Mardmalai

Mardmalai Temple

They don’t understand my language, I don’t understand their

They don’t know me, I don’t know them.

Still both of us want to be friends.

I visited Mardmalai Temple today. I boarded bus no. 70 from Gandhipuram. I was standingin the bus, the conductor came to me and shifted me the other side.(Remember this shifting, Ill come to this part later.)

Soon I found a seat near 1 student. I started interacting with him.I asked about his studies and many other things, while interacting I got to know that he is also going to same place with his parents.

After some time, I called conductor and said him I want a ticket, till that time we had already crossed 2 stations, he asked me “where are u coming from (in tamil)”, I didn’t understood a word, what he was talking, my neighbor answered “Gandhipuram”. Suddenly he got angry and was started saying  ”asdasd asdasd asdasdf asdfasdfdkfghirogh”. Ya it seemed to me like this only, after some time my neighbor said “money”. I gave the money and conductor left us. Now my neighbor became my friend, I asked him “why the conductor was shouting”. He said “because I should have taken the ticket before time”. I was just laughing inside, thinking that “first of all it was not my responsibility to take ticket it’s the conductor’s still when I tried to buy one, he shifted me and in last If I could not have taken the ticket or have bluffed other stop, he was not be able to catch me”. It was me who being honest done all the right things and that guy was yelling at me like hell, all other passengers watching this. It was a cool incident, I don’t know what he was shouting but I didn’t understand a word.

Moral: Whenever someone says something bad/wrong to you, just think that you don’t understand a thing what he/she is talking about. It will make that incident awesome.

 We reached Mardmalai Temple. We removed our shoes at the shoe stand and I also kept my shoes with them. We went inside the main temple after covering large no of stairs. In the Temple, there was an idol of God Murugan on which lots of things such as coconut water, milk and few other things were being poured. Personally I don’t like all this stuff, giving money in big temples and pouring lots of things on God’s idol. As an add on to my thinking I had recently watched the movie OMG(Oh my God), which raises the issue of money collecting agents (Pandits, Padri, Father) of each religion. As we all(Me, My new Friend, His Father and Mother) were standing there, my friends father gave the pandit a Rs15 ticket and told the Pandit names of their 3 family members. I was thinking “what is this? They are here, pandit is here, then why give money to pandit, for calling their names in front of God, They can also do that.” Pandit is not a messenger of God or something like that. My friend’s father also gave Coconut to pandit. He divided it in 2 pieces and water was thrown, again wastage.

My New Friend

After all this, we came out of Temple. There were some rituals being performed by friend’s mother on him, she also performed on me. At that time I thought she just treated me like her son, how sweet south Indians are. We just met an hour ago and I didn’t said a word to his mother, because she dont understand me and I don’t understand her (language barrier). Still she treated me like her son.

Now we came down, she insisted me to take something from the shop, where they all were buying. I said “no, I don’t know any of the things in the shop”. But she again insisted, and gave a sweet in my hand; at this time I got the idea that she wants me to have anything from the shop from her side. I tried to say no, a lot of time; suddenly a hindi understanding guy showed up and made me sure about the thinking of mother. I thought, I would be acting rude, if I don’t take something from the shop. I took banana chips, as the sweet was looking too sweet.

Then we boarded the bus. When my stop was near, I just touched the feet of his parents, said by to my friend and came home.

They don’t understand my language, I don’t understand their

They don’t know me, I don’t know them.

Still both of us want to be friends.

Yes that’s true, weather we take my friend’s mother, my mess’s (restaurant’s) uncle and aunty, my office security guard anyone of them.

They don’t know me nor they understand my language, still they understand me, still they help me, still they become my friends.

Must say South Indians are good and helping people.