Srirangam Madapalli Pachur Rangarajan

Hailing from a remote village near Pachur, Rangarajan has gone on to perform service at the madapalli at the Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangam for over three decades

This section has featured stories on those from various walks of life taking to Kainkaryam at the Ranganathswamy temple in Srirangam. Chakrapani was a worker at a factory who secured the Kainkaryam of a Sripatham. Kannan quit an IT job in Chennai to join the Sripatham. Harish Bhattar quit a high paying bank job in his 20s to continue the hereditary Bhattar Kainkaryam. This story is about one who worked as a server at a restaurant in Thiru Vellarai in his teens and was blessed to be the one who would go on to prepare the sacred Thaligai for Ranganathaswamy and Ranganayaki Thayar for over three decades. 

When he was a school boy in the 1970s, Rangarajan did not visualise a life of Kainkaryam at a temple and that at the number one Divya Desam. His appa, Venkatraman Iyengar, who hailed from Virandur, a small village near Pachur, had performed service at many village temples such as Gopurapatti and Azhagiya Manavalam. It was a financially challenging life during his childhood for there was not much of an income for those in temple service, even more so for those performing in remote village temples.

தேட்டருந்திறல் தேனினைத், தென்னரங்கனை

திருமாதுவாழ் வாட்டமில் வனமாலை மார்வனை

வாழ்த்தி 

மால்கொள் சிந்தையராய்

ஆட்ட மேவியலந்தழைத்து 

அயர் வெய்தும் மெய்யடியார்கள் தம்

ஈட்டம் கண்டிடக் கூடுமேல் 

அது காணும் பயனாவதே

From Vellarai Restaurant to Srirangam Madapalli

Given this background, like many others his generation Rangarajan, too, saw for himself a life away from temples. He was not academically inclined and quit school early. A stint at the renowned Singam Patshala in Srirangam too was short lived. To earn a livelihood, he took on a job as a server in a restaurant in Thiru Vellarai at a monthly salary of Rs. 100 sleeping in the same restaurant every day.

இந்திரனோடு பிரமன்

 ஈசன் இமையவர் எல்லாம்

மந்திர மா மலர் கொண்டு

மறைந்து உவராய் வந்து நின்றார்

சந்திரன் மாளிகை சேரும்

சதுரர்கள் வெள்ளறை நின்றார்

காந்தியம் பொது இது ஆகும்

அழகனே காப்பிட  வாராய்

 For additional income, he would also serve at weddings and it was on one such occasion that a meeting led to a transformational change in his life that he recounts to this writer on a hot Friday morning in front of the Perumal Madapalli at the Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangam “Doraiswamy Iyengar, Sthaneegam and Sindhumani Iyengar, my uncle, met me at a wedding. I had just married three months earlier and the career path was uncertain. They were keen for me to move into the madapalli at the Srirangam temple where there was a shortage of personnel. I had never visualised a full time service inside the temple and this offer came out of the blue when I least expected it.”

Hard initiation at the madapalli

Thus in 1994, Pachur Rangarajan joined the madapalli at the Srirangam temple and has been here for over three decades. He remembers his initiation into the madapalli “In the first few years, the seniors back then initiated me into this service with real hard training. I had to clean the paanai and the other vessels every day, I had to clean the floor with cow-dung, had to bring over a 100 kudams of water from the well  and also wash and dry the vastrams.”

In those decades, that was the way youngsters were trained into temple kainkaryam. He says that they got him into this service in a phased step by step manner “I started off boiling rice. Once I did that well, they initiated me into preparing Thirukannamathu and Pongal. Only after being convinced that I was committed into this service, did the seniors allow me into preparing the full range of sacred food.”

Challenges at the Madapalli

In the middle of the previous decade, there were a couple of IT trained personnel who joined the Srirangam madapalli but their stint was short lived. "It is not easy to secure the blessings of Ranganathaswamy and it is even more difficult to keep it for a long time. One has to remain patient here and work hard for years to get into the good books of Perumal. Those who sought a quick path to glory were shown the door just as quickly" says Pachur Rangarajan on some of the challenges he had to encounter in his service, especially when newer, more aggressive personnel worked alongside him at the madapalli (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2018/07/srirangam-madapalli-transformation.html).

Serious Health Issues but he is back again

A life at the madapalli at the Ranganathaswamy temple is a physically challenging one with the personnel having to carry several kgs of Thaligai from the madapalli to the Sannidhi and to mandagapadis during the round the year utsavams. Working on firewood and without enough free flowing air takes a toll on the body as Rangarajan found out late last year when he encountered serious health issues. But his devotional commitment to Ranganayaki Thayar has brought him into the temple after a short ‘health’ break and is raring to go like he was in the 1990s, looking forward to the Panguni Utsavam that is coming up later this month. 

His Top 3 favourite Sacred Thaligai

Pachur V. Rangarajan counts Milagu Puliyodarai, Thayar Aravanai and Puttu as his three favourite sacred Thaligai that he particularly likes preparing and presenting. He is now the senior most cook at the Ranganathaswamy temple and the one who initiates and trains new comers into the madapalli. He has served at the Perumal madapalli for over 15 years, at the Thayar Madapalli for close to a decade and also at Thiru Vellarai and Uraiyur in the past. 

Madapalli Kainkaryam as his only way of life

He says he never visualised a life at the Srirangam temple. He considers it a great blessing to be following in the footsteps of grandfather and uncle into this life of preparing and presenting the sacred food to Perumal and Thayar at this legendary Divya Desam for over three decades. He would be retiring soon but if the temple authorities require his services, he says he would be happy to continue the kainkaryam till the very last moment of his life, for he has experienced the greatest satisfaction and happiness in his life when preparing the sacred food for the Divine Couple.