Security under Scrutiny_Chapter2: The God's guard

The other security who played a crucial role in the process of  uninterrupted contemplation was Krishnan the watchman. Although Krinshnan was not a direct acquaintance to me, he was popularly well known figure with in the streets of  Perumal kovil in Madaveethi. Most of the encounters with him have been from the recollections of memories in past by few of my family members.

Krisnan unlike the stories of other watchman is the security guard of  Perumal temple in our town.It was the time in mid 1960's that the word of security guard were looked up as an luxury affordable only for people holding higher government positions, like MLA,MPs , ministers etc. Neither was employing a security guard was affordable, nor anyone found it necessarily worthy of employing them as most of them opting to sleep outside the house in varanda. Moreover flat system and apartments were far from reality. Every household owned an independent house or rented one or were staying in an rented house with other families occupying different portions of it( it was called ondu kurthanam in tamil). The happenings of the other families and habitual activities of  everyone were never a private matter. Having a secret conversation with someone would never be possible inside the house. Gossips and spying on other shared households were the main source of entertainment for the women at afternoons when children and husbands were away.Restrooms , washing area, terrace were commonly shared among those who lived there.Electricity was invented by then but was out of common man's reach. So mostly varandas was the place preferred by many to have a good night sleep during summer. The scenario was not much different in Mani's home.The varanda was occupied by Mani's grandmother well in advance that day. Mani's grand mom was person who commands respect, so Mani had no option than to stroll on streets with his friends. Mani's grand mom had noticed this and had enrolled him with the temple priest to learn slokas and verses along with others. During certain auspicious days and Utsavams(temple ceremony) ,when the temple priest had his main work overloaded, it would be an unannounced holiday for the classes. Mani, with his friends would gate crash into temple garden to play. Krishnan... Our main character is the guard of the temple..... "guard guarding God....God is guarding us... from all problems and watchman  Krishnan is guarding the God.....what a paradox....if  any one of the Hollywood directors would come across this, this one liner would emerge into a story.... paradox of paradox... some Inception , Interstellar level paradoxical movie would have been made out of it."  I thought to myself.

Krishnan basically does two major chores.... one is controlling the crowd if any. This was a very rear occurrence, though the temple was very big, only some people of the town came there. The crowd was very much under control all the time. Some times during temple processions, when God himself needed little privacy.... and expected social distancing, Krishnan would bestow the responsibility of crowd control to the children who came to the classes... He would honor them with the name of scout and give them the privilege to condom people who breaked the rules. The next main reason behind the reason of Krisnan's employment was to safeguard the temple from these kids. Krisnan found the second chore to be more challenging than the first one or the other job he was assigned to.During times of holidays , Mani and gang would gatecrash into the temple and sneak into its garden to play games such as cricket, kalla manna, catch and catch, hoping and catching etc.  Krisnan always feared that these bunch of monkeys in the disguise of kids would climb trees,raid the place for flowers or fruits and damage the plants. His fear grow and multiplied into terror after he heard a discourse from the popular Upanyasakar who came to the town during Utsavam seasons and discoursed on the Sundarakandam part of Ramayana. The Upanyasakar was too good that Krisnan could relate to the story very much that the scenes were right in front of eyes.He felt very happy when Hanuman found Sita Mata in Askok Vatika.... His eyes were filled with tears of joy.At the same time felt irritated towards Ravana for abducting Sita mata.

When the speaker told that Sitamata gave Hanuman the Chudamani, Krishnen felt overjoyed as if it was given to him. Then came the most daunting part which Krisnan related the most. When the speaker said, how Hanuman destroyed Ashok Vatika he felt bad for the gatekeepers of Asok Vatika and pitied them. He also felt intimidated by the fact of relating the children in Vanaras place and himself in the place of Ashok Vaatika's gatekeeper. When the speaker reached the point where Hanuman tells the group of Vaamaras about him finding Sita mata,The whole Vanara group gatecrashed into every single garden on their way back to tell the news to Lord Rama destroyed all the gardens and deserted them with the joy of finding Sita maata. This very prospect troubled Krisnan. He , from that day onward forbid anyone other than the priest and the gardner to enter the temple garden. But still Mani and gang, sneaked into the garden while Krisnan was busy dealing with other chores or while he was forbidding other adults from entering it. Krisnan always viewed it as a nightmare, to permit children into the garden. He was terrorized and worried that the fate of leaving kids inside the temple garden will turn it into a destroyed Ashok Vatika. While Krishnan came in searching for the children, they hid them self behind the sculptures, trees and thulasi madam. As the matter of fact, Mani and gang was not so destructive as Vanaras in Ramayana. Their main aim was to play. They never stole or plucked leaves or fruits from trees. But the discourse of Sundaraganda has provoked Krishnan. While Krishnan viewed the kids as Vannaras ready to demolish the garden, Mani and gang viewed him as potential player for their Hide and seek game. They viewed Krishnan always as catcher/ seeker to find the  hiders. They were ready to switch for this game whenever they sensed Krishnan's foot steps around. Sometimes the game extended so long that no one know when it ended and everyone left to their home for dinner leaving Krisnan to play the game all by himself for few minutes. The game would abruptly end after Krishnan made sure that there is no threat to the temple garden anymore and the same would continue next day all over again.