PANCHAAMRITAM 2

Pancha is five in Samskritam and amritam is nectar.

 

ONE

 

Shivanna,35, works on daily wages at depot 4 of the Majestic bus stand, Bangalore. All the same, his wealth is boundless. They call it honesty. It was October 12, 2001. While on job, he found an envelop among the parcels of a newspaper office. It contained a cheque for Rs.1.75 lakhs. He handed  it over to the police.The  city police commissioner patted him for his honesty and honoured him. This is actually a déjà vu experience for Shivanna.  In 1997, he had found a Rs.43.67 lakh cheque at Majestic bus stand and had passed it on to the police.

 

(Based on a report in DINAMANI [Tamil Daily] of October 16, 2001).

 

TWO

 

Revathy Sankaran, a Chennai - based television artiste is also adept at a few fine arts. She is an exponant of quite a few folk art forms as well. But the mention of her hobby made Ramya, a mass communications post gratuate course senior student, sit up while the artiste was being interviewed by her: Revathy Sankaran said  she collects human hair. With a purpose. Cancer patients lose hair and go bald at a very young age. Revathy noticed it during one of her solace-giving visits as a volunteer to the Cancer Research Centre, Adayar. She also learnt that the Centre has a gadget which converts locks of loose hair fed into it into wigs for use by patients. Then on, she never forgets to insist everyone she meets to carefully collect the hair that falls while combing the head daily and send it to the Centre. Ramya joined the hair donor brigade only too readily.

 

(As narrated by an eyewitness).

 

THREE

 

The human body has 186 bone joints which allow movements. Performing one Surya Namaskar done in ten steps activates all the 186 joints, says Dr.N.Gopalakrishnan, a senior scientist of  CSIR, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and adds, "the WHO has declared that Surya Namaskar is the king of all exercises".

 

(Heard at a recent conclave of CHIDAMBARAM, a Chennai-based think tank).

 

 

FOUR

 

"Power corrupts and absolute power absolutely" – not at all in the case of Perumkarunai, the panchayat chairperson of Thellaru, a village near Kanchipuram in Tamilnadu centuries back. A case came up before her one day. Women of the village complained to her that a man tried to misbehave with them on their way to the river to take bath. The culprit was summoned. Perumkarunai pronounced a punishment on him: Everyday, starting the following day, he will have to sweep the entrance of the village Shiva temple clean and spinkle water there for forty days. The next day dawned. To the utter surprise of the villgers, their first lady was seen in front of the temple, broomstick and waterpot in hand, busy cleaning the entance in lieu of the culprit. She explained her action thus: "Yesterday I had to punish the culprit, which I did as a chairperson. As you all know, he is my husband and so to share his hardship, I decided as his wife to undergo the punishment myself." No wonder the villagers honoured her with the tiltle 'kudikkurai theertha naachiyaar' meaning 'the lady who remedied people's woes' and got it inscribed on a stone at the entrance of rhe Shiva temple.

 

(Based on a DINAMANI report about the rock edict).

 

FIVE

Meet Smt.Amudhavalli. She works as a graduate teacher in the G.R.M. Girls' Higher Secondary School, Thiruvaarur (near Thanjavur) in Tamilnadu. Schools or families which want to establish a herbal plants garden, consult her and she happily comes forward  with her expertise and distributes to them medicinal herb saplings free of cost as well.

 

(Information culled from a letter to the editor written by a reader[Smt.M.Chandrabai of Cholavaram] published by  DINAMANI, Tamil daily, on October 16, 2001).

 

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