A.V. Devan Times

I happened to visit recently a 1300 year old temple dedicated to Lord Shiva at Kovur near Porur (Chennai). The temple is famous due to the visit of Saint Tyagaraja’s who had composed five songs on the temple known as “Kovur Pancharatnam”. Also the Vilva tree in this shrine is having 9/16/27 leaves in every stem instead of the usual 3 leaves. Also this temple is one of the Nava Graha Temple in Chennai meant for parikara sthalam of Bhudan. This is also the place associated with of Saint Poet Sekhizhar who had written Periyapuranam. Also this temple was sung by Thirunavukkarasar (Appar). Sounds interesting please read on to know more about Kovur. Reaching Kovur From Guindy Kathipara Junction one should take the Butt Road leading to Porur Junction. From there take left towards the road leading to Kundrathur and you can reach Kovur in less than 5 KMS from the Porur Junction. The entrance is picturesque with an array of houses and tall Asoka Trees on either side and greets us by 85 ft high t

I recently attended two lectures delivered by Mr. Randor Guy (Photo Studios of Madras and Scandals and Secrets of Tamil Cinema) as part of the Madras Week celebrations in Chennai. The crowd for the later topic was huge and people were sitting on the floor to hear his story telling. People listen to him without closing their eyelids and with open mouth for hours together when he keeps telling about yester year film stories. Please read on to know more about Randor Guy. Randor Guy is the pen name of Madabhushi Rangadorai (Born on March 13, 1945) is a well-known writer and journalist of India. He is also a noted film, social and cultural historian. His writings on a variety of subjects have appeared widely all over India in many languages like English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi in all the leading publications. After earning a BSc, BL from Madras University, Randor practiced as a lawyer for sometime and then started work as an executive in a leading broking firm, Paters