A name can make a difference

When driving down Bangalore-Highway from Chennai, a turn to the right after the Porur junction takes you to Thiruvallur town, just past the tiny wayside hamlet of Thirumazhisai. As you drive past Thirumazhisai, you cannot miss an old ramshackle Shiva Temple right on the road. It is called the Othandeeswarar temple, and it is believed that Shiva himself helped in establishing the temple at this spot.

Nothing about the temple will make you stop by. It looks like just another roadside temple. But what I love about this temple is the name of the consort of Shiva in this temple, the presiding amman. She is called Kulurnthanayaki.

Crudely translated the name means, the Cool Leader. And though the translation is crude, and sounds western pop-ish, it is actually literal and quite classic Tamil. Kulurthanayaki. I wonder who thought of the name? A cool leader in a land that is wilting and sweltering throughout the year, in the midst of the grime and dust of a wayside hamlet? Not to mention the added discomfort of profuse sweating. A cool leader? Whoever thought of such a name?

Was he a poet, a romantic, or a philosopher? What could have inspired the name? Was it just a whim or a wishful thought of the creator? Was it desperate hope? Was it an attempt to bring down the heat by reflecting on coolness? Perhaps there is some record of the temple’s presiding deities and their origins, and then again, perhaps there are none. I do not know of any, nor may I ever discover them.

But the name has fired my imagination and enchanted me like very few other things have done. I find myself often marveling at the lovely name. I bring it up in conversations. And whenever I drive past the temple, it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

If something draws me to innocuous Thirumazhisai, it is not the temple, not the architecture, not the associated myths and heritage, not even devotion to the God. It is just a name. Kulurthanayaki. A sweet name. A name that has created an oasis of coolness and serenity in my mind in the midst of the unremitting summer of Tamil Nadu.