Managing so much of a positive coverage in the media and getting VIPs may have been the silver lining for the five-day-long Ayutha Mahaa Chandee Yaagam that concluded surely on a subdued note on Sunday evening.

The fire mishap at the VVIP location isn’t a small thing to brush aside. The President of India had to cancel his scheduled visit. The Governor, ESL Narasimhan, lent his shoulder and stood by a beleaguered KCR. He was visibly jaded, not only because of the hectic program, but because of the fire mishap.

An otherwise, enthusiastic KTR was stunned too. The sense of “something went wrong” was writ large on the faces of KCR, KTR and most others, though some succour to the ruffled souls came from Visakhapatnam Sharada Peetham head Swarupanandendra and a few other religious heads.

The swamiji said that KCR had fulfilled all the necessary requirements and the fire was indeed nothing but purnahuthi and it was due to the divine blessings of ‘Chandee maatha”. Similarly, Madugula Nagaphani Sarma also aired a similar view.

The Sunday schedule was supposed to take the pious event to its crescendo. The yaagam was, however, not devoid of criticism by bitter critics of “yaaga kartha” and Telangana Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao. The right wing BJP, though was not opposed to the ‘yaagam’ per se, sought to know the details of contribution and expenditure on the yaagam.

The Congress and the Communists did not mince words, while others stayed away from either praising or criticising the religious mission of the Telangana Chief Minister, who performed the yaagam, as a token of ‘thanksgiving” to his favourite goddess upon fulfilment of his intense desire of formation of a separate Telangana.

Though prosperity of all was purportedly the purpose of the yaagam, it seemed too generic a statement. Thanksgiving is to some extent convincing. However, a firm believer in the yaagams, KCR must have had some thing more in his mind – a higher purpose in that sense: to ward off the evils that surrounded the new State of Telangana.

The fire mishap queered the pitch and the President’s visit would have actually given a feeling that all is well that ends well. But it did not happen. This deficit would haunt KCR for a long time, though it may not make any material difference.

KCR and family will pay a visit to Vemulavada Rajarajeswara Swamy temple on Monday marking the last of the events of the yaagam.

On a lighter vein, Erravelli, the village where the yaagam was performed, was painted yellow. With Chandrababu Naidu descending on the place and too many of the TRS ministers and leaders belonged to the TDP in their earlier avatars, it seemed as a scene of TDP’s annual jamboree Mahanadu.