I met Dr Veezhinathan very briefly at Rathnagirishwarar Temple few weeks back. When we entered, he was wrapping up an upanyasam. Shivaraman introduced me. At that time, I thought he didn’t register me as there were many people around him and he was ready to leave etc. He proved me wrong when we met again 2 days back. The moment he saw me, he said “we met the other day”! He was actually writing some books and we barged right in and took the liberty to disturb him!
Shivaraman & I ended up listening to mama talk for almost a full hour. He cherished the memories of his interaction with Mahaperiyava. Words are just flowing; incidents after incidents; he quotes exact years, exact names of so many individuals, places where He stayed etc. He exclaims often “how much of a karunamurthi He is?” “how diplomatically He handled things” etc.
Often during the conversation he looks up; eyes fixed into the roof or some object, suddenly turns towards us and asks, “will we ever see another mahan like Him again?” “Can anyone else do this?” These are not just some words…He means this.
This is the feeling of people who have experienced Periyava for long time….They miss Him so much…I have read how gopika sthrees missed Lord Krishna; how Arjuna felt helpless without Krishna. Nochur explains it beautifully on this point. How Uddhavar himself misses Krishna….
As my friend in Chicago says, “Dr Veezhi mama has Periyava’s paadham in his heart and worships right there” – how true!
All we can pray to Periyava is to keep people like Veezhi mama healthy and continue to share more of their experiences, bless us to get more bakthi towards periyava…
When I did “abhivadhaye” to him, I was little worried, if he would spot any sanskrit pronunciation mistakes – luckily he didn’t!!
