Capitilaization of religion (Prem's post)

Ramana Maharishi spent a good part of his life at Arunachala hill in Thiruvanamalai. Thiruvanamalai is 4 hours by car from Chennai, and throngs of people go there on full moon days and walk around Arunachala hill hoping some of his magic would rub off on them. I have read his biography, and it talks about some interesting places including caves that Ramana Maharishi used to meditate. Ramana Maharishi was foremost a yogi, and practised and preached self realization methods. He was not a religious person, and there used to be a Shiva temple at the foothills of Arunachala hill that he used to occasionally visit. The walk is 14 km and is mostly flat as you walk around the hill. My parents go there every full moon day, and do this walk. I have always wanted to go there, and the full moon day this month happened to be the day after I landed in Chennai. This was a special full moon "Chitra Pournami", and apparently this is when moon is closest to earth. I didn't think I would have time in this trip and asked my parents to go ahead. Since I was here for just a week, my parents decided to skip it this month. I felt bad that they were missing out on this because of me. I attended Vanitha's sister's seemandham the following morning, and didn't have anything to do after that. On a whim, I suggested to my parents that we leave to Thiruvanamalai right then. They jumped on it right away, and Vanitha's dad was gracious enough to arrange a car with a driver for us. We were off for a four hour drive to Thiruvanamalai.

It was really hot (40 C plus) and humid in Thiruvanamalai, and we got there at 5:30 PM. There was no parking available and we had to leave our car 1 KM away from the start of the walk. There were people everywhere, even by Indian standards, and everyone was pushing/shoving to get to the start of the walk. The place was similar to most temple towns with narrow streets with walls of houses demarking the streets and half the street space taken by street vendors and cows. The cows would cause temporary congestion and people would shoo/kick away the cows. This narrow street led us to the front of aforementioned Shiva temple, and the crowd at the entrance of the temple was ten times more ( there are a few streets that lead to this point). There were policemen directing pedastrian traffic and occasional moron who decided to drive through this road. By now, there was barely room to stand and people were elbowing, pushing, and shoving to get around. My parents decided the temple was too crowded and darshan would take atleast four hours. I was all excited to start the walk when my parents dragged me in a different direction. Around me there were shops selling everything...trinkets, religious stuff, food, food, and more food. There were street vendors who took care of your slippers when you went into the temple. My parents stopped by one of these vendors and removed their slippers, and it dawned on me that we are supposed to walk without slippers. My dad assured me that there is a nice road which is cleaned everyday. By now, I was sweating buckets and, with no way out, decided to go with the flow.

The trail (actually broad well paved road that can support two way traffic), if you can stretch your imagination, had more people. As I was walking people behind me would be kicking my ankles, and I passed the favor to those walking in front of me. You couldn't even stretch your hand as you walked. My dad was confident that the crowd will thin down soon, but I didn't see any hope of it. We had walked barely 0.5 KM and my feet were hurting. I think my dad's notion of "clean" differs from mine. There were no trash on the roads, but there were a lot of stones, mostly small ones with occasional half pounder. It felt like you were having a session of acupunture, and if you stepped on one of the bigger stones the pain was much worse. The first 1.5 km was along the temple and the stores were stationary ones, as opposed to the mobile ones in a cart. Every other store was either a small restaurant serving idli, dosa, puri, and coffee or a public toilet (apparently there are no toilet's along the walk), and between the stores were temples. After the first 1.5 km, the mobile ones took over seamlessly and instead of the toilets you had everything under the sun sold here.

The temples came in all sizes from tiny ones standing on a small pillar with a oil lamp in it to the Shiva temple whose length was atleast one km. The temples covered the entire spectrum of deities too. It was interesting when my dad said that these temples seem to growing in size and number everytime he comes here. There were atleast a few hundred temples along the way, and most people would walk into most of them. I could see a priest in every temple collecting money that was donated by everyone stepping into the temples, and seemed to be the most guaranteed business around.

As you walked, your senses are exposed to a broad spectrum from hot vadas, dosas, chicken biryani, soups ( I have never seen soups sold in this fashion before), chaat, juices, tender coconuts, and occasional sewer, besides every male's body odor (Interestingly, all the women had lots of flowers in their head and the scent of the flowers overwhelmed other odors around them). After some time I noticed that most of the food stalls were operating like a chain, these guys had the same uniform and had the same menu. I couldn't figure out if they were centralized beyond that, as they were cooking right on the street with big vessels using wood and coal.

The shops around were interesting. There were the usual trinkets selling plastic stuff for five and ten rupees. There were shops selling things for puja, pictures of deities,etc. Then there were a bunch of smaller yogi's advertising their services (don't know what services), and these guys had big microphones that was constantly blaring (btw, food stalls also used these microphones to advertise).

As we walked my legs were getting used to the pain, and crowd never relented till the end. It took us around six hours to finish the walk(around midnight). I was disappointed that all I could see of Ramana Maharishi was a small ashram where he lived (it was a nice ashram and worth visiting, he lived in a stand alone room which was around 8 by 7 feet with just a cot and a chair). There was no way to explore Arunachala hill or see some of the caves or trees that Ramana Maharishi used to meditate. I couldn't figure out why so many people came there. It seemed a largely lower segments (in financial terms) of the population with a lot of younger people. They seem to be doing it for the sake of doing it.

The broad setting was very nice for the walk. This was a small town with very little industrial pollution, a long easy hike on a full moon night, with temperatures slowly dropping into the night, with occasional puffs of wind. But you could hardly enjoy it with the mini microphones blaring at you constantly, and your feet screaming at you. There were some cows on this trail too, probably the same ones I saw at the beginning, and were now treated as "god" with people feeding and gently "rubbing" them. I could not get a good answer on why full moon days are auspicious for this walk. If Ramana Maharishi saw this place now, I doubt he would hang around. He spent a few years without saying a word, and gave up worldly things at the age of 16, and just wore a loin cloth for most of his life. I went there hoping to see a peaceful and serene place, but what I saw was unabated capitalization in the name of religion, ignorance of a historic landmark (unfortunately the simplicity of his life and the places he enjoyed were not preserved), and a enterprising group supporting the spectacle by selling everything under the sun, and realizing that the best business would be starting new temples. I would love to understand how they decide which deity to add, as this decides which crowd they will attract and how much they make. I guess it's a science beyond me or just plain luck which succeeds because of the number of people that come there.

We started heading back at 1 PM. The first kilometer of the drive was more painful than the walk as it took us 90 minutes. This city is definitely not equipped to handle these big crowds. If you do decide to go, try a non full moon day, and you might be able to explore the hill better.