We’re exploring this temple a little further up MG Road into Muthialpet as a second Perumal shrine to document. This is a Thenkalai temple (the town’s big Perumal temple is Vadakalai). We walk in to 3 weddings in process, thanks Tritiya perhaps (Akshaya Tritiya was yesterday). The Bhattacharya is the same one (of 2) who had performed the Pattabhishekam and Thirukalyanam at the Kannika Parameswari temple; he tells us the younger Bhattacharya is the one permanently here, he has an IT job, but takes care of the temple. We have to come back after 10 days to meet him as he’s busy with a puja at some other Perumal koyil (which one?). Unclear how all this works.
In this temple, you can see Vishnu in 3 forms: Standing as Lord Venkateswara, reclining as Lord Ranganatha, and sitting as Lakshmi Narasimha. Their Brahmotsavam is in Thai masam.
There are 2 priests, a father and son, who are helpful in giving us this information until I ask about the Satyanarayana puja – which they tell me is done by another group – and when I ask how the responsibilities are split – the father quickly says these are needless questions and we can move on because they have no time to answer. A bit strange how a friendly conversation quickly did an about face. We walked out of there a bit stunned and remarking: “What just happened?”
What we did learn was that this temple is also a Chettiar shrine built by the Pattusali community. Originally there was only the Narasimha swami shrine, facing West with an entrance to the west. The Ranganatha figure at the Pondy museum is from the Ranganathar shrine here (how did it get there?). But the Padmasali community [Nalli Chinnasamy Chetti from this community established Nalli’s] was also involved (how?) and there was a rift between the two, causing the latter to create a bhajanai mandapam just behind which is now a full-fledged Krishna temple. We go there – it’s a simple shrine – and are given thair saadam as prasadam by a lady cooking behind a curtain (very Oz like).