On 27th August myself with my cousin brother proceeded to Ilayathangudi from Sivagangai. On our way, we saw the whole area very dry (as always) and he was lamenting that there is no rain and the cattles are the worst sufferers as human beings somehow manage drinking water, whereas the cattles suffer the worst in such dry conditions. We were saying that while Ganges is in floods, here cattles are suffering for drinking water. We basically went to Ilayathangudi as it is the place that Maha Periyava liked very much and had stayed there for 3 consecutive years. I started narrating the incidents wherein MahaPeriyavaa had brought rains to rain-starved places... he narrated some incidents where Kaviyogi Maharshi Shuddhananda Bharatiyar brought rains to villages through His prayers. Thus we both were narrating incidents of Maha Periyava and Shuddhananda Bharatiyar one after the other - this continued throughout our journey of nearly 1 hour. We were narrating such incidents one after the other till we reached Ilayathangudi.
We reached Kailasanathar NithyaKalyani temple and offered our simple Pooja. When I asked the PUnditji his age, he mentioned 95! I was thrilled to hear this as he must have spent good number of days and years with MahaPeriyavaa. Punditji mentioned that he had spent a lot of time with Maha Periyavaa and had the good fortune of taking KailasaNathar NithyaKalyani prasadam to Maha Periyavaa all the 3 years that He stayed there. We visited Mahadevendra Saraswathi Adishtanam and the Veda Patasala (7 vidyarthis with a very young Vidyapakar) and were moved with the serenity that the place had. We felt that we were in "Devaloka". We left the place as it was nearing 7:30 pm and we wanted to rush to Thirukoshtiyur temple on our way back to Sivagangai.
We had just taken the car and it started thundering, lightening and heavy downpour started. It rained cats and dogs for the next 2 hours - ThiruKoshtiyur temple had closed early due to heavy rains - and we had some difficulty finding the way due to the heavy downpour. We both were chanting Rama Rama till we reached home safely! From this one can imagine the extent of the heavy downpour!
As we reached home we both realised that just the narration of the incidents related to MahaPeriyavaa's grace in bringing rains to rain-starved villages and His karunyam to villagers had brought in so much rains even today just on mentioning His name and remembering His grace! We felt His blessings and were happy that the cattles would get enough drinking water for at least another 3 months!
Jeya Jeya Sankara! Hara Hara Sankara!

Courtesy:Uma Shankar