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| Temple Priest explaining the Salient Feature of the Temple |
When we had planned the uzhavarappani, we were a bit apprehensive for quite a few reasons: ---. The distance involved being too long most of our time may be spent in travelling. Not many may turn up because of this. The area that needed to be white washed / painted was in the region of more than 50000 sq. ft. and we were really worried if we could do it. With all such doubts, we started our preparations in the month of May. But, we were really surprised by the overwhelming response of our volunteers.
More than 100 people had volunteered and we had to arrange two buses. We left Chennai on the evening of 15th and reached Swamimalai around 11.30pm. After resting for the night in a Kalyana Mandapam, we left by 7.00 am 16.06.2013 and proceeded to Innambur, which is at a distance of about 4 km. The Kumbabishegam event, as mentioned in our previous post, now stands postponed to the month of August 2013.
Our major work here was only white washing of the inner and outer walls. The temple contains two praharams. The inner praharam walls have a height of more than 18 feet and the outer compound walls are slightly less high. Initially it appeared as a daunting task. But all the participants including women and children vied with each other in taking up the work. For white washing the higher reaches of these walls, our guys tied a make-shift scaffolding and the brave at heart climbed them without any hesitation to paint the top portion.
The walls of the Sugandha Kundalambal Amman Sannadhi in the second praharam, were of a lesser height and most of the painting here was done by the women volunteers.
Besides painting the walls, we also painted the grill gates, windows and collapsible gates with aluminium paint. The sponge-brush method we learnt earlier at Thiruvaiyaru from Shri Venkatesh came in handy to complete the same at a fast pace. Besides the usual cleaning of Sannadhis were also done.
Apart from our volunteers, Shri Venkatesh had arranged a team of regular painters and a set of compressors. The inner and outer compound walls were given a white wash by using these spray guns.
By the evening, we finished whatever work that we could complete and had a Darshan of அருள்மிகு எழுத்தறிநாதர் before we left. All the remaining incomplete work was finished by the team of Shri Venkatesh.
By the evening, we finished whatever work that we could complete and had a Darshan of அருள்மிகு எழுத்தறிநாதர் before we left. All the remaining incomplete work was finished by the team of Shri Venkatesh.
From Innambur, we proceeded to Thiruppurambiyam and had a darshan of பிரளயம் காத்த விநாயகர் and
சாட்சிநாத ஸ்வாமி. We came back to Swamimalai and had a darshan of Lord Subramanya.
Leaving Swamimalai around 10.pm after finishing our dinner, we reached back Chennai in the early morning of 17th June 2013.
Our expenses for this Uzhavarappani has exceeded 2.00 lakhs. As the temple was not having any funds and no grant came from the Govt, we had decided to bear all the cost of material used. But we have to admit that it exceeded our original estimates, especially in view of the massive size of the walls. However, Lord Shiva has not let us down. Many philanthropists have helped us through their donations. Our sincere thanks to all of them. Their timely contributions have helped us to a great extent to tide over a major part of our crisis.
