Just a couple of days ago as no one was around over the weekend, I was alone watching short films and listening to songs. Agathiyar was sitting as the murthy or statue just across the floor in his room. He too was alone. I invited him to sit with me and watch. I picked up his 18-kilo statue and placed him on the sofa beside me and we both watch and listened to what was playing. What was missing was the popcorn. As I became drowsy I told him that I shall send him back to his spot. When I picked him up he would not budge. He was suddenly pretty heavy. I knew he wasn't moving. I played more songs until I asked him shall we retire for the night. This time I could lift him. Sharing it with a friend and devotee he quipped jokingly that "Appa wanted to watch another movie" hence refusing to move. Another friend suggested I watch with him his movie "Agathiyar" so that he can authenticate the facts shown and depicted in it. As I wrote in the previous post the relationship with Agathiyar which started in awe, fear, and devotion, and that turned to respect and honor accepting him as a guru, and later seeing him as a fatherly and motherly figure and often quite unexpectedly turning into that of a friend and buddy, I laughed at myself thinking what took place.
Similarly during the last Sivarathri puja at AVM, as we waited for the 3am puja I played a collection of songs that I had compiled for the occasion, we were not aware of Yogi Ramsuratkumar's arrival and presence in a devotee until he placed his hand over my shoulder and hugged and spoke to me. When my wife stepped up to him next, he revealed himself as the beggar. She immediately recognized him as Yogi Ramsuratkumar for only he addresses himself as the beggar. Apparently, the Yogi had come the moment I started playing Sadhu Om's songs on Arunachala and Bhagawan Ramana, set to music and rendered by Sriram Parthasarathy. The Yogi told my wife "Can you play the song again" mentioning Sadhu Om's "Unadhu Thiruvarule". It is understandable that the Yogi sat and listened to these songs of Sadhu Om as like him, Sadhu Om was a disciple of Bhagawan too.
Though Andal, Meera, and Radha, the Nayanmars in the 6th to 8th centuries CE, and Ramalinga Adigal as recent as 200 years ago, have all expressed this love to the divine, who can we possibly fall back to now who exhibited this pure love than Bharathi who lived some 100 years ago. Bharathi's love for the divine whom he chose to name and call Kannama is boundless. Just listen to his songs and you shall sense this love run through you touching the very soul. This love and affection for the divine has blossomed into love as in lovers.