KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 104

                          KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 104

When the slab stone had slid to one side to reveal beneath it a flight of stone steps, the Super Star’s namesake, Sivanesan was proceeding majestically on his black Arabian horse towards the King Karikalan’s palace. The king had sent word to him to come and meet him. Sivanesan was the only person in his family who had escaped from the arsenic acts done by the Samana Monks who had been for a long time been installed on the Linga Hill and ejected from there in favour of a great Saiva Saint and his disciples. Of course the King had been very kind and considerate to the Samana Monks and offered an alternative place for constructing their mutt along with a huge fund for construction. But the Samana Monks had been offended by the king’s word to vacate the Linga Hill in favour of a new comer and his disciples. So they had moved over to Kanchi Country and started to live in the mutt on the outskirts of Kanchi City along with other monks there. From that day, those monks had started to give offence to all the Brahmanas including the Sivanesan’s family. Most of the Brahmin families had vacated that street and gone to live in the interior of the city. But Sivanesan’s family could not just vacate the ancestral house and go elsewhere. Because they were worshipping, apart from the Linga in the Siva Temples, the Panchakini or the Five Lamps or Flames. The five flames had been established some one thousand and three hundred plus years! So they could not just vacate the place and go elsewhere like their relations.

On the night of arson, Sivanesan had been away at his wife’s house, some fifteen miles from Kanchi city. And when he had returned in the night, from a distance his horse sensed something wrong and started to gallop quickly toward the house.

Sivanesan was quick to enter the burning house and found only his revered grandfather half dead. All the other members of the family had died in the arson. And his grandfather, when realized his grandson had returned home, urged Sivanesan to take the lamps and collect a ray from them into a chimney which could withstand even a hurricane and go someplace where he could re-establish the Five Flames and live a devout life by rendering worship to the holy fire.

As the horse was galloping toward King Karikalan’s palace, Sivanesan continued to ruminate and think upon what happened since then.