A benediction all the way,
with Athi varadar
in the Mandap, devotees
seek his blessing
while the priests
engage in prayers.
revel in splendour
with contributions
willing and forced.
After forty years,
Varathar rises from water,
ever fresh and divine,
stays for forty eight days
giving audience to
millions of people,
Dressed in best hand woven silk
bedecked in jewels, Varathar
enlightens.
The ecstatic crowd.
brave heat and rains,
endure the actions
of local administration
which turn harsh at times
all for the sake of
seeing Lord Varathar
for just a second at the most.
Barring a stampede
where thirty eight die,
hundreds get hurt, the stay
remains . pleasant.
On the forty eighth day
Varadar returns to his abode,
after enriching the land
where the water starved areas
receive copious rains and more
Meenas Poems 