Kavi Kaalamegam

Kaalamegam was a dull person without any knowledge. But he was an ardent devotee of the goddess Akilandeswari. People use to make fun of him. Dejected by the behaviour of the people around him, Kaalamegam went to the temple and prayed to Akilandeswari to grant him knowledge.

Understanding the difficulty of her son, Akilandeswari disguised herself as an ordinary woman, wearing a white coloured saree. The woman appeared before Kaalamegam. She was chewing betel leaves. She asked Kaalamegam to open his mouth and transferred the betel leaves in her mouth to his mouth. Immediately the woman disappeared. Kaalamegam felt asleep on the sannidhi of Akilandeswari. The temple authorities didnt notice him and they locked the temple and went to their home.

On the next day, when kaalamegam woke up, he was frightened to see the temple authorites in front of him. They started beating him, suspecting he has come inside with an intention to steal the jewels of Akilandeswari.

Then came the surprise. No sooner did the authorities started beating him, than he came up with awesome songs in the praise of the goddess Akilandeswari. All were stunned up with this incident. Kaalamegam, beleived to be a dull person is now surprising all with beautiful songs. They patiently inquired what happened. He narrated the incident. All came to a conclusion that the goddess has granted him the knowledge. Kaalamegam was then called "Kavi Kaalamegam", "Kaalamega Pulavar". He is famous for a type of poem called - "slEdai" - A word will imply two meanings. This type of poem is used to compare two objects with a single word.

Since she gave vidya (knowledge) to Kaalamega kavi during the evening time, Akilandeswari is worshipped as Saraswathi in the evening time. Akilandeswari is the collection of three shakthis (Iccha, Kriya, Gnana). She is worshipped as Lakshmi (Iccha shakthi) in the morning, Parvati (Kriya shakthi) in the noon and as Saraswathi (Gnana shakthi) in the evening.