Temple Priests in Tamilnadu.

Just read an article which grabbed my attention.


The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Course to qualify temple priests


The article is about becoming a certified priest (yes you are right, just like a certified Java Programmer! Wow, Future india is really looking gr8). Guess, you all might already know that there is a Sanskrit college in Mylapore which specializes in producing vedha pundits. So you might ask, what is the difference between the sanskrit college course and the one given by Barathiar Univ. If you read the article, you might come to know of the fact "Anyone can become vaadhyar".Is this something like Ratatouille revolution? One more information from the article that amuse me was..

"According to the new law of the State Government, people belonging to all castes can become temple priests (Archagar). The Government has selected 360 male students from the Backward and Most Backward communities to get training, which will make them qualified priests."

I just imagined that i am in a temple where i hear shlokas with all sorts of pronounciation! Its not that i am against caste or something, I truly believe in a castless society. My concern is just about how archanai will be done in temples. I quite agree that there are some brahmin priests, who struggle to pronounce the mantras correctly, but atleast the ones in temple do it right.

During my child hood days, i just play with my friends and ask them to repeat what i say.

வாழை பழம் அழுகி கொழுகொழுது நழுவி கீழே விழுந்தது
Oh yeah, you guess it right, most of them end up saying it as

வாலை பலம் அலுகி கொலுகொலுது நலுவி கீலே விலுந்தது


I pray to god that when i visit temple next time, i can still hear "Shuklam bharadharam vishnum Shashi varrnam Chathurbujam...." instead of "suklaam paradaram visnum sasi varnam sathurbusam...." !!!!!