Akkam Pakkam - The Taxi driver

Met an interesting guy today. I took a cab from Little India to my home. The driver was a Chinese but I saw a small metal Ganesha vigraham on the dashboard and some flowers around. Normally, in Singapore, the taxi companies lend the cars to more than one driver. So I thought the other driver could be an Indian or Malaysian. I picked up a conversation with him as usual.
When we were waiting in a traffic signal, to my surprise, I heard the driver chanting “Om Shri Maha Ganapathaye Namah”. He was reading it from a small piece of paper. I asked him about that. He said one of his friend (who is also a chinese) had visited India some years back and on his return he had given this vigraham, and has taught this driver about chanting this. From what he described, I guess his friend must have visited Pillayarpatti. This driver was so passionate about this vigraham and was very proud that the vigraham is with Ganesha on both sides. He knew nothing much about Ganesha but he was blindly beleiving that the ‘mantra’ has done him lot many good things. Whenever he has faced any problem, he has chanted the mantra and prayed to Ganesh. He said everytime he has got help from Ganesha - when he wanted to get the traffic cleared, when he felt the car in next lane is going to hit him, when he lost his wallet in a tea shop, when he contracted SARS, when he had a problem with his wife….everytime he has prayed wholeheartedly and he believes that Ganesha has helped him overcome the problem. I was amazed by his strong belief. He is actually a Chinese christian, but later he started following Buddhism. But since last few years, Ganesha is everything to him. He regularly goes to a Murugan temple every morning and wears vibhuthi. He doesn’t know much about hinduism or hindu gods, but he says he feels good to visit the temple.
That reminded me of the two forms of devotion to god in hinduism. Maha periyavar has written eloborately about this in his book ‘Deivathin Kural’. One is ‘marajara kichoram’ and another is ‘markata kichoram’. Marjaram is cat. Cats carry their kittens in their mouth wherever they go. Some people believe strongly that god will look after them always and they just need to do their duty. Whereas markata kichoram is monkey like. The baby monkies cling to their mothers stomach and never leave them. Likewise, for some whatever they have, think, do…everything is god. To me, this driver seemed to belong to the second category.

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