The Family Deity

“Man! Are you serious? Building a Hindu temple in America is no joke. How are you planning on doing it?”

“I don’t think so. I would say it’s easier than doing it in India. A lot of people've already done it, and I've spoken to some of them and understood the nittigrities.”

“Still, I don’t think it’s as easy as you want to believe. Which God are you planning to build this temple to?”

“I’m going to build this for my family deity. Lord Murugan.”

“That makes it all the more difficult. Unlike Lord Shiva or Vishnu, Murugan is not popular in the Desi community here. Only Tamils will join you in this effort. And how is Lord Murugan your family deity? Technically speaking, that’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s just not possible.I know for sure Lord Murugan can’t be your family deity. Either you lied to me about your past, or you are lying to me now about your family deity.”

“No way. My grandfather’s name is Velusamy, and my brother’s name is Velmurugan. Every other name in my family is one of Lord Murugan’s. During my childhood, we went to the family deity temple every year. I still visit the place every time I go to India without fail. On what basis are you saying this?”

“My family deity is Lord Subramanyah. That’s why my name is Subbu, Subramanian. We don’t call him Murugan even though it’s the same God. And I know for a fact there’s not even a single family from your caste that has Lord Subramanyah or for that matter Lord Murugan as their family deity. Ayyanar is the most common God among your clan. I'm not saying it’s only my caste worshiping Lord Subramanyah or Murugan. There are people from other castes that have him as their family deity too, but not yours. I have seen die-hard devotees of Lord Murugan from your tribe but that doesn’t mean he's their family deity. I am 101% sure about this. When you visit your temple next time, dig deeper. You'll be surprised.”

Subbu has a PhD in these things. Not only about Lord Murugan or Hinduism, talk about anything related to religion—any religion—he’ll give you an hours-long lecture. It’s a surprise we never talked about my family deity before. Now that he's thrown this bomb, I feel a nag to find out more. I know for sure Lord Murugan is my family deity. And I know for sure Subbu can’t be wrong about this. So, who’s right?

There is an Ayyanar temple just next to the Murugan temple that we have back in India. We don’t worship Ayyanar though some of my relatives do that. Murugan is a vegetarian God and Ayyanar is a non-vegetarian. But all the Murugan devotees are not vegetarians. There’s something fishy about this whole thing, and I need to find out more.

Twenty years ago, when I came to America, little did I know that I would get this serious about building a temple for my God in this land. But my weekend visits to the Concord temple were what made me feel at home here. Then, an astrologer in front of an ancient temple in Tamil Nadu told me once I would build a temple for my God and perform kumbabishekam. I didn’t believe it then. I became an atheist or agnostic at some point in time. Even then I used to visit the Concord temple because that’s where I got to meet my people. That’s where I met my best friend Syed. Syed is a Tamil Muslim. Why would he visit a Hindu temple! The same reason. That’s where he could meet ‘his’ people. Then I met the girl of my life there. That’s when I had a reason to become a believer again. Then, we had our daughter. We named her after Goddess Parvati, Lord Murugan’s mom. And, yes, that’s why I call my daughter “mom”. Crazy, isn’t it!

Now, she wants to come with me when I travel to India to get soil from my family deity temple. She's fascinated by the idea of building a new temple with a handful of soil from the original temple, even though she is growing up to be an atheist or agnostic. I don’t know what to call that kind of a believer. I have no problem with her being anything as long as she respects my sentiments. 

For this very reason, my friend Senthil ran back to India with his family. His daughter started questioning his beliefs when she entered middle school. His single answer to all her questions was moving the family back to India. It’s no surprise he came back running with the same family the next summer. The day to day inconveniences and eroding bank balance made him realize handling his daughter’s philosophical questions were easier problems to handle.

Here we are with the entire extended family to worship my family deity Lord Murugan and collect a handful of soil from the dry land from where my forefathers ran away in pursuit of money and all the worldly things but came back every year to thank their God for everything that He gave them. This handful of soil is going to be part of a history made in America.

The temple is the size of a football field and is shielded by compound walls on all four sides. On the right hand side of Lord Murugan is the Ayyanar temple. A tall scary Ayyanar statue is the favorite place for kids. At first they are scared of it and then once they get comfortable with it, they never want to leave the place. The temple stands at the center. 

“When do we take the soil? Before or after the prayer?” I ask, looking around the temple.

“We should take it only after requesting him and he grants his permission,” authoritatively said my otherwise meek mom.

“Whom?”

“Lord Murugan!”

She has no point of view or opinion about anything under the Sun. But when it comes to these godly things she wants everyone in the family to listen to her with no questions. 

So I said, “Okay.” 

She knows this is the only place I don’t challenge her, and she wants it to be that way forever. I have no problem with it either.

We all went inside the temple and prayed to God for successful completion of the construction of the temple—his temple—in America.

Even after all of us finished praying mom kept her eyes shut, but her lips were busy. This meant she was speaking with God. Everyone else was anxiously waiting for her eyes to open and for the message from God.

She opened her eyes, looked around like a Goddess and said in a stern voice, “I am telling you, this temple construction will take three years. And after that for nine generations this family will rule the world. Mark my words.” That’s it. She became normal. She became my mom again. 

Then, all of us, including dad, fell at her feet one by one to get her blessings. She was Lord Murugan at that moment. I was the first one to do so. When I was kneeling down I just saw a sculpture behind her that read, Lord Murugayyanar. It looked ancient, and the letters were not very clear. It was in old style Tamil. I have never seen this name anywhere. It’s all Lord Murugan everywhere. But the name rang a bell. 

“Murugayyanar...” 

No. It can’t be both. It has to be Murugan or Ayyanar, not both. Where did this name come from! Subbu, my friend! You're a genius!

Mom started speaking again in her momentary bossy voice. She pointed to the exact center of the open space straight in front of God and said, “Take your soil from that place.”

Everyone rushed to the place. My younger brother had a yellow cloth bag in his hand. He took a handful of soil from the ground and put it inside. 

“One handful doesn’t mean exactly one handful… Take as much as you can in that bag. He has to carry it that far…” mom ordered again. Now the bag is getting filled. 

An old man walked closer to us. He looked like my dad’s elder brother. The nose is strikingly similar to ours. Yes, we have a family nose. Anywhere in the world, if I see anyone with that kind of a nose, I feel like going up to them and asking where they are from. 

“What are you going to do with this? Where are you going to build the temple?” He spoke like he knew what we were going to do with it.

Not willing to reveal much, my brother just said, “Nothing. Just here. Nearby.”. He looked up at his face and exclaimed, “Hey, look at his nose. It’s like ours. He looks like just dad.”

We have come to this temple many times, almost every year in my first twenty years before coming to America. But we’ve never seen this person or anyone that resembled anyone from our family.

The old man continued. “This is how this temple was built 150 years ago. My grandfather used to tell us stories about this. They all migrated from a village 50 miles further east. There was a severe famine. Children were dying without food and water. It keeps happening every second year in this part of the country. The entire village became empty. They went in all four directions in search of food and water with their endlessly crying children. Three families moved to this village. After safely settling their women and children here, the men went back to their village, got a handful of soil from the temple there and built a small Ayyanar temple here in this place.”

“What! Ayyanar temple?” My daughter and I looked at each other in disbelief. 

“Ayya! What are you saying? This is Lord Murugan temple. You are saying Ayyanar temple. Ayyanar temple is just there. I am confused.”

“Get confused. That’s how you get clarity,” said the old man clearly. “Both are the same. Ayyanar took the Murugan avatar here. People like you who didn’t believe it built another Ayyanar temple right next to this place. Some of my relatives still worship only him. They don’t come here. You won’t understand this. Nobody understands this. Why do you worry about all these things? You came here to pray. Pray and leave.”

“No way. This old man doesn’t even know some basic things about Lord Murugan or Ayyanar. But he seems to know something that most of us don’t know. Let’s dig deeper.”

My brother said, “Leave him alone. He’s just blabbering. Give him 100 rupees. He will go away.”

My daughter was not ready to leave at this point. “Thatha, what’s this Murugan, Ayyanar and Murugayyanar confusion? Can you please elaborate?”

Nothing he talked afterwards made any sense. My brother gave him 100 rupees. He blessed all of us to live longer. He seemed very pleased with it. It seems to be a huge amount of money for him. It’s nothing for us. His parting remarks were all the more thought provoking. “We are all sons of the same mother. If this is your family deity then your forefathers and my forefathers were the same. Come every year to see us.”

Now my daughter asked me mischievously, “So dad, are you going to build Lord Murugan temple or Ayyanar temple or Murugayyanar temple?”

Lord Murugan himself is not as popular as his dad Shiva or uncle Vishnu. Ayyanar is nobody to most of the Indians in the USA. He is the God of warriors and farmers, most of whom have not even moved out of their villages or beyond Tamil Nadu. The fundraising is going to be really tough if it is for Ayyanar. Murugayyanar… is ruled out. Nobody even knows this combination is possible. I wouldn’t be able to generate even 1000 dollars for him. But if Ayyanar is my family deity I will build his temple, not any other God’s. More than anything else, I now want to know who my family deity really is. Neither will my daughter allow me to leave the country without getting an answer to this riddle.

My daughter looked puzzled and kept looking at the back of the old man who was going away from us. Suddenly she went running after him and asked, “Thatha! Wait. What’s the name of the village you said?”

Now he looked lost. “They say Appanur or something. I don’t think our mother village would still be there. Everyone left the place when the famine hit. I heard there is still an Ayyanar temple there. I haven’t seen it though, just heard it.”

“Dad, did you hear that? We’re going to be there within the next two hours. Appanur or whatever oor (place) that is.”

“Oh, no! He just blabbered. He is saying 150 years. It could be 100 years. It could be 300 years. Nobody knows. Almost 10 generations. Many villages would have been vacated and many new villages would have been founded in these 300 years. The original temple wouldn’t have been a temple like what we see today. It would have been just a stone under a tree. I don’t think we can trace anything today,” this is my mouth talking to my daughter. But you know deep inside I want to go there too. “No ma. We can’t go with this entire gang. Let’s go back home today and only you and I can go in a smaller car to that place tomorrow or the day after.”

“No. What’s wrong! They will enjoy it too.”

I was reluctant. She went back inside the temple where everyone else was sitting. Next 10 minutes, the entire family was walking towards me with my nephews and nieces shouting, “Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Now the van is headed towards Appanur, the ‘mother village’ as we call it, which is going to change the history of a clan.

We reached Appanur. There’s a banyan tree on the bank of a dry lake. A number of men of all ages are sitting there. Some of them stood up and came towards our van. 

“What are you looking for?”

“Is there an Ayyanar temple in this place?”

“Yes. Where are you from?”

“Madurai.”

He showed a single lane road that’s used to only bullock karts. We followed that road for half a mile. There’s an Ayyanar temple on the other side of the lake. Next to the temple there’s a huge Ayyanar statue. Yes, this is a real Ayyanar temple. All of us got down the van and went to the temple. All the kids surrounded the jumbo Ayyanar statue and started playing there.

An old lady rearing a bunch of goats came near us and inquired about us. 

My daughter shouted, “Paatti (grandma), this lady looks like you. Doesn’t she, dad?”

My mom replied, “Yeah, she looks like my mom!”

OMG. She looks exactly like my mom’s mom. I have seen her. I have been with her for a long time. I am her favorite grandkid. She looks a bit like my mom too. How is this possible! Is she from the same clan? Is she my aunt? Is she my mom’s distant cousin?

“If you are worshiping this Ayyanar, we must be related to each other. But I have never seen you people here before. You don’t come here every year, do you?”

“We don’t. This is the first time we have come here. But we got to know this is our family deity. Do you know when this temple was built?”

“I don’t know when this was built. But my grandma used to tell me this is the mother village for an entire clan that migrated to all four directions due to famine. This entire village was emptied and just one family stayed through all bad times. That became many families over time. Some people who migrated to other places came back later and settled. Many others visit the temple once in a year but choose to stay wherever they are—the lands that gave them food and water when their women and children starved. I come from the family that chose to stay here. I'm happy to see you people back in our land, worshiping our forefather Ayyanar.”

I took out a 100 rupees note and gave it to her. She stared at me and said angrily, “Who wants your 100 rupees money! Come home after your prayers. I'll treat you all with a feast.”

“Cool down, ma. Cool down. I'm like your son. Won’t you accept it if your son gave this 100 rupees? Anyway, tell us more about Ayyanar. Has your grandma ever told you anything about Ayyanar?”

“Ayyanar is our forefather. Yours and mine. We were all born to him. It’s his blood in us all. He was a brave man. He gave his life to save his people. That’s why his people still worship him."

“What! So, was he a human? Not a God?” wondered my daughter, she's still not used to the concept of polytheism and humans becoming Gods.

“Humans only become God, ma. Simple as that.”

“Then whom did Ayyanar and his clan worship?”

“Land, rain, sunlight, sky, wind… Everything helping them stay alive.”

“Nature, then. You're saying, they all worshiped nature. If Ayyanar is our forefather and he and his clan worshiped mother nature, our family deity is not Ayyanar, it’s mother nature. Dad, you should actually build a temple for mother nature,” she winked.

“Yes. Let’s pour the soil we got from Murugan temple, mix it with the soil here and fill the bag with the mixed soil. I will build a temple for mother nature in America. That will be our family deity. Not just ours, the entire humanity’s - everyone’s. African, American, Asian, European, everyone!”