-designed toilet, our Karnataka Volvo did not appear to have one. The roads in and around also seemed to have improved to some extent - especially the much in news Hosur road which witnessed many a dharnas by the CEO's of IT companies in not so distant a past, looked quite impressive with it's neat double lanes on both sides.

To visit Guruvayoor, one had to first reach Thrissur that involved an overnight journey from Bangalore. Located at about 30 kilometers from Thrissur, Guruvayoor is amongst the most revered places of worship in South India - the first in Kerala and the 4th in India in terms of number of devotees visiting the shrine. The much-adored deity of Sri Krishna attracts millions of devotees every year. It is believed that after the great epic war of the Mahabharata and the conclusion of His pastimes towards the end of Dwapar Yuga, when Lord Krishna was preparing to disappear from His avatar form, Uddhav, his good friend expressed grief about being deprived of Lord Krishna's company after His departure. Lord Krishna informed Uddhava about a statue lying in the ocean. This Vishnu form of Lord Krishna was being worshipped by Krishna himself while He was on earth. God is omnipresent and omnipotent but when He appears in a human form, He acts like an ordinary human being. Guru Vrihaspathi and Vayu (father of Shri Hanuman) were assigned the task of searching the statue which they did. Later with the help of Lord Shiva, they located a suitable place where the statue was installed. From that day onwards, the place came to be known as Guruvayoor.

Another fascinating place in Guruvayoor was the Guruvayoor devaswom punnathur kotta which happens to be India's largest elephant sanctuary and is home to 62 captive elephants. Learning about these pachyderms from one of the senior attendants Mr. Vijayan was thrilling. One never realised that elephants could cost Rs.50 lakhs easily and that each elephant requires food worth Rs 1000 everyday. We also got to learn about some finer details such as - an elephant goes through a period of mental trauma of 4 months every year and that when an elephant is provoked it can cause great devastation. Each elephant in this sanctuary is named after Lord Krishna. While roaming about, we also came across the elephant called KrishnanNarayana who was from Bihar. True to Bihar's reputation, this elephant was not an easy one to handle and was known to throw a lot of tantrums. Its attendant Ganesh Kumar described its antics and demonstrated how it would take water from its snout and pour it on its body as per the verbal commands.

To my pleasant surprise, more Bihar and Jharkhand connections kept happening even though our stay at Guruvayoor lasted hardly about 36 hours. The auto-rickshaw I hired belonged to a person called Shivan who was born in Jamshedpur and lived there for 28 years before returning to his home state in Kerala. I asked him what he liked about Bihar and his comments were full of positive reminiscences. He told us that but for his mother's insistent wish to return to Kerala, he would have loved to stay back.

I was already content to find Bihar and Jharkhand connections in a remote land like Kerala, but there were more to come. While searching for a loo at the bus stop, I spotted a lungi-clad character with his Janeu and after inspecting his surroundings which promptly returned a Champak in Hindi I was very sure about my discovery. A question to him, kya aap north se hain put all my doubts to rest. The guy turned out to be one Manish from Muzaffarpur. He was the local employee of the Sulabh International - the famous organisation that originated in the hands of a great Bihari called Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, who is now an international icon known for his pioneering work in the field of sanitation, more importantly about his commitment in ridding a stigmatised segment of our society that still carries night soil. (http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/sulabh/).

Finally, a few good words about the hotel we stayed in. Sopanam Heritage a 3-star hotel turned out to be one I would recommend to our friends visiting Guruvayoor. The food especially was quite good especially the Chinese Chopsuey which my son and I enjoyed a lot. There were also complimentary pick-ups and drops to go to the temple.

The darshan of the Guruvayoorappan Lord Krishna, of course, was the highest point of our visit. We happened to be there on a Sunday and hence had to stay in the queue for about 4 hours.

Return to previous Page