After a few failed tries, we finally met the Iyer at the Manonmani koyil today. A lady who had been at the Manakkula Vinayaka temple was there also, and recognised me from having talked to the shastrigal at the Murugan shrine there. It will be the first of many such inter-temple encounters. A few people stop by, “because it’s Friday” says the priest, including a large man in white with a BJP pin, who steps out from a car with 2 attendants. I think he said he has a cloth shop somewhere in town.
There is a class of struggling priests, as we will soon learn, who are often government employees or former lower-level company workers who perhaps would perform pujas or archaka services at their local functions/ workplace shrines etc. They moonlight in a range of roles, as bus conductors for instance. Their attendance to local shrines is both supplementary income and a hereditary-vocational continuity. They’ve not necessarily received formal training at Pathashalas. One Iyer told us once that you can learn how to do basic alankaram and aradhanais by watching YouTube videos.
The Manonmani theruvu koyil as such is run by a family which lives in a building just across (originally Malayalee from Mahe, long-settled here) and which has recently, just before we come with our inquiries, lost a son–the man who used to attend to this temple, to a heart attack. He, too, had been a government employee. His mother talks to us and tells us the temple story.
The Manonmani Amman, she says, came from the Senkazhaneer Amman Koyil Kulam (water tank) on Pappammal Koyil Street in Vaithikuppam. No idea how it was there to begin with. A Chettiar who lived nearby (she pointed down Ambaltadayer Madam St) had brought and propitiated it, but then stopped (personal difficulties?) and placed it in the well in the house of a carpenter nearby (also same direction) – as it is the custom to discard holy images and forms in water bodies rather than leaving them unattended/elsewhere.
When the murti resurfaced from the well is when her grandfather’s brother took it, installed it in a small space next to his dwelling (where the temple is now), and began pujas to it. So we know from this that the temple as such is 3 generations old, not 100+ years as some have been claiming. There have been 2 Kumbhabhishekams done, with the help of a Gurukkal at the Manakkula Vinayakar temple who is an authority and had been something of a guiding figure for them. (Turns out, he was also the officiating Iyer’s classmate also, but they’ve long lost touch).
The temple is now figuring out how to continue its traditions in the absence of the son. Iyers have been called in to fill the gaps, but it’s the grandson who takes over in his father’s shoes. He shows us photos of the Amman alankaras he and his father would do. Now he continues between his studies and exams, with guidance from his mother. We’re asked to return for the Friday evening alankaram which will be done by the boy.