Athi Varadar – The Once-in-40 years phenomenon!

How many of you know Kanchipuram, the famous silk town in Tamil Nadu, South India? I’m sure many of you in South India or tourists from elsewhere can easily relate to this town from your memories of how swiftly your wallet or credit card was emptied with consistent demands from your spouse and kids for the variety of silk garments on offer here  I’m writing about a not so well-known feature of this silk and temple town – The Athi Varadar phenomenon that happens only once in forty years, which pushes even the renowned Maha Kumbh Mela (once in twelve years) to the sidelines!

For context, Athi Varadar literally means “Fig Varadar” – that signifies an idol of Lord Varadarajar or Lord Varadaraja Swamy made out of the fig tree. This temple is located on the outskirts of Kanchipuram, about 4 kms from the central town that is famous for the Kamakshi temple and Shankar Mutt. What’s the lore behind Athi Varadar? According to the history of the temple, Lord Athi Varadar was the original deity installed here but back in the 16th century, this idol was cleverly hidden underneath the temple reservoir (called the ‘Pushkarini’) to protect it from the Muslim invaders who came to loot the temple. Once the invaders returned, a replica of this deity made out of stone was installed – this is the idol we see in the temple today. Several decades later, someone stumbled upon Athi Varadar’s existence in the temple reservoir when it was emptied for cleaning, and it was then decided to take out Athi Varadar once in forty years, clean up the idol with purification ceremonies, worship it in the temple for a period of 48 days and then return the Lord to his resting place under the water.

Athi Varadar gloriously emerged on 1st July 2019 amidst a lot of religious fervor and prayers, and I was all charged up for a glimpse. Who wouldn’t miss such a rare occurrence? The tremendous excitement generated on social media around Athi Varadar ensured this little temple town was kept on its toes for 48 days, with the residents even deprived of daily essentials because of tight security and the constant mill of pilgrims day and night. The usually serene temple was now a scene of wild crowds running into the hundreds of thousands each day, all awaiting that fleeting glimpse of the Lord Athi Varadar before being shoved out of sight of the deity and the other excited and restless pilgrims, by the tireless guards on duty.

On 27th July, I left for Kanchipuram with my family of two young daughters and my wife – apprehensive of our fate, experience and luck with Athi Varadar, the next day. Some of my friends were lucky to get a glimpse of the Lord under a couple of hours while some unlucky few returned to their cities surrendering to the heat and 10-hour wait times without getting anywhere near the deity!  We were already hearing horror stories of pilgrims fainting in the long winding queue under the infamous heat and the suffocation caused by a lack of lung space. Kanchipuram, as the locals say, has only three seasons – Hot, Hotter and Hottest! We were in the ‘hotter’ season now but that was good enough to bake chips on the road  There was even a purported news story on television about a pregnant lady giving birth to an infant boy in the queue – and aptly naming this baby Athi Varadar! Enough news to give us jitters but well, why miss all the action?

As we approached the outskirts of Kanchipuram in our car, the excitement was palpable in the air. Thanks to a friend of mine, I found a convenient place to park and then took an autorickshaw (an exciting three-wheeler public vehicle that can ferry more passengers than you can imagine, while precariously navigating the smallest nooks and corners of the street and even between more imposing vehicles and putting Google Maps to shame) to my parents’ home near the temple. We could see huge crowds walking to the temple all the way from the center of Kanchipuram and the police had a tough time managing the unanticipated number of pilgrims. Every street was chock-a-block with vendors, pilgrims, police, and chaos. We rested quickly to recharge our already tired bodies for the next day’s adventure.

2.45 am on 28th July – That’s when we were at the side of the temple joining the queue that had already formed. Can you imagine the plight of parents who have to get young kids ready much before dawn? I assumed I had worked the magic by beating a lot of people to the queue, but I would soon realize how thoroughly wrong I was! As the queue started inching forward, we faced relentless throngs of pilgrims in all the side streets leading to the temple, with practically not an inch of empty space. It was a miracle that we had not yet heard of any stampede. There were a million possibilities for things to go wrong but yet it did not. We were not the best and brightest when it came to navigating the queue and we found ourselves elbowed even by old ladies in their seventies and eighties, who easily marched to the front leaving us way behind. By estimates of my elder daughter, we allowed more than two thousand people to get ahead of us. As dawn approached, we realized we were nowhere near the temple and there were possibly tens of thousands ahead of us. Frustration and tempers ran high in the crowds – I panicked slightly when there was a brawl between two angry factions that led to a bloody nose on one of the pilgrims – if I can even call him that. The police were only silent onlookers.

8 am – The sun came out bright but by then we were under the shaded areas of the queue. We were slowly losing patience and calm. There were times when I feared our younger daughter would get trampled or suffocated but thank God (literally), nothing untoward happened. The lines never seemed to end and we were led from one enclosure to yet another. At one section, we had to pass through 107 enclosures. We came unprepared, so fatigue and dehydration started to set in because we did not have water bottles with us. Our younger daughter wanted to give up and return but our elder daughter egged us on and motivated us – though she was also showing visible signs of exhaustion.

10.40 am – We were slowly approaching the sanctum sanctorum where Lord Athi Varadar was installed temporarily. The crowd became more restless and rough as the anticipation of the rare glimpse built up to the climax. As we neared the door of the sanctum sanctorum, the security guards swiftly dragged us from one end to the other, giving us a 5-second glimpse of Lord Athi Varadar bedecked in pink and a variety of flowers and ornaments. 5 seconds of delight after 7 hours of waiting! We had to survive another choking ordeal on our way out of the temple.

At the end of this entire journey, the fleeting glimpse of Lord Athi Varadar seemed definitely worth the wait and hassle for the sheer experience of such an epic event, but I silently resolved not to put my family through such a risky experience ever again.