The Boy Who Befriended an Old Temple | A Ponmanipudi Story by Sriranga V.N.

🌿 The Boy Who Befriended an Old Temple

The first person to notice Chami was missing...wasn't Dr. Chari.

It was Mylo, the fierce gaurdian of AnandaNeelam..

Mylo came racing through Ananda Neelam barking and wagging his bushy tail, as though the world had just ended.

Behind him came Sita, not barking, but simply walking, with the resigned expression of someone who had spent her entire dog life protecting fools...

"Where is Chami?" Radha asked Mylo.

Mylo barked loudly....

Sita sighed as if she had given up.

Dr. Chari looked over his newspaper.

"Temple."

Radha didn't even ask which one.

"Ponamalai?"

"Where else?"

She folded her hands.

"One day that boy will make the monkeys start calling him brother."

Dr. Chari smiled.

"They already complain he talks too much."

Ponamalai Temple, stood just beyond Ponmanipudi on the far outskirts.

The Ponmalai ranges looked over the temple, guarding it.

Ponmalai temple was a half ruined, half forgotten temple....magnificent and holding many secrets in its ruined pillars. Stone elephants guarded broken entrances. Vines hugged carved pillars....

Roots grew through ancient walls as though the trees themselves had decided to strengthen the stone walls.

Monkeys ruled the roof.

Peacocks wandered fearlessly in abandon.

Parrots argued continuously, sometimes into violent skirmishes....

People said snakes lived there.

Others whispered about scorpions.

Old women insisted ghosts appeared after sunset....brrr...

Chami listened carefully.

Then asked,

"Do ghosts come on Sundays also?"

Nobody answered his question, as no body knew.

Chami loved the temple.....It was huge and held a aura of mystery. Questions always hung in Chami's mind about the past of the temple and the life which existed here now and in past...

Every visit revealed something new....a lion hidden behind moss, a tiny dancing girl carved beneath a pillar, an elephant no bigger than his hand, snakes carved into huge pillars....

He greeted them all.

"Good morning, Namaste..."

Mylo barked.

Sita looked seriously embarrassed.

"Come."

Chami whispered.

"I found another staircase."

Mylo rushed ahead.

Sita stayed behind watching every step Chami took in abandon.

If Chami climbed a stone wall...Sita climbed halfway.

If Chami leaned over an old well...Sita barked exactly once....

Just enough to warn Chami...

One afternoon, Chami wandered into the oldest mandapa, right in far corner of the temple.

The roof had collapsed partially long ago.... sunlight poured through the opening and dust floated like tiny stars.

Chami was surprised to see someone was sitting there....an old man, totally white hair, wearing a tiny round spectacles....

Several soft brushes lay beside him.

He wasn't praying or even drawing...

He was gently brushing dust away from a stone dancer.

Slowly, lovingly and methodically....

"What are you doing?"

The old man smiled ...

"What does it look like?"

"Cleaning."

"Correct."

"But why?"

"So she can breathe."

Chami looked around.

" Who? nobody is here."

The old man gently touched the sculpture.

"There is."

The dancer's nose had broken centuries ago...One hand was missing....Yet her smile remained.

"Who made her?"

"I don't know."

"When?"

"I don't know."

"What was her name?"

"I don't know."

Chami frowned.

"You don't know anything."

The old man laughed.

"I know enough."

"What?"

He looked at the sculpture.

"Somebody loved this stone very much...so much that they spend years of their life bringing it to life....."

For three hours Chami forgot about monkeys...forgot about ghosts....about secret tunnels.....or the world outside....

He simply watched in fascination..

The old man cleaned every tiny carving with a brush softer than feathers, gently, like a loving mother brushes her child's hair...

Not to make them beautiful, it already was. But to make them visible....to the sun....

As the sun began to set, the old man smiled and packed his brushes.

Before leaving, Chami asked,

"Are you from Ponmanipudi?"

"No."

"Then why come all this way?"

The old man looked around the silent temple.

"When people stop remembering..."

He smiled.

"...stones begin waiting."

Then he walked away, shuffling slowly, smiling a beautiful smile...

The following Saturday, Chami returned.

"Mylo!"

The dog ran inside.

"Sita!"

She followed, exactly six steps behind.

The old man wasn't there.....

Only the temple, the wind....and the beautiful sculptures.....just waiting....

Chami looked at the lovely dancer again. Dust had already begun settling on her face...

He frowned.Then pulled out his small handkerchief.

He rubbed gently....

Nothing happened.

He rubbed again.

Slowly...very slowly...the dancer's smile appeared beneath the dust...

Chami smiled back.

"Mylo!"

The dog ran over.

"Look!"

Mylo sniffed the sculpture.....sneezed violently. And then chased a butterfly which interested him more...

Sita sat quietly beside Chami, watching, as though she understood everything, ofcourse.

The next Saturday...another beautiful sculpture....repeat....

The Saturday after that...an elephant....shining in reverent posture to the Goddess....

Then a lion menacing on a frightened deer...

Then a lotus hidden beneath a cracked pillar.

Chami never looked at the whole temple each visit..

It was just one sculpture, every visit....

Soon it became a habit...

School ended... Chami disappeared.

"Where is he?"

"Temple."

"Again?"

"Ayoo, again."

People began noticing.....

The priest noticed first.

Then Murugan.

Then Appuswamy......

Then even the old women who came every Tuesday.

"Didn't this elephant look darker before, elle..?"

"It did."

"And this dancer?"

"I can see her enticing smile now."

Nobody knew why..

One afternoon I walked into the temple looking for Chami....

I found Chami, sitting cross-legged beside a huge stone elephant with its calf...

His tongue peeped out in intense concentration. His handkerchief had become completely black. Brushes, lovingly stroked the Mother elephants' face as the tiny calf gazed up...

Mylo slept in the shade.

Sita watched the entrance, ever alert...

"What are you doing?"

Chami didn't look up.

"Helping."

"Whom?"

He pointed at the elephant.

"Him."

I smiled.

"What happened to him?"

"He has been waiting."

"For what?"

Chami shrugged.

"I don't know....maybe for me...maybe for a soul to bring him to life...."

He continued rubbing the stone gently.

After a while he said,

"But I don't think he should wait alone."

I said nothing...just watching....

Sometimes children arrive at truths, adults spend a lifetime searching for.....

As we walked home, Chami turned around once.

The evening sun was caressing the temple walls for the last time today.... Hundreds of ancient carvings glowed softly in the warm caress and embrace of love....

Among them...one tiny elephant and her mother smiled just a little brighter...

Mylo barked at a monkey who was trying to tease him...

The monkey cluttered back....loudly....

Sita sighed in resignation....

Some journeys, Sita had learned, could never be prevented.

Only accompanied...🌿

Welcome to Ponmanipudi... where nothing is as it seems.

Ponmanipudi Chronicles

An original literary world created by Sriranga V.N., where ordinary lives become unforgettable stories.