Avvaiyar

This is Fiction with references, research and pictures from the Internet.

Lord Ganesha was my favorite God. I loved to spend time in front of him fascinated by his long trunk and long ears and kind eyes.I loved to play a game with him. I used to always offer him four cups in my daily worship, each filled with milk, honey , rice pudding and nuts.I used to plead with my beloved Lord Ganesha that I was giving him four things in return for which I only wanted three, the gifts of poetry, music and drama. I thought that this was a good deal since clearly Ganesha is the winner here as I gave him four and asked for only three in return.
My beloved God whose kindness surpasses everything honored my proposal so much so that I became famous for poetry music and drama.Never for a moment did I pause to think that my parents had abandoned me at birth, for I was grateful to my foster father whose interest in poetry moved me in that direction too.My natural talent now grew to formidable heights and this earned me fame, far and wide, that I started getting pestered with proposals for marriage.
All these proposals started hindering my work and took my mind away from God and poetry. Who else would I turn to but Ganesha. I prayed to Lord Ganesha and requested him to remove my beauty that had become such a burden to me and a deep distraction too.I was aged overnight by my God. No longer did I look the picture of youth but now I looked the picture of old age. My hair had completely grayed, I had lost all my teeth. My eyes had sunken in and my body was no longer firm as an youth but sagged like an old maiden.
Rejoice I did at this transformation. My long black hair was no more. In its place was white and gray hair. My youthful and beautiful looks no more. In its place was a withered face. My brightly colored dresses were no more. In its place was the robe of a monk and a stick to support my tired body.No sooner than this transformation happen, that all my marriage proposals were gone with the wind.No longer did anyone want to marry me neither did they want to look at me.
My relief that I could now focus on God’s work cannot be measured. Now I felt there was no stopping me from working for God and with God.Faced with this evidence of spiritual power, everybody accepted that they had encountered somebody meant for higher things in life and I was able to leave my family forever to live the life of wandering so beloved to the holy, by walk only.My wanderings were a source of great education and inspiration for me and I was able to develop a social consciousness in my poetry before its time. I was able to see the lives of the common people and their sufferings at close quarters.
I disdained the rich and their pretensions and I felt indignation at the injustice of the caste system.According to me, there were only two castes.“The highborn are the good who help those in distressThe lowborn are those who never help.”Once after a very long walk I was sitting tired beneath a tree, which happened to bear the Jambu fruit so beloved of my Lord Ganesha.I was too tired to get up and shake some down but I noticed a boy, a cowherd who was grazing his buffaloes and was resting in the branches of the tree.This little imp called out to me.“Oh Grandmother”, he said. “Do you want hot fruits or cold fruits?”, he asked.சுட்டபழம்வேண்டுமாசுடாதபழம்வேண்டுமாI wanted to play around with the little boy since he was playing mischief with me. So I asked for hot fruit. The boy knocked the fruit out of the tree and they fell onto the dust below.Picking them up I had to blow on them to clear the dust. Looking at me, the boy started to laugh. He then asked me if the fruit was too hot for me.(This is an untranslatable pun, involving wordplay as well as the fact that blowing on something could mean it needs cooling.)
A young boy had outsmarted me, the master of words and all I could do was to sing “I, an old axe, who could withstand the hardest ebonyMust acknowledge defeat before this watery young plaintain stem!”.That was when I realized an ordinary cowherd could not be linguistically adept and in my heart and soul knew the boy standing in front of me was none other than Skanda.Pleased with my sporting attitude and devotion the young god asked me 4 great questions.“What is hard?, What is sweet?, What is big and What is rare?”
I answered, “Poverty is hard, Poverty in youth is harder, harder still is incurable disease. Exceedingly hard is the faithless lover and hardest of all is to take food from one who does not love you.”“Sweet is solitude. Sweeter is the worship of the Lord. Sweeter still is the company of the guru but the sweetest is to constantly be moving around with him”.
“Big is the world, Brahma created it so he is bigger. But he comes out of Vishnu’s navel who sleeps on the ocean, which was drunk up by Sage Agastya who was born of a pot.Pots are made of clay which comes from the earth which rests upon the head of Shesha, the cosmic serpent which is a ring for Parvathi’s finger but she is only a part of Shiva.Shiva lives in the heart of the devotee so that alone is truly big.”
“Rare is human birth, rarer without deformity. Rarer still is a human birth when one is interested in wisdom. Rarest of all human births is one possessing charity and penance.”So saying I took leave of my beloved Lord Muruga.I then traveled throughout the length and breath of the country until I could travel no more.My legs got very weak and I could not walk as I strived to walk towards Kailasam (Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva).
My body was very weak and could not move forward and I started to crawl towards Kailasam. My Lord Ganesha, benevolent that he is, could not bear to see his devotee suffer so.He himself carried me to Kailasam so I could feast my eyes On Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi. There looking at my Gods, I departed from this earth to forever be at the divine feet and never apart.
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