Vikatar

 

The next name is vikatar. When you hear that name all of you think of the Tamil weekly magazine. We use the word vikatam to refer to teasing, and making fun of someone. There is a special taste in that fun. We call the person who coins funny words as "vikatakavi". There is a word game with that name. This word reads the same (in Tamil) when read from the end – "vi-ka-ta-ka-vi". Talking very smartly and fooling some one is called "akatavikatam". Though it is fooling, the smartness in the act will make even the victim laugh. There is an art called vikata. There are persons well versed in that, as well as mimicry, and perform like a concert.

 

In the Sanskrit dictionary "vikata" does not mean joke or fun. It is actually horror and dangerous. However in the common language, vikatam is used to mean making fun, make laughter, and fooling some one. in these days, we call "vitushakan" to refer to a comedy character in a movie. People also call this character vikatan. As per the dictionary meaning, vikatan is the prati nayakan or the villain – he would be cruel in action, and horrifying in looks.

 

Some researchers say that initially lord vigneswarar was a quite a cruel god form, and later he took a pleasant form for himself. We do not need this worthless research. We need devotion for contentment in our lives and happiness by living in a good way. We develop devotion only we can attach ourselves to a form, which can hold our wavering silly mind from other thoughts. When we see the broad elephant face, and the big pot belly of lord vigneswarar we get happiness in our mind and develop devotion automatically. This is a fact each of us can experience. Do we get the same feeling as seeing a cruel and dangerous person, when we see the lord vigneswarar. For seeing the wound in the hand there is no need for any mirror! There is no research needed to confirm direct experience! So let the so called researchers even call us as fools. Using the common meaning for vikatar, i.e. to make fun, let us take lord vigneswarar as a funny person. When he makes us laugh in happiness, and we can experience these feelings, I would say it is equally stupid to agree with researchers who say that he is dreadful, and ugly.

 

The lord vigneswarar does a lot of pranks. When the god and goddess father and mother are in a fight or anger, he comes there and makes some fun or prank and brings them together. He went in the form of a crow and fooled agastyar and gave us the entire river Cauvery. He went as a bachelor and fooled vibhishanar and made him install the sri ranganathar along the Cauvery river bank. In the place called gokarna he fooled vibhishana's elder brother ravana and made his install the Siva linga there. All these are the practical jokes that vikatar performed – it became a problem for another person. However, though they were fooled- the pranks lord Ganesha performed with agastyar, ravanana, vibhishana—led to good things for the world. The Cauvery, lord sriranganatha and Kailasa linga were transformed from being individual properties to publicly useful assets for the entire humanity. These are because the grace of the lord vigneswarar. And he did it as pranks.