Religious abodes: The hot pick

KOCHI: With barely a few hours left for SSLC and Plus-Two examinations to commence, tension is building up and students are trying to find solace in religious abodes.After all the adage - says - Do your best and leave the rest to God.The temples and churches across the district have noticed a rise in the number of student worshipers over the last few days, and especially on Sunday.The number of students flocking to St Antony’s Church, Kaloor, has risen over the last few days and for Sunday Mass.“Many students visited the church on Sunday and recited special prayers and novena.A good number also got their pens and books blessed.Over the past few days students from different schools across the district came in groups for prayers and most of them got their pens and books blessed,” said Fr Jeno of St Antony’s Church.Students are thronging the Dakshin Mookambika Temple in North Paravur to get the blessings of the goddess of learning.“We had to extend the afternoon pooja time to 12.30 due to the crowding of students and parents.Over the past few days, they have been visiting the temple to get their pens blessed and the crowd was quite big on Sunday,” said Sasikumar K, manager of the temple.The demand for ‘kashayam’ an offering given to the goddess during the night pooja and distributed to the devotees has risen.“More than 5,000 bottles of kashayam were distributed during the last week.Each bottle is priced at Rs 25.The offering is usually distributed in small quantities to devotees at night after the pooja,” said Saikumar.Having full faith in wearing amulets and consuming ‘arishtam’ for augmenting memory power and for postive energy students are also getting talisman done by the priests and getting Concoctions such as ‘Saraswathakritham’ and ‘Saraswatha arishtam’ blessed.The Jain Temple and Gujarati Temple also saw a rise in the number of students over the past few days and on the eve of examination on Sunday.“Our temple is open throughout the day and students have been seeking God’s blessings for doing well in the examination,” said Kishore Shyamji, president of the Jain temple.Students from the Muslim community have also sought the blessings of the Almighty by offering special prayers last Friday and during the prayers offered at home, said some teachers.