Miracle at Kanchipuram !!

During the middle of June, 2019 a friend sent me a message about Atti Varadar. He informed me that the Varadaraja Perumal temple in Kanchipuram (which is one of my favourite temples) is about to witness a event which occurs only once in 40 years. He informed me that the main deity of the temple is actually immersed in the temples tank and the one we pray to in the temple is actually a replacement idol. It seems that due to constant invasions from Islamic rulers (who were known to loot & destroy temples as well as the idols with a view to change the peoples faith) the temple priests had immersed the main deity in the tank. This is brought out once every 40 years only and after 48 days of giving darshan, He is immersed in the temple tank once again.

My friend also sent a video describing this event and the wonderful opportunity to see the main deity. As I had missed the previous event 40 years ago (due to lack of knowledge as well as funds) and am unlikely to be alive for the next time, I felt I must visit Kanchipuram and see the Lord. My wife agreed to this yatra which was planned at short notice. The date of the commencement of this event was 1st July and we were told that after 24 days in a sleeping posture, the Lord would be kept in a standing posture for the next 24 days. Accordingly, we planned to visit Kanchipuram on 23rd July and return on 27th July and booked our tickets and made hotel arrangements.

In the first few days of July, we were watching the news about this event. The crowds there were unprecedented. A few lakh people visited the temple in the first few days. Weekends and holidays were especially crowded. The wait time was anything from 4 hours to 10 hours depending on the day and the time of the visit. People wrote horror stories of their experiences waiting in the sweltering heat in the make shift arrangements. Several people fainted due to the heat and exhaustion. A few days before our visit six people from the crowd of devotees had to be hospitalised due to exhaustion and out of this four people died at the hospital.

The enormous crowds only seemed to increase rather than decrease as the days passed. We were informed that the infrastructure of Kanchipuram was not prepared enough to handle this. Transport was an issue. Outside taxis were not allowed inside the town and the access for vehicles were restricted within a 4 kilometer radius around the temple. There was an online arrangement made for booking special darshan but the number of tickets were limited and the site was deluged with people trying to book.

In view of such a situation, I started calling many of my contacts to see if they could help me and facilitate a quicker entry to avoid the heat and the wait. Most of my friends expressed their inability. A few days before our departure to Kanchipuram, we were told that Prime Minister Modi was due for a visit on 23rd & 24th July and that the temple would be closed for security reasons. It made us even more apprehensive. In the back of our minds we were hopeful and felt that the Lord would do something to make it easy for us. A day before leaving, I was at a local temple in Navi Mumbai witnessing and participating in a havan for Lord Ganesh as it was Sankashti. After the havan, we told the priest that we need his blessings for a good darshan of Atti Varadar. The priest told us that Lord Ganesh will facilitate it and He is the remover of obstacles. We prayed to Lord Ganesh for a smooth and easy darshan of the Lord.

We flew to Chennai on 23rd July and immediately proceeded to Kanchipuram by car. We had booked a local taxi from Kanchipuram so that he could drop us to our hotel rather than leave us at the outskirts as was being done by all outside taxis (who were not allowed inside Kanchipuram town limits). As we proceeded towards Kanchipuram, the taxi driver told us that outside vehicles are now permitted to come into the town as the local traders were complaining about drop in business due to the restriction. He further told us that the Chief Minister (CM) of Tamil Nadu was expected to visit the temple the same evening and there will be restrictions for devotees like us. So, we decided to visit the other temples of Kanchipuram on 23rd and try our luck with Atti Varadar on 24th.

We arrived at our hotel at 3 p.m. As soon as we entered the hotel, the manager at the reception told us that due to proposed CM visit there are virtually no crowds at Atti Varadar temple and we should immediately proceed for darshan. We immediately freshened up and left the hotel within 15 minutes. As informed by the manager, we went without footwear as there were no arrangements for custody and safekeeping. Outside the hotel, we got an autorickshaw who quoted Rs. 200/- for the 2 kilometer odd ride. We requested him to take us as close as possible to the entry gate. He quickly drove us to the temple using some inner roads and dropped us at a place which was barricaded and manned by a few policemen. We tried to enter the road leading to the temple gate and the policemen said that only people with VIP pass were allowed from there. He then directed us to a nearby area from where people like us would get entry.

After walking nearly 20 minutes, we came to the correct place for entry. Luckily for us the sky was overcast and, although not raining, the tar roads were easy to walk in. On a normal day, it would have been very hot and scalding to the feet. When we entered the temple gates through the "Normal" darshan queue, we found that there were only about hundred odd people in the queue. We quickly stood in the queue and as it was moving rapidly, we had our darshan of Atti Varadar within about 10 minutes. What a miracle !! It seems that the entire Universe conspired to make this happen and give us a fabulous darshan within a very short time. We were overwhelmed with gratitude and were beaming from ear to ear. We felt blessed that the Lord whose darshan is so difficult to get was easily seen by us.

As we stepped out of the temple and started finding our way back to our hotel, we were immersed in the miracle that we just witnessed that day. A truly unforgettable experience reinforcing our faith in the Lord.