Monday, November 05, 2007

Deepavali Plans

Sudhir and Pallavi celebrate their first Diwali together. This Diwali have fun, a great vacation and light it up :)

7th Nov 2007

There cannot be a more boisterous start to the Diwali than this. 4PM we are in an auto to Bangalore City station to pick up the 5:15 train (nth minute I read from the net that the Kochuveli express does not stop at Cantonment, thank you online railway inquiry).

The traffic was strong but steady and about 4:35 4:40 types we are at Corporation circle, but thence the traffic comes to a halt. We are behind endless rows of stranded vehicles all dead locked and moving in inches.

Past 5 and we are still nearing the National market intersection with the traffic not budging even a little. Tension mounts and Pallavi is almost in tears. The auto driver keeps assuring me that once we reach the end of this stretch, the traffic with smoothen and we will be able to zip to the station, but neither of us are convinced.

I keep evaluating other options, we need to be at Erode tonight and if we happen to miss the train we could walk over to the KSRTC bus stand and try our luck there, but there is some luggage and also there will be a huge rush for the buses. (I later found out that Pals was also running the same logic through her mind)

I am thinking of all this when finally the traffic eases and its past 5:15 when we reach the station. Its a chance that we could take, the train may still be waiting for the signal. I pull over from the rick and Pallavi and me make a beeline to the platform, a porter helps en route with our bags to the platform. Yippee the train is still not left and we board the first compartment that meets us. Both of us are breathless, but yes we did make it - Yeah :)

The irony is that the train pulled out of City station only around 5:40. So much ado for nothing! It was the first time that either of us were traveling in an AC coach.

Was over 11 PM when we finally reached Erode, about half hour delay. And we reached home around 11:15 and were asleep around midnight. My sis-in-law and kid had already arrived and so was granny from Avinasi. Come next day and its Diwali!

8th Nov 2007

Diwali fanfare started with an Oil bath, it was supposed to be scheduled pre-sunrise, but lazy bones did not wake up till it was 8 or so. I was witness to a detailed puja ritual by Pallavi's mom. Kind of a "Abhishekam" that happens in the temples. Long time ago while in School, me and my bro used to accompany my mother in such detailed prayer times, but it has been "once upon a time". And the visit to a Ganesha temple in the locality was something.

Every body calls him Kadhir, but I have decided to name my nephew as 'Ela'. ElanKadhir is Pallavi's sister's kid and he is 1+ years old. He is a cute darling and he kept my Diwali eventful.
Between breakfast and lunch, there were two things that caught my attention, one being Ela and the other was Ind Vs Pak 1st ODI.

Evening was the most fun, sibling families - Pallavi-Sudhir and Mithu-Sakthi caught up with a Diwali release - "Vel" starring Surya (not SJ) and Asin. Average entertainer with absolutely nothing in it. But for one, the songs are all stale and if not for a decent second half I would have said that the movie was not worth the money.

9th Nov 2007

As per the schedule my mom and bro were supposed to be in Erode this day, but as usual my bro made a mess of it, so eventually only mom turned up and that to only close to noon. We had a very important activity scheduled for the day - our Wedding registration. Yeah I know its about 2 and half months since it happened and an earlier attempt to get it registered was aborted due to want of some original documents.

But this time things were smooth thanks to Pallavi's dad and her maternal uncle Raja. Was past 1 PM when all the formalities were done and we headed back home to say hi to my mom who had arrived in Erode some time earlier.

It was late in the evening that we bid farewell to Erode. This is the end of our Diwali vacation in Erode and I could say it was very senti for Pallavi, as we three traveled to the Bus stand in an Auto - I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. Just for an instant; as she was in a rapid conversation with my mom in the next. The journey to Pollachi was about 3 hours and it was 10:30 PM when we reached home.

10th Nov 2007

This was the quietest day of this Diwali, not in terms of the noise output of the bursting crackers but rather by the activity that we did. Was a slow start, well my home and everything is lax here. Spent some time off with my bro who was home on his Diwali vacation. He was having some problems with his laptop and he pulled in a computer technician who re-imaged his laptop.

Post lunch we left to my granny place about a street away, a quick visit to my aunts place in Udumalpet. My cousin is building a house and is having the inauguration on the 22nd, since it would be very difficult to visit then, we piggy backed this visit into our Diwali schedule. Actually we hired a car to take us to Udumalpet and back and also to drop us at Coimbatore at Pallavi's uncle's place.

Was almost 9 PM when we reached uncle Paramasivam's house. He and Pallavi's maternal uncle Thirugyanam who stays close by had organised a dinner for us at a nearby hotel. Boy I was feeling full when the starters were done and we had a main course of naan and rotis to attend to. When we reached home that night I was feeling that I might rip apart anytime...

11th Nov 2007

The plan for the day was very simple, visit Pallavi's uncle Somu's place followed by a visit to uncle Thirugnyanam's place and then head for Kangeyam for the lunch party. Phew, thank God, uncle Paramasivam gave us a reprieve, he arranged a vehicle for us to roam around.

Breakfast was a three tier affair, pongal and dosas at uncle Paramasivam's place and then some sweets, karam and coffee when we visited uncle Somu. Finally under much persuasion we had to taste some idlis at uncle Thirugnyanam's place. This food routine was starting to get the better of me.

We stopped on the way to Kangeyam (about an hour and half from Coimbatore) at Ramaswamy temple. Looked like a place far from the madding crowd a quiet quaint temple that gave us some calm and some time for our tummies to digest to morning's riot! It was almost 3 PM when we reached Kangeyam and were directly taken for lunch. Oh my good God, everything in non-veg was there and I did my best to see that I did justice to the lunch party.

Then came the best part of the day, a visit to to the ancestral house of Pallavi's granparents. It was a rather small place where her grandfather and his 4 brothers lived together, a place were Pallavi's dad and his siblings and cousins grew up in harmony. The family was a joined family of weavers and I was treated to a hands on experience to get close to a fully functional handloom equipment. That with some pictures with Pallavi's cute and little cousins made my day that day...

12th Nov 2007
Was involved in Manina's engagement. There will be a post with the details. (yeah I am tired of the huge post that this one is!)

13th Nov 2007
Reach Bangalore and get into the work mode and mindset :(

2 comments:

yRaw said...

Dei Maap'le
Ennoda thangachi veera thamilachi da
ava kanla kaneera...chance'e ille

oru cheran padam paatha effect kodukare da

Hi buddy....cooooool

Neutral Citizens said...

ennamo poda! - nats