Monday, December 13, 2004

Incredible Incident at Vaitheeswaran Koil

I went to see my Kula Daivam in a small village near Chidambaram with my family. I have been taking lots of Photos during this time and I had several photos of my Kula daivam - "Badrakaali Amman". After which, we had travelled to Vaitheeswaran Koil in Chidambaram.
I went near the temple tank and was happily snapping away. The mandap in the middle of the tank looked exquisite in the twilight hour. I wanted to take one different angle, where I could focus on the temple interior through the temple entrance and lo !!! Surprises !!! I find my camera battery empty ! I thought that it was full some few minutes back and I have an indicator which shows if it is on a smaller level. (I have a Canon Digital Rebel SLR).I do have tricks up my sleeve. I switched off the camera. Waited 5 minutes, switched it on. Still no sign of life !! After which, being disappointed, I resigned myself to my fate, and switched off the camera.

I came back home, wanting to download the pictures onto my PC. But I would require to charge battreries since to transfer, it requires some amount of power in the camera. I connected to my PC, just thought I would check if any power was there and again SURPRISES !!! I had a full battery !!! I connected and was able to tranfer all the pictures back to my PC and still the battery was full. Maybe god did not want me to take that picture ? What else could I attribute it to ? My camera is perfect.

I did mention this incident to my sister and she tells me that I was making it up. I am not making it up. In fact both my dad and mom were near me at that time and I did try for some time to make the camera function there. I do beleive now that there was some power near the temple tank which prevented me from snapping in that angle.
I did manage to get one very beautiful picture.

and another one

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Ingenious Crime at the roadside temple

This incident happened just 2 days back. I have a friend by the name of JRN Rao. He has a small temple (pillayar koil) just outside his flat. Normally, he does Pooja to it on a regular basis. On Monday, he saw a small urchin going around the temple with fervor after his morning pooja. His wife who had gone to the temple after he had left came back immediately since she did not like the looks of the boy. She suspected that kid to be a thief and informed that he was behaving in a suspicious manner. Since she was wearing jewels, she came inside the house and complained to Rao.

Mr.Rao (detective) came out and saw that the kid did act in a suspicious manner. He would go around once stop in the front touch the hundi and so on. He had been going around for the past 15 minutes. Mr.Rao kept behind him slowly and peered, he saw that the urchin would go around once, put his hand in the hole in the hundi, stop for a few secs, look around to see if no one was looking, take his hand, and so on.

The next time he came around and put his hand on the hundi, Mr.Rao ran there and grabbed his hand. He questioned him on his actions for which the urchin said he did not do anything. On close scrutiny of the hundi, Mr.Rao saw a small black ribbon hanging out. When the urchin was questioned, he shook his head that he did not know anything.

When Mr. Rao threatened to take him to the police for suspicious activity and behaviour, the urchin started taking the ribbon out, and guess what came with it ???
COINS !!! A whole bunch of them were stuck to the horse magnet attached to the black ribbon.

His mode of operation was explained by the urchin on further questioning. He would go around once. Stop. Put the magnet into the hundi. Go around. Take the magnet with coins outside. Next round put the magnet in. And so on.

After that, he fell down at Rao’s feet and the general sob story..that he was from a good family and he needed money…he will not do it again…and so on. Mr.Rao being a softy had released and told him never to repeat it again.

Many of us who heard this real story from him were very much angry at the boy’s behaviour except some of us including me, who marveled at that street urchin’s ingenuity at committing the crime.