Chennai, March 28 (BPNS)

There Is a temple for the late matinee icon and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M.G. Ramachandran, a temple for the former Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, and one even for a rationalist like former Chief Minister late, M. Karunanidhi.

While both MGR and Jayalalithaa were stars turned politicians, Karunanidhi was a scriptwriter turned politician. Super Star of South Indian Cinema, Rajanikanth has a temple built in Kolar, Karnataka, Khushbu Sundar has a temple built in Tamil Nadu so has actors Nagma and Hansika Motwani.

Now interestingly the culture of temple building has extended to a pet dog. An 82-year-old retired government employee has built a temple on his farmland in the memory of his late pet dog Tom who was of Labrador breed.

Manoj Kumar, nephew of Muthu while speaking to BPNS said, “Tom was bought by my brother Arun Kumar 11 years ago but we could not keep it with us after six months and handed over to our uncle, Muthu who was a retired government employee. Tom was his companion ever after, both showered love on each other and were inseparable.”

Tom suddenly developed some health issues and was not responding to treatment and later passed away in January 2021. Now in memory of Tom, Muthu has made a marble statue of Tom spending 80,000 rupees and later built a temple on his farmland at Brahmanakurichi near Manamadurai.

Manoj said that offerings are given to the statue daily and on all Fridays and other auspicious days along with food the statue is also garlanded.

He said that the statue was installed in January 2022 and the temple opened to people for worship.