[Reader-list] Reader-list, Second Posting, uday

[udayan kumar]

Hi fellows,

>From the last meeting I realized that I have to tell a
story.

In the capital city of Kerala, there is a temple of
great antiquity known as ‘Sree Padmanabha Swami
Temple’. The rulers of the erstwhile state of
Tiruvithamcore used to be called Sree Padmanabha Dasa
(Padmanabha is the icon of Lord Vishnu; and
Padmanabhadasa means the servant of Lord Vishnu). The
temple of such royal heritage has a very large
confinement and is located, although not at the heart
of the city, almost on the outskirts of the city. Any
visitor to the temple is left with a sense of having
been caught between an antique structure and the
modern urban space. As part of the temple, there is a
pond as well, which is outside the courtyard of the
temple. On one of the sides of the pond, there is an
approach road that leads towards the temple; and a
little ahead of the other side of the pond there is a
taxi stand. Those apart, there are usual passers by
and a few people residing in the close by areas and
those who simply come to pass time in the evening, on
an average, constitute the usual congregation. 
Earlier on, the pond was open to the public. People
used to bathe in the pond. But, for almost a decade,
it has not been open to the public and a guard has
been appointed to enforce the ban. That had been the
state of affairs until the incident. 
On 6th of February 2000 around 2 PM in the afternoon,
like anyone, a youth was passing on the approach road
to the temple, heading to the pond as if unaware of
the ban. No one around noticed his trespass. Even for
those passively looking on, initially, they probably
couldn’t anticipate what was about to transpire(I had
paid a visit to the site within the next couple of
days and had interaction with a few people who
happened to witness the incident. Since stating the
case in itself would require reasonably long depiction
of the incident I’m conveniently avoiding the details
of those interviews. What I could gather however from
those interactions does, on various accounts, not
parallel some media projections). The youth, as far as
his appearance goes, was well built and in his
twenties. The guard, at that moment happened to be
away as he had gone for a cup of tea from the nearby
shop. Thus nobody was there to prevent the trespasser,
and he entered the pond. Some people around reminded
him of the ban and tried to persuade him not to enter.
Hardly paying any attention the man went on and began
to bathe in the pond. In a short while he reached
almost to the middle of the pond. Someone in the
meantime managed to inform the guard who immediately
rushed to the scene. By that time, a huge crowd had
surrounded the pond on all sides, watching the events
unfold. Without entering the pond, the guard tried his
level best to persuade him to come back. Having
failed, the guard eventually had to enter the pond to
handle him physically. The guard thus entered and went
up to him, the still adamant trespasser forced the
guard into a brawl which quickly turned into a
full-fledged physical fight. The guard gradually sunk
right in front of the whole crowd; was immersed deep
inside the pond; was killed by the trespasser in the
broad day light in front of a large number of his
fellow human beings. 
At the same time on that day a team of one of the
popular Malayalam television channels headed by the
bureau chief himself happened to be shooting some
parts of the temple for a different purpose. Having
somehow come to know about the incident the television
crew rushed to the scene and recorded the entire
incident, which was telecasted on their channel during
the prime time in the very evening itself. 

This is infact the story over which I have been
pondering. I request you to make your intellectual
response to the story.

Right now I am trying to flesh out the meaning of the
experience of death in the story from a social
anthroplogical perspective which forms one of the
major parts of my work. I am looking forward to your
response. 

*The above narrated story is in fact a real incident.
I am posting this story in verbatim from my proposal
to the readers list because of the indescribable
charecter of my project. 

Uday
14th feb 2006, New Delhi.
                          




		
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