Kapisthalam Divya Desam Seshadri Bhattar Devotional Commitment

O. S. Seshadri Bhattar is now into his 80s and has served the Gajendra Varadar Perumal Divya Desam in Kapisthalam for over six decades as an archaka having joined this temple in the early 1960s. Five years ago, this section had featured a story on his devotional commitment amid terrible conditions. While the devotional wave that has struck the TN temples over the last decade or so has revived the fortunes of most priests in the state and the Divya Desams are now in a financially healthy state, things have worsened for this Octogenarian priest and he is still looking up for a turnaround in his fortunes.

In the second half of the previous century, Seshadri Bhattar was one of the most respected priests in the region for he had learned the Vedas and Agamas for a decade from the revered Oothukadu Sankara Ganapadigal at the renowned centuries old Raja Patshala in Kumbakonam.  He wanted to become a teacher and that may have given him financial stability in his life but the sudden death of his appa meant that the responsibility of the Divya Desam service came to him at a very young age when he was still in his teens.

That decade, in the 1960s, he ran a Patshala in Kapisthalam, a temple on the Northern Banks of the Cauvery, teaching over 20 students and creating the next generation of agama experts. Most of his students have done financially well in their lives but very few have come to serve their Guru or help him financially in his tough times.

Way back in 1963, when he was just 21 years old, Thiru Kudanthai Andavan of Andavan Ashram conferred the title of ‘Mantra Mani' for his rendering of Vishnu Homam for 20 hours nonstop in Kumbakonam without a water or a toilet break. But financial rewards have eluded Seshadri Bhattar all through his life.

Recently, he has had serious health issues with breathing trouble and had to use a nebulizer for a brief period. Unmindful of the health challenges, he continued to perform pooja including celebrating utsavams. Last week, on the occasion of Aadi Pooram, he performed a Thirumanjanam. He has also been doubling up as a cook at the madapalli and presented a Thaligai on August 7 having woken up early to prepare the sacred food. During this month of Aadi, he has also been performing Thirumanjanam every Friday.

Having started out with a salary of Rs. 16, he is still being paid a paltry sum in the hundreds and even that is paid only once a year. But despite the treatment meted out to him over the last many decades by the Moopanar family that administers the temple, he refuses to speak a single word against them and has been living in perpetual fear. He lives in a small old model house that is messy for most part. He has refused any large scale renovation of the house and continues to sleep each day on an old cot beside a table fan!!!

His wife who has been a pillar of support standing by him over the last several decades is also facing health issues and now walks inside the house with the help of a walker. His son has been physically challenged from birth and cannot hear or speak. If this was not enough, in recent months, he has lost the sense of ‘touch and feel’ and does not react even when he is pinched adding to Seshadri Bhattar’s woes.

This year, he tried to rope in young priests to support him but none of them have stayed over a month. The sub 1000 salary and having to cook in the madapalli as a priest would not excite any young priest especially at a time when there is lot on offer for them at consecration events and performing homam. 

Seshadri Bhattar makes both ends meet by performing pooja in two village temples. Into his mid 80s, he continues to go on a TVS XL bike on the Thiruvayaru – Kumbakonam highway riding 5kms to these temples leaving his wife and local residents worried.

Over the last decade, activists in the temple space have taken on the HR & CE administration in the poor way they have managed the temples. This Divya Desam is an example of how a privately run temple that is in the hands of the wealthiest is no better in terms of taking care of a priest who has served them and taken care of the pooja every day for the last six decades.

On a hot Monday afternoon this week, Seshadri Bhattar wears a tired look and has no words to offer on the way his life is going. Lost for words, tears roll down his cheeks as he faces financial insecurity and wonders as to what the future holds for his physically challenged son. His wife gathers a bit of strength and says that her husband has lived almost his entire life performing Thiru Aradhanam for Gajendra Varadar and till the time his body allows him to walk to the Sannidhi, he will continue to serve the Lord at this Divya Desam, irrespective of the financial and health challenges that are hurting them.

This Octogenarian Priest serving at this Pancha Krishna Kshetram definitely deserves to be treated better.