Chithirai Thiruvizha

As being a "Madurai-karan" I would like to share our Madurai's Chithirai Thiruvizha. This thiruvizha is being annually celebrated in Madurai.

This festival is been celebrated in the Month of April ( Especially, in the Tamil month Chithirai). The festival gets started on the 5th blooming day of the Moon (Valarpirai, in Tamil. (Crescent) ) of the Tamil month Chithirai, starting with a Flag hoist (Kodi yetram) in both Meenakshi amman Temple and Azhagar Temple.

The list of events in this festival are,

1) KodiYetram, As we know every celebration starts with a Flag hoist or a Flag break, our Chithirai Thiruvizha also gets started with a Flag hoist in both the Temples.

2) Pattabisekam, It is the coronation ceremony of Goddess Meenakshi( one of Goddess Shakthi's (wife of lord Shiva) incarnation ) thus she takes the whole city under her control and protect the citizens from every problems.

3) Dikvijayam, This ceremony is the war that is been held between the Lord Shiva( Here, Sundaraswarar one his incarnation) and Goddess Meenakshi, were Goddess Meenakshi falls in love with the lord shiva and gets defeated by lord Shiva and surrender herself and the city in his protection.

4) Meenakshi-Sundaraswar Thirukalyanam, is the most important event of this festival where Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundaraswar gets married in front of all the Madurai people.

5) Therrotam, The Chariot Festival where the newly married couple Goddess Meenakshi and lord Sundaraswar comes in a chariot to bless the people.

6) Ethir sevai, from this ceremony celebration will be in the Madurai north where the brother of Goddess Meenakshi Lord Azhagar( Incarnation of Lord Vishnu) comes to witness his sister's marriage from Azhagar malai.

7) Azhagar Vaigai Elenthuarulal, in this ceremony lord Azhagar gets bathed in the river Vaigai in a disguise as a thief (That is why known as Kalazhagar) and gets angry by coming to know that her sister's marriage got over before his arrival and moves towards Vandiyur without crossing the river.

From left, Meenakshi Thirukalyanam, Azhagar Ethirsevai, Kalazhagar Vaigai elenthuarulal.

As you can see this festival is a collaboration of Saivism(Followers of Lord Shiva) and Vaishnavite(Followers of Lord Vishnu). As we all know,in olden days there was always a clash among these two groups of people, where our Chithirai thiruvizha stood as a great support in uniting these two groups.

Actually, this festival was two different festivals that was been celebrated in two different months, Where, the incarnation of lord Shakthi Meenakshi comes out from the yagnya done by the king Malayadhwaja Pandian, who took care of Meenakshi as his own daughter and taught her with all the battlefield knowledge with which Goddess Meenakshi seized all over the world and atlast when she went to Kailash to capture the Kailash which was ruled by Lord Shiva. Goddess Meenakshi gets defeated by lord Shiva and fell love in the beauty of lord shiva and lord Shiva too marries her as he promised. This festival was actually celebrated in the Tamil month Maasi.

Then there was a Saint Mandooka who was busy in bathing and forgot to wish the Rishi Dhurvasa, who is well-known for his angry. Dhurvasa took this as an insult and cursed the Mandooka to be a frog. When Mandooka apologized for his mistake to Dhurvasa, he asked Mandooka to go and worship in the vaigai river to lord Azhagar who will again transform him into the human form, this is why lord Azhagar comes to Vaigai river and removes the curse on Mandooka and shows him all the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu as Mandooka requested.

After few decades, the king Thirumalainaikar who was ruling the Madurai city saw the clash of Saivism and Vaishnavite as a threat to his city, and found that the Meenakshi festival in Maasi month was not properly attend by his people due to harvesting of crops. Considering all these situations he decided to combine these two festivals in the Tamil month of Chithirai. As we can see still this festival is been celebrated more enthusiastically till now and that peace between Saivism and Vaishnavite is been maintained.

Celebrating these kind of festivals is not only to maintain the culture it is to get peace of mind from all the work pressures we go through and get a chance to mingle with all our family as one atleast for once in a year. And I'm bit cocky that we will surely continue to celebrate such festivals as a one without seeing any kind of differentiation among people, because we all know UNITY IS STRENGTH.

Rowan Atkinson

Mr. Bean

One of the well known face of the 90's kids(Although I'm 2000 born, I'm half 90's). Mr. Bean, Wow!!! A nostalgic feeling. The time when I fight for the TV remote with my Sister to watch this Cartoon.

In my childhood everyone used to tease me by saying that "I do look like Mr. Bean", that time I get tensed and even I've cried sometimes, but now I'm eagerly waiting to hear that. Arrrggghhhhh!!!Should've accepted it in my childhood.🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

As my tag line quotes "Comedy is a Serious business" , Rowan Atkinson(born on 6 January 1955) who played the role Mr. Bean have succeededed in this serious business. Although sir Rowan enacted many roles, the all time favourite for all is Mr. Bean.

He's secured the 2nd position in my Inspirers list. He's entertaining the people till now through many movies like Jhonny English, Mr. Bean's Holiday, Maigret and more.

We all are well known about the English series F.R.I.E.N.D.S, in that 7th Season's 18th episode was a Soapie awards, where Joey (One of the characters from the F.R.I.E.N.D.S) gets nominated for the award but he won't be selected for the award, but he gets the award on behalf of his co-actress and deliver his own Winning speech on her award. 😂🤣😂😂

But, I think (Strictly I think) this scene was taken from one of the performance by Rowan atkinson. Which isn't exactly the same but somewhat it is.

Coming to the reason for this post, Sir Rowan was only from a Middle class family and he's the youngest of all the 4 brothers. Since, he was a hard working guy He got admission in the Newcastle University for pursuing his Electrical Engineering degree and Went to Queen's college, Oxford for pursuing his MSc in Electrical Engineering where he found a hidden version of himself, that version was well versed in entertaining the people so he enrolled himself in a comedy group and due to his Hard work he has now reached this much height. If he wanted to he could've continued his Studies further even where he was a great one, but he followed his heart. That is the reason why I did this post.

Please always follow your heart, may be you couldn't because of your own problems then Ok, at least take this very small piece of advice to the next generation.

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Spencer Chaplin

Charlie Spencer Chaplin, was born on 16 April 1889, England. When you visit all my Social pages (that I've included in the footer) for sure I would've posted something related to him and you can notice that in those sites mostly he'll be in the Display Picture or Screen.

The reason I admire him so much is that, he was able bring smile in everyone that too only with his body language. Making someone to cry is so easy, but bringing smile in someone is a very tough job but he did that in everyone. Whomsoever may be performing awesome comedies now, I can assure that they were from Chaplin's work.

He is a world wide accepted "The most talented artist". I can justify this with a small example, When Chaplin got his Oscars during 1972, when his name was announced and was showcased in front of the people, there was a "12 Minutes Standing ovation" which is still an unbeatable record.

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This much unconditional love on one person comes only when he has won those many hearts. He did this by entertaining them. He once quoted, "I've many problems in my life. But my lips don't know that. They always smile", this quote is not for ourselves we've to make others also to smile which helps in building a healthy society. You may think what does smiling means to a healthy society, if a person is ready to smile in all of their hurdles they won't get tensed or they won't get greedy on other or they won't think bad for others. We all know the 2nd most book to get translated in many languages is a Tamil literature "Thirukkural", in that the Kural 621 says that, குறள் 621:

இடுக்கண் வருங்கால் நகுக அதனை அடுத்தூர்வது அஃதொப்ப தில்.

Transliteration(Tamil to English): idukkaN varungaal nakuka adhanai atuththoorvadhu aqdhoppa thil

Couplet Explanation:

If troubles come, laugh; there is nothing like that, to press upon and drive away sorrow.

So Let us all smile in our every endeavors.