Modern Day ‘Shravan Kumar’ seeks blessings of Heggade

DHARMASTHALA:

K Krishna Kumar

, a modern-day ‘Shravan Kumar’ from Mysuru, who is taking his

septuagenarian mother

Choodarathna on a pilgrimage on a retrofitted

scooter

, visited

Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala

on Tuesday. The mother-son duo who have already covered 24,000+ km on his 20-year-old Bajaj Chetak in the journey that started on January 16, had an audience with

D Veerendra Heggade

, dharmadhikari, Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala.

The 39-year-old Krishna Kumar is fulfilling the wishes of his mother to go on a pilgrimage to various religious places. Choodarathna expressed this desire after the death of her husband Dakshina Murthy, who retired after a career in the the forest department. Krishna Kumar is repaying the love and affection shown by his mother in rearing him with care, and has taken her on a pilgrimage of major religious centres in South India thus far.

“This is a tribute to my mother who spent most of her life in the kitchen for the sake of the family, and never got a chance to go out anywhere,” said Krishna Kumar. The road trip on the old scooter is a life-enriching experience,” said Choodarathna, adding that she is proud of the care and pain taken by her son in fulfilling her desire. The duo have visited places of pilgrimage in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra thus far.

The epic ‘Ramayana’ shows how Shravan Kumar took his aged and blind parents Shantanu and Gyanvanti on a pilgrimage. He carried them in two baskets that were slung to the ends of a staff that he carried over his shoulder. Incidentally, Krishna Kumar, in April 2017, had taken Choodarathna on a car trip from Bengaluru to Kashmir where they visited various religious places. His latest exploit on a scooter earned him the sobriquet– ‘modern day Shravan Kumar’.