A Pastoral jaunt, a holy experience and a House warming ceremony- Part I

Very reluctantly, I obliged to My Dad's suggestion to go down to Madurai for the Weekend that just passed. It might have well been an order had I turned down my Dad's suggestion :-)

The reason behind my nonchalance was that I ve never enjoyed those one or two trips I ve made to south Tamil nadu as a kid..Those trips had created such an impact that it was the first time in 13 years that I was going south of Trichy...

I cited reasons like heat, cleanliness etc to avoid the trip..But My Dad was not gonna budge and he kept insisting that I make the trip... I wish I could give him that more authentic and valid reason behind My reluctance :-)

The trip did happen and I took a A/c Volvo bus from Bangalore.. Li'll did I realise then that A/c was not gonna be on inside the bus...It took me very few minutes to get bugged with the comfort in the bus...Add to that, the old tam songs that were playing in the video were loud enough to drive me crazy...Wondering if there would be any serious objection from any of the fellow passengers, I went ahead and asked the cleaner to reduce the volume and thankfully no one objected..May be, it was bothering every one else too :-)..May be, I could have asked them to switch it off..

Adding fuel to the fire of frustration was the speed at which the bus was driven by the driver who looked to be a sexagenarian.... To me, it seemed, his legs were more often on the brake than on the accelerator :-(....It was 4.45 am in the early hours of saturday that the Bus had stopped at some place..I just opened my eyes and thought of getting down from the bus to get a feel of fresh air..I searched frantically for my sandals that I had left beneath my seat..Found one, but the other was missing...Much to my disgust, I found that the other one was under the foot of the guy sitting next to me...obviously, that guy had mistaken My sandals to be his in sleep...Just as I got down from the bus, I enquired with a person standing there as to how much time would it take to reach Madurai, oblivious of where the bus was currently...His answer stopped my breath for a while...He said 3-4 hours....It was then I realised that the six hours journey made till then had taken the Bus to Salem, which is supposedly a 3 hour drive from Bangalore....I am gonna feel scared everytime I see a old/tonsured guy at the driver's seat in the bus journeys I make in the future :-(......A farmer might comment "My bullock cart would run faster than this Bus"....

It was 8.45 am and there was still no sign of approaching any city/town....Just the Advertisement boards read Madurai...Atleast those boards brought back life to a shattered soul that I was :-)...9 o clock and I was there at the Madurain Bust stand..My Maternal grandpa eagerly waiting to receive or rather pick me up from there...At 71, My grandpa has more energy and patience than what I possess..He infact works at this age cozz he intends to be self sustaining, thereby also engaging in some work...He clocks 12 hours at office...More than What I do at this age...People of yesteryears are Men to be saluted...

Reached My Uncle s place and I was happy to note that it was a nice li'll residential area unlike the roads that took me there :-)..It was my first visit to this maternal uncle s place in 13 yrs and it took a house warming ceremony on a weekend to take me ther again :-)...The ceremony was to happen the next day and I was eager to catch up with lost sleep...

But, that was not to be...The rest of the folks including my Parents( who had come down frm cbe) were all geared up for a trip to the temple town of Srivilliputhur...The place that gave the world a great female saint called "Andal" who eventually married the lord himself !! This is my grandpa s native place apart from being a predominant vaishnav shrine....It took a while for the tired legs to actually stand up, carry the body along and head towards the bathroom for a shower.....I dressed up in a dhothi for the trip...I have enjoyed wearin dhothis on auspicious occasions and on trips to temples. I was helped by one of my Uncles in casting the caste mark on my forehead...

All set and we stepped out to take the tempo traveller waiting just outside the house...1.5 hours passed and We were there at Srivilliputhur....Much to my delight the temple was less crowded and my hope of having a good darshan got some life to it...As soon as we got down we were told by somebody there that we needed to visit the "Ranganatha" deity there at the earliest so that we get a darshan before the "sannidhi" (Lord's sanctum) is closed...This was the deity that Andal had adored during her times and was completely devoted to...Lord came down to marry her and in memory of that, the main deity in the temple has Andal and the lord in "Thiru kalyana" kolam (Together as a couple).....

The darshan at Ranganatha temple was one of the best I had and given my affinity towards Ranganatha, I was bound to enjoy the darshan....got to have the closest possible look at the God hoping for his blessings and a list of wishes to be fulfilled....Just as we turned our backs to the deity and walked towards the exit point of the sanctum, I noticed my dad completely absorbed in a conversation with the purohit at the sanctum....My Dad was waving hands frantically at me asking me to come over to the sanctum again...Wondering what could be the reason, I strolled towards the sanctum...It was then I found out that the purohit there is a person my dad knew so well and one whom he was meeting after more than a decade...The customary enquiries about each other's welfare went for a while before my dad introduced me to him as his son who used to work with Infy and is currently working with Juniper....Even before My dad could complete his sentence, the learned Purohit jumped the gun by sayin "Good good good"...I am quite sure he didnt hear my dad say Juniper.....huh...If this be the way that My dad 's gonna introduce me to his friends, then 10 years down the lane, he may have to carry a notepad to recite the companies I would have worked in a sequential order :-)...Infy's popularity is still a big problem to me :-)