Erettai Tirupathi Sundara Rajan Bhattar

32 year old K Sundara Rajan has a professional engineering degree and was working as a Network Engineer at Airtel (prior to this he was at Aircel) when one day in the last quarter of 2020 his Periappa Seshamani Bhattar asked him to return to Erettai Tirupathi Divya Desam to don the role of the hereditary archaka.

Seshamani Bhattar who passed away in January last year was the one who anchored the revival of the twin temples of Aravinda Lochanan and Devarpiran in Erettain Tirupathi when it was in ruins in the 1980s.  He withered the presence of dangerous snakes and waded through chest high water in the Tamaraibarani to reach this Divya Desam from his home in Thiru Kolur over three decades ago. It was only in the 1990s that Venu Srinivasan took up the restoration of the temple and revived the entire region.  Through that dark phase prior to Venu Srinivasan’s restoration initiatives, it was Seshamani Bhattar who performed Thiru Aradhanam at these two temples and kept it going.

Seshamani Bhattar’s younger brother Kannan performed archaka service at the Anjaneya temple in Tirunelveli but returned to perform kainkaryam at Varagunamangai Divya Desam in Natham. 

When Seshamani Bhattar asked for Sundara Rajan to quit the corporate world, where his prospects were looking up, he did not think twice. Sundara Rajan looks back at his decision to return to Erettai Tirupathi“ My appa was not keen on me to quit the corporate world. I had become an engineer and my growth prospects were bright in the corporate world. I also had a young family with the birth of my 2nd son in Puratasi of 2020. But when my periappa, who had lived through the struggles of the 1980s and 90s at Erettai Tirupathi, asked me to return I could not say no to him.”

Even as a teenager, both during his school and college days, he had learned the Vaikanasa agama from Govindarajan Bhattar of Thiru Kurungudi Divya Desam. And hence he was equipped with the process relating to Thiru Aradhanam and the conduct of festivals.

Prior to the call from Seshamani Bhattar, the plan had been to continue in the corporate world. He had even taken the initial steps to get his first son admitted into a school in Aruppukottai where he was working at that time. Sundara Rajan is surprised that in the last 15 months, his wife has not asked once as to how he quit the corporate world and what the financial future was going to look like for him. Erettai Tirupathi is the kula deivam temple of his amma as well as his wife. He says that like him considering getting an opportunity to serve at the Divya Desam where his uncle had seen the toughest of times for any Bhattar, his wife too considers it a blessing for her husband to be serving at her kula deivam temple. 

Unfortunately for him, within a few months of his joining the Erettai Tirupathi Divya Desam, Seshamani Bhattar passed away. And then adding to the woes, wave two of the Pandemic struck and temples were closed to devotees for a period of time. 

From a high paying job, Sundara Rajan joined Erettai Tirupathi at ‘No Salary’.  Venu Srinivasan’s monthly Sambhavanai of Rs. 3000 was his only source of income for the first six months. He joined the temple in late 2020 at the end of wave one and then spent a large part of his initial phase in this Divya Desam in ‘Temple Lockdown’ with no devotees. There was no salary from the HR & CE and there was no thattu kaasu as the temple was closed to devotees. 

When S Ajith (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2022/01/azhvaar-tirunagari-vaikunta-ekadasi.html) who took as the EO of Erettai Tirupathi in 2021 visited the temple, he was shocked to know that Sundara Rajan was not paid any salary even during the Pandemic. ‘It was the EO who immediately directed for a temporary posting at Aravinda Lochanan Sannidhi and organised for Rs. 2000 as my salary.’

While many are surprised as to how Sundara Rajan, who had then just turned 30, quit the corporate job and headed back to a remote temple where there is no assured income, he has second thoughts on this association with this Divya Desam “Even the EO enquired if I was planning to be here long term. I came back here responding to the direction of my uncle Seshamani Bhattar. I did not think of the financial prospects here. The only reason to take this up was to continue the hereditary archaka service that Seshamani Bhattar had so devotionally performed for many decades.”

It was Sundara Rajan who tied the ‘Kaappu’ for both the big annual utsavams in 2021 and he is committed to staying here for the rest of his life. He and his wife are also clear that their preference is for their children to be in the traditional line.

It has come as a big surprise that when many in the next gen have made their way into cities and the corporate world, Sundara Rajan has opted for the reverse and returned to the hereditary archaka service at Erettai Tirupathi.  It is also interesting that this is the second instance of a youngster letting go of financial prospects in larger cities and returning to hereditary locations. A couple of years ago, Venkata Srinivasan (Rahul Bhattar) joined Nigaril Mugil Vannan temple in Thenthiruperai Divya Desam at the age of 20 while all his classmates at Madurantakam Patshala moved to Chennai seeking greener pastures (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/10/thenthiruperai-rahul-bhattar.html).

For Sundara Rajan, Kainkaryam to Aravinda Lochanan and Devapiran seemed more important than furthering the financial interests in the corporate world. And hence the financial lows such as the period during Wave two did not impact his mind negatively and he continued to perform daily Thiru Aradhanam through 2021 unmindful of the financial challenges that the Pandemic has brought to archakas in remote temples. When devotional intent is high, no amount of financial pressures will shake a human being. Sundara Rajan is an example of how that devotional feel drew him back to the Divya Desam and bound him for life with Lord Aravinda Lochanan.

Nava Tirupathi has now become stronger with the presence of two highly committed Bhattars - Ananthu of Thenthiruperai and Sundara Rajan of Erettai Tirupathi

Seshamani Bhattar will be delighted for his nephew and showering his blessings on the 32year old from Sri Vaikuntam.

Seshamani Bhattar: https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/02/seshamani-bhattar-erettai-tirupathi.html

Erettai Tirupathi Restoration: https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/07/venu-srinivasan-historical-temples.html

Nava Tirupathi Garuda Sevai: https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2019/06/nava-tirupathi-garuda-sevai.html