Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

Azhagiasingar and the Aluminum Vessels

I can see your brows going up at the caption. I can almost hear you wonder what
possible connection the exalted Srimad Azhagiasingar could have with aluminium
vessels, which vaidikas would not even touch normally. However, do read on.
It was an extremely hot day in May, with the Sun beating down mercilessly. It was
too a time when the monsoon had failed and consequently the rural economy
was in doldrums. Even though they do provide us with our daily food, farmers are
indeed a cursed lot, having to depend on the mercy of the rain god for their
livelihood. Normally, it doesnt rain and the crops wither away. And when it does
rain, it pours and inundates the fields, washing away all crops or making the ripe
corn germinate.
Coming back to the Vaikaasi Veyyil, it was excruciatingly hot even inside houses.
Unfortunate indeed were those who had to be on the roads, especially vendors of
various wares whose lot it was to carry goods on their heads or on cycles and
roam about the streets in search of buyers. And when they did find buyers, the
latter would drive a hard bargain and bring down the prices to uneconomic levels,
resulting in the seller, even after undergoing a lot of strain, being out of pocket.
A vendor of aluminum vessels was making his way slowly through the village
streets, wheeling his cycle overloaded with vessels. He had tied up the vessels
with the vehicle in such a way that his form was hardly visible among the vessels
of various shapes and sizes. As he wheeled the cycle up and down village streets,
hawking his wares in a hoarse voice, perspiration ran down his forehead in
rivulets. It was 1 pm and he had not been able to sell a single vessel. Poverty was
rampant in the all the villages of the area, compounded by the monsoon failure. It
was no wonder therefore that he could find no buyerspeople will buy vessels
only if they had something to keep or cook in it. He had not had even a single tea
since morning and his head was beginning to spin, with hunger and the heat.
On the verge of desperation and dehydration, he entered the next village on his
route, named Mukkur and started going through one street after the other,
keeping the Agrahaaram for the last, since normally Brahmins would not buy
aluminum vessels. When he was short of even a single buyer, he turned as a last
resort and without any hope of concluding a sale, to the Agraharam. By now his
voice had become almost a whisper. This street too was deserted, with none
daring to brave the punishing heat.
The vendor espied an elderly person sitting on the covered verandah of one of the
houses, adorned with naamam all over his body and holding a stick in one hand
and a book in the other. Without any real hope of making a sale, he summoned
up all his reserve strength and cried out Aluminia Paatram as loud as he could,
for, he presumed the old gentleman to be hard of hearing.
The Periyavar appeared to have heard him and beckoned to him. The vendor
stopped wheeling his cycle, put on the stand with some difficulty and went near,
in the hope of asking for a few rupees even though he had no hope of selling his
wares. With a surprisingly stentorian voice which one would not associate with his
age, the old gentleman asked the vendor whether he had had his lunch. This
solicitous enquiry opened the floodgates for the vendor, who started narrating his
miseries in detail. He recounted how he had started from home early in the
morning without even the usual gruel, had been roaming the villages with
absolutely no sale at all to show and how his entire intake from the morning had
consisted solely of water from roadside pipes.
The impassive face of the elder did not reveal whether the sob story had made
any impact on him: however, he called to someone who came running and stood
before him in an obsequious manner. He instructed the newcomer to feed the
vendor of vessels and bring him back. When the servitor murmured something
about it being long past lunch time and about being unsure of availability of any
food, the old gentleman got angry and firmly said that the vendor had to be fed,
even if it meant cooking food all over again.
The elder appeared to be a person of authority, for, the servitor immediately
made arrangements for the vendors lunch, ensured that he had his stomachs fill
and brought him back to the elderly gentleman, who was deeply engrossed in a
book. Upon the vendor being presented to him again, he enquired whether the
former had lunched, to which the grateful vendor replied in the affirmative. The
senior citizen then asked the vendor the price of each item of his wares and
sought a quotation for the entire stock.
Puzzled as to why the gentleman was asking him for the price of something he
would never buy, the vendor told him that the stock was worth Rs.500 and
represented his entire capital. The elderly benefactor then told the servitor who
had been standing nearby in an attitude of subservience, to bring Rs. 600 and give
it to the vendor, which he complied with alacrity.
Having received the princely sum of Rs. 600 which it would have taken him
several days, perhaps even a month, to realize and entailed a lot of roaming
around in the hot sun, the vendor fell down before the old gentleman with folded
hands, with no words to express his gratitude. While arriving at the village, he was
hungry, desperate and penniless: he was now leaving the village a well-fed man,
with a minor fortune in his pocket.
Though none dared question Srimad Azhagiasingar as to why he had purchased
aluminium vessels for which the Mutt or its adherents had absolutely no use, the
question in their minds was answered before long. The Pontiff instructed the
external kainkaryaparas of the Mutt to take the vessels and distribute them
among the dalit and down-trodden dwellers of the village who were, in turn,
delighted to receive the unexpected gift from the Periya Saami.
Two stones were thus felled by the elderly Pontiff with a single stonethe
vendors misery in not finding buyers for his wares despite a full day of strenuous
marketing efforts was instantly cleared with a generous buyer taking up his entire
stock in a single lot, and what was more, without any haggling over prices. While
the tradesman was used to people seeking credit for purchase of vessels and
often failing to settle the account, here was a gentleman who not only took up
the whole lot of vessels, but also paid immediately in cash, allowing a more than
reasonable profit margin, which would keep his family fed and clothed for quite
some time. And as far as the needy villagers were concerned, it was a god-send
for them in those hard days.
What prompted such an exalted person as Srimad Azhagiasingar to enter into a
commercial transaction with a socially and economically insignificant tradesman?
Defining Kaarunyam or Mercy, Swami Desikan tells us that it is a burning desire to
provide succour to those who suffer, without any vested interest of ones own
and without an axe to grindanuddhishta sva prayojanaantara para du:kha
niraakarana icchaa. It was this exalted emotion of Kaarunyam or overwhelming
mercy, that prompted the Pontiff to help the miserable seller of vessels, without
even an application from the latter.
This Azhagiasingar had a heart of gold which would melt at the sight of anyones
suffering. Legions are the people, Brahmins and others too, whom he had helped
monetarily and otherwise too. He was generous to a fault, with anyone with a
worthy cause eminently sure of obtaining assistance from him. And especially
pronounced was his concern for the underdog and the downtrodden in society,
who could always find in him a sympathetic saviour. It was his credo that none
who came to the Mutt to worship Malolan should leave with an empty stomach.
When the Rajagopuram at Srirangam was under construction, this Azhagiasingar
had a lot of prasaadam made in the Mutts kitchen and distributed it to the
labourers working on the site on a regular basis. At the time of the
samprokshanam of the grand Rajagopuram, the police had issued orders that
auto rickshaws should not ply in the streets of Srirangam, beyond the new tower.
Auto drivers numbering around a hundred and fifty came to Sri Matham and
represented to Srimad Azhagiasingar that their livelihood for the three days was
lost and appealed to the Pontiff to have the orders reversed. Srimad
Azhagiasingar however did not interfere with the police order, but told the auto
drivers that they could have food at the Mutt along with their families for all the
three days and would also be paid Rs. 300 each. In return for enjoying Malolans
hospitality, they would have to mingle with the huge crowd expected for the
consecration ceremony and ensure that no petty theft, pick-pocketing or
untoward incident happened for those three days. The drivers accepted happily
and the grand function, attended by lakhs of people, went off without a single
untoward incident.
One could perhaps go on narrating incidents like this from the life of the great
Mahatma that Srimad Mukkur Azhagiasingar was: he was renowned as Kaliyuga
Karnan, with his palms made red always by giving, especially to the needy.
Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

























When Azhagiasingar heard the last gasp-cry of the aluminium salesman, he
beckoned to the salesman and asked him about the price of the vessels. The
salesman was surprised that a Brahmin should even enquire about the price of
the vessels, let alone buy it.
After knowing the price of the vessels, Azhagiasingar summoned a Kainkaryapara
standing nearby and ordered him to purchase all the vessels from the vendor.
Some other kainkaryaparas, standing nearby, were perplexed on hearing
Azhagiasingars order to one of them. What would Azhagiasingar do with nearly a
truckload of aluminium vessels?