Thanjavur Tales

 I am hearing about Thanjavur for a long time and this time I wanted to explore Thanjavur during the Onam holidays as I am not celebrating Onam due to certain personal reasons. My journey commenced with reaching Trichy by train. In Thiruchirappalli aka Trichy, I visited three major temples. - Sriranganathaswamy temple, Srirangam, Malaikotai or Rockfort temple and Jambukeswaran Temple. Though I explored these places in a hurry, it needs some time to spend while visiting these places.

After Trichy, I left for Kumbakonam where I spend a day visiting temples in and around Kumbakonam like Sri Sarangapani temple, Sri chakrapani temple, Adi kumbesa temple, Airavateswara temple etc and in the evening I visited Thanjavur and explored the famous Brihadeeswara Temple which is a really huge temple with iconic structures. After buying a pair of Thanjavur dolls, I returned to Kumbakonam. The next day I visited the Navagraha (9) temples also using a taxi cab since they are scattered across various locations. There was rush in Thirunallar Shaneeswaran Kovil and Vaitheeswaran Kovil.

I consider it a life experience to visit these places. By travelling to these places you go through a process within and that helps you in shaping thy self and understand how small a speck we are and how people become less talkative over a period of time and rather than outside world we communicate more inward. 

A Journey to Tirumala Hills

After a period of 7 years I am revisiting Tirupati but this time also I don’t have a darsan ticket. I took an evening train from Palakkad along with my colleague to reach Tirupati at around 03.30 am which got delayed by around 1 hr. So my plan was to get in to a queue at Alipri Bus stand for darsan ticket but train delay got me in a fix. We took around 30 minutes to get ready from a small dormitory around and then took an auto to Srivari Metu which is 20+ kms from Tirupati. Since the Srivari Metu entrance is inside the forest, it will open only by 06.00 am. Lot of vehicles were there when we got there and without waiting we rushed to the queue which was a dense one and somehow we rushed to make it to the end of the queue and got our eyes scanned and tickets issued for the same day by 04.00 pm. Even though many people returned after obtaining the tickets we climbed the 2600 steps which is believed to be the path taken by Lord Balaji. The climbing was but difficult with intermittent halts as it was steep and needed time. We climbed to the top in around 1.5 hrs and After reaching Tirumala, I had my head shave done and later we had breakfast and then went on a trip to several places around Tirumala in a small truck which was a pleasant journey. We had lunch at Temple Annasalai which was a three storey building and I guess more than 3000 can have lunch at a time and lunch was such a delicious one that one visiting there should never take an alternative as quality is assured and it was served in a leaf plate. We joined the queue by 03.30 pm and had darsan of swamy by 05.30 pm. We purchased some more ladoos for family and went to Padmavati Ammavari temple the next day morning and later got into IRCTC lounge at Renigunta for 6 hrs and later boarded a train at 12.00 pm which dropped us at Coimbatore by 07.00 am. We took a bus to Palakkad from there and it t was a beautiful journey altogether.

Love being a Poison

 How can it be defined in such a contrast. But yes, I feel so. Being loved is what everyone care for. Well it depends on your virtues, skills, attitude. Now consider all ages and you would see that love is the one beautiful thing which keeps us alive, be it to anything or anyone. Love can takeover your control of life. If you're loved by someone and you care for that, then you can be strongly influenced irrespective of the fact that your principles are something else. Losing your identity for the sake of love is how I call it Poison. But there's always a different angle to what we see around. Immerse yourself in the love and enjoy the moment as it is. There's this impressive characteristic of love that makes you active and ready to achieve something just for the sake of love. How people can be changed with love but then nobody has time for others, but Corona did the trick..People are slowed down in the race. Love for someone or something can consume yourself if that love is so intense. #unfinished.......

Social Being

We mingle with our immediate family from childhood which teach us to adapt to coexist with other fellow beings. Though the family culture would be mostly same and you see the world in that view, whatever deviations we see elsewhere would be a first of its kind experience. Once we get into school, we mingle with culturally different people and adapt to coexist. I love this word Co-existence for its very meaning and impact so relevant in todays society. While we look at Palestine and Israel, we understand that how their rage has coexisted for long. On the contrary we believe in peaceful coexistence. How to behave gently and understandingly in a multi cultural, linguistic, religious society. How it is very important not to groove to someone's hideous music. We see that every news, plans come with a hidden agenda yet some people behave so sensibly. While the lower strata of the population being less educated and unable to understand the hidden consequences may act naturally to the tunes and unknowingly gets a cultural shift which we see generally in social medias. How one's personal choice or likes may not tally with others is a fact. Social Responsibility is an important factor in the present day scenarios. How behaving responsibly in the public space is relevant. Public Space is not just confined to me or you rather a dynamic, self evolving environment with its own distinct characteristics and should viewed in that sense.  Any matter being addressed in a public space will undergo multiple surgeries before it settle down. Though liberals feel they can occupy the whole public space with their so called fancies, What wee see is Human beings undergo change over a period of time and a liberal may become a conservative some time but the ruin he does to the society may not recover as it is a cultural one. I am definitely not against liberals or rather my ideologies are liberal to an extent but I always feel that liberals often ignore others or do care only about self ideas. It is more like the presumption that the world started changing with my ideas only and totally ignoring the transformation happened in the past.

Random thoughts..

Unconditional love and care is what you expect from parents not from any one else- be it ur lover, spouse... and your expectations never go wrong.  We people are so obsessed with expectations right. If i have done someone a help, either he should help me or he should look at me with respect... Hell of a blunder. It is always in the good interests of everyone that whenever you help someone, you should be clear that it was your act which may not be rewarded or even noted but for your own mental satisfaction. I have seen many situations wherein the helping person may get into trouble often because he himself cannot afford it. It is quite practical that people out of heroism jump in and later go begging to recuperate. Expectations often result in pain and mental trauma.

Nature - Mother & Girlfriend

After such a wreckage, see how calm she is. I am on the way back from Nilambur where the recents floods made a severe impact. Yet now if we look around what we see is not just tranquillity but the beauty unleashed. It is like she was getting ready to reveal her beauty. 

If we consider our immediate environment like trees, plants, small hills, everything just stay put. Without an external factor it doesn't disturb anything around it unnecessarily. Even while considering the eco sensitive areas and concerned issues, nature has its way of behaving which should be, at any cost, to support its survival. But the reason for external factors being so violent may, in one way or the other lead to us. Even then i wonder - we don't have anything from outside this planet and why this imbalance.. ofcourse I am not in a position to get a broader perspective.

Whatever be the case, I am loving nature like never before! For some may call her mother nature, being afraid, i can't, with all her beauty just beaming in my sight and i feel all her warmth onto me or may be i could connect with her well. Do I see any shyness? Not at all..She is a matured one ans she could love all without any partiality...

Look Inward Policy

Just like in a mirror where some see their own beauty whilst others of their ugliness, we have to look inwards to see what lies in the core. Knowing ourselves is most important. I always feel that I should be fair, gentle,  honest, convincing to myself ultimately because what matters most is our inner peace. Even if our actions are not taken well, still we know why we did so and feel fair and unbiased in our inner sanctum sanctorum(mind), then we are left with much lesser worries. I have seen that even though i am not a resource rich person, I am the best teacher for myself. Talking to one's self is quite beneficial which helps us in getting more organised and having clear thoughts.