Ponneri Miracle
By Vengrai Parthasarathy
(Here is a tale which I like to tell anyone I meet; Why ?Read on, dear Reader).
We (my wife and I) were at the suburban bus terminal to catch a bus. There was a cluster of people of all ages waiting to catch buses for different destinations.
One could not help noticing a care-worn lady fussing over a frail girl of about six.. The girl looked emaciated with drawn eyes and sunken cheeks. The second person to attract our attention was a buxom lady in her late thirties.. Let’s call her Kanaka
She asked the old lady what the matter was with the girl’s health. The response was a long-winded one. She detailed the number of doctors and systems of medicines that she had tried out for the girl’s condition. For the last few weeks the girl has been suffering from non-stop diarrhea. ‘All my efforts to get her a cure have been in vain’, she said, Now she was planning to go back to their village .leaving everything in the hands of God. Kanaka spoke to the lady with genuine concern.
Here is what Kanaka said: after commiserating with the lady:
I had a neighbor in Chintadripet where I live. She was an orthodox , friendly lady, who had a son of about your daughter’s age. This boy who was normal in every wayhad suddenly lost his power of speech one day. They too, like you, went from doctor to doctor but all to no avail. Then hearing from a friend about a sure-fire cure, she went to Ponneri, where they said there was an elderly man who had miraculous powers of healing. He drew his powers from some divine source, they say.
At Ponneri, she went straight to where the man was living. She was taken to a dimly-lit room with only an oil lamp flickering. The man, who straightaway told her that he was not a vaidya asked her to relate her problem which the woman did. He closed his eyes for a while, showed his palm over the lamp flame and after running his palm over the girl’s forehead, he produced a copper talisman ( called dayathu in Tami)l. It hung from a turmeric-smeared string of eleven strands.
He asked the woman to put it around the boy’s neck and told her that by the eleventh day the boy would have recovered his speech partially and on the 27th day.the
silver bracelet (kolusu in Tamil) around his ankle will tighten ,It will have to be snipped away. The boy would then start talking as he was before the affliction. The woman was told that there was no fee to be paid but she could offer anything she wished to the amman temple nearby. Then she asked whether and how she should return the talisman to which he replied with a smile “Don’t bother. We will get it”.
Well, the boy was cured and everything happened exactly as the miracle man had
predicted.”, .
.
Kanak added that she asked her neighbor what she did with the talisman.
Her reply took everyone by surprise. “It is gone. I don’t know when, where and how”.
It just disappeared. Energized by this story ,the old woman obtained from Kanaka full details about Ponneri. She plied Kanaka with dozens of questions like a person clutching at a last straw.
My bus arrived and we set off. I got into a contemplative mood. I did not know what to believe and what not to.Who was he, this healer? What powers did he have? How was the child cured ? What had the anklet got to do with the cure? How did the talisman
disappear? These are questions for which no one knew the answer
Ultimately, was it faith, faith which does not square with reasoning or rational thinking?
No one knows. But surely every one knew that there was an unseen hand.
Else, there was no explanation this extraordinary happening?
.My bus came and I went my way; Ponneri was very much in my mind for a long time.