Written by Sri. Ramakrishnan
I had only joined BHEL in 1969 , I got into association with AKM festival only by 1972. Earlier, as I heard one Sri. Pancharathnam, a devotee of Lord Murugan, was working as steno in BHEL stores department. He was a regular visitor to the Gangaram temple and performed Abhishekam to the Lord by drawing water from the temple’s well, offering naivedayam of homemade prasadams. He used to cycle up and down daily between BHEL and the temple, which was much less busy old Mumbai highway a mere 30ft tar topped road. He was a deep sufferer from warts on foot ( in Tamil we call it “aani “) and this was going on for a long time.
Later, in 1970 – 71, a small Tamil-speaking group of 10 BHEL working employees started making this Aadi Krithigai day a very modest celebration. A good no of the Tamil-speaking population was identified, and it gave birth to a small Tamil Sangam, a platform created for entertainment and provided a means to bring more people into the fold. Through door-to-door collection, devotees used to raise small tokens of contributions to meet the expenses of prasadam and pooja preparation. I still remember that in those days many people would not turn up for the celebration, but our humble volunteers used to carry the coconut prasadam and hand it over to their respective houses. The enthusiastic group includes Sri. Annavi, Arasu, MK Mani Govardhan, E. Sankar, N. Narayanan Masilamani, Gurunathan Samivel, Subramaniyan (08 Shop) and a few more. This noble volunteer team laid out the foundation for Aadi Krithigai Mahotsavam, successfully organising and carrying the legacy forward to the future generations. Many key members like K. Balasubramanian, Subhash, Santakrishnan and Vaidhyanathan joined the team of volunteers.
The evolution of the Organising committee of the AKM year on year learnt from the experiences and used to assemble in the evenings before the festival. In the years between 1973-1975 the committee used to meet at the BHEL community centre lawn, and the members would then run to the nearby chandanagar hand printer shop, the prints used to be in a simple white/yellow/pink paper.
It was when Sri L. Balasubramanian used to lead the AKM, he conducted the AKM meetings at his type 4 house near the BHEL main gate and orchestrated a walk to the temple by a group of devotees who used to carry milk pots and other offerings to the Lord, led by the Tavil and Nadaswaram artists.
Unfortunately, this was only done once but gathered the attraction of the public and drew the admiration of several devotees. Despite the lack of roads and infrastructure and the AKM celebration only grew triple folds year on year, without any disruptions. The executive committee took a different look to organise and popularise the celebration. Encouraging people to offer abhishekham on their own and they selected each item and brought them to the temple. The committee used to revisit the plans of prasadam preparation, procurement of materials, place for preparation and mode of distribution, etc. Parallelly the collection was also toned up to meet the expenses as the canvas of activities extended.
This whole exercise reminds me of the days when the AKM meetings were conducted in Sri Gurunathan’s place where the team used to systematically plan the activities and prepare prasadams and participate in packing the same using covers and rubber bands. This effort was joined by several men and women who volunteered and garnered the grace of Lord Murugan.
I feel the goosebumps as I pen down these memories and replay it as if this was only yesterday.
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