A day and a half in Chennai

The last post on this trip is here...

Have to start becoming a live blogger to catch up on travels these days. New sights, new people.. 

So tend to forget things with a photo/video overload.

We landed in Chennai late on Thursday night and left Chennai Saturday afternoon. 

Within that time frame, we managed to spend a few hours with my parents, San's 95 year old grandma, visit three temples, eat out twice and meet a lot of relatives (leaving out the blog shy ones in the post)

The most special relative we met was the latest addition to the extended family. It has been a long time since I held a baby in my hands. We showed the picture to someone later in the trip and were asked why we decided to have a baby so late.

My father who is not his usual self saw us fall at his feet for blessings and wished us a boy child. We said something about our 25th wedding anniversary and maybe he heard things partly and automatically blessed. Somehow in his mind, us not having a boy is still a "lacking" thing, at least he used to keep telling me that according to my horoscope I am supposed to have female and male children. He would keep asking me how that horoscope could be wrong? We know the time and age he is from where male children are considered the representation of the gene pool. He always means well. 

My dad turned 85 that morning and he was not aware of his birthday. I seem to be the best at playing dumb charades with him and sadly am not close by. We both realized that, in the hour we communicated. He said bye to me as though he was losing his translator or least that was my perception. My only thought was "If by some karma, I end up in this same state with parkinson's, need to train San and some folks around me to play dumb charades regularly, starting now!"

If only Tantra shastra was spread to the masses, things would be different on this boy child business.. that is multiple topics all colliding in my head right now. So that discussion will be sidebared. When my dad finished his blessing in bits and pieces, we just thanked him for it. Told my mom that we are almost ready to have grandkids in a few years.. one topic led to another and we fished out the kids horoscope which my mom had saved all these years! 

Given the short time in Chennai, did I mention how my mom told me to go sit and do parayanam at the local Saradhambaal temple? She prioritized my praying for two out of the three hours! In any case, the goal was to make her happy, so I just went and met with all the familiar folks in the recitation group. They were all happy to see me. Many of them have seen me as a teenager. One thing I miss is this recitation group. Seriously thinking of starting one in Cupertino every Saturday morning. One of the folks even took a photo and sent it to my mom! The mama's are better insta bloggers than me.. and my mom was beaming with happiness that they had good things to say about me. Mamas happy, Mom happy, me happy..

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The nights food at Geetham was still backed up with Upma my mom made me in the morning and still had to eat at Kamakshi mess... India trips are an exercise in stretching your stomach muscles way past what you think you can. 

then there was the first train ride of the trip.. on Rameshwaram express.. brought back so many memories of long train journeys in India.

"Kamalahasanukku porai eri irukkum!" was the thought as we saw this while standing at the door

we were going to see Ramanadhaswamy.. One picture from my aunt's place that stayed with me.. loved this .. all the stores in Mylapore which did framing were still not open when we went to the area.. so could not find it. Maybe on the next trip, will get a print of this!

Will continue the write up of Rameshwaram in a day, the next chance I get..

Creature comforts...

There are a lot of critters that show up on any lazy day in Chennai even when we are on the 2nd floor (3rd floor if you count G by US standards).

Captured a few just sitting in same position in and around.. Not mentioned are the videos of mosquito and pidgeons in the exhaust fan.. one was nightmare material and the other one did not make for a good video..

The crow feeding is still on. I gave the crow some Digestive Marie biscuits which had gotten kind of soft after the temple trip to Gunaseelam. The Crow gave it a disapproving look given it is used to some fresh rice with dal and ghee.. eventually it took it. Maybe it exchanged that for something else.. who knows! 

There were three lizzards that were constantly circling me to catch flies and mosquitoes. I had named them Lizzie, Libby and baby lizzie on the July trip to annoy my kids. They would run everytime they saw the lizzards. This is not something you see in the US but as kids we coexisted with them.. in fact there was a section on the Almanac (Panchangam) that would give you a forecast for what to expect that day depending on where the lizzard fell on you from the ceiling.. head meant something, leg meant something etc... don't remember those off the top of my head, given there are no house lizzards here..

Not sure if coloring the chicks is a good idea. Saw that at a pet store near Kabali kovil. Apparently they are a favorite among kids. Guess the color wears off in a few days.

It was a one week visit to take care of things and spend some quiet time with my parents.. but given my nature, had to convert those silent moments on the chair to capturing crows, squirrels and lizzards.. 

Temple Gopurams

In an 8 day trip to Chennai, I sure got to visit temples every day. This time I took the time to smell the roses.. err photograph the Gopurams without being in any rush. 

It is always good to go on a trip without a timetable..

The best part was the visits were after it had just stopped raining for a brief period or when it was still drizzling. So that made the colors vibrant. 

Visited 7 temples, some with big gopurams, some small.. here is a collection..

The Kapaleeshwar temple..

The Parthasarathy kovil, where my parents were engaged!!! I got to hear both my parents version of the story for the jillionth time on the visit.. I think San and me tell the story of how we met in Kapali temple as often to our kids.... we are slowly turning into a version of them..

Valleswarar kovil, which is my mothers favorite as they used to live in TSV Kovil street, literally 100 feet away..

There is a lot of detail on the big gopurams..

many stories told in these..

births, deaths, marriages..

There are small gopurams for each deity which have their own thing going..

Then there are these colored statues that deck the halls..it is possible that the entire thing was painted at one point.. 

Then there are these little statues at the corner of the roofs..be it conch blowing men or women or white bulls.. they add a little touch whenever you look up..

The rear entrance gopurams are not as grand, but still are interesting..

The decorations for the cowshed...

and a last picture of the temple main gopurams back facade after rains.

This time saw more people with Canon SLR's than Nikons.. Guess Canon is getting bigger in India.. not that it has anything to do with the post topic. Had not taken my 5D on this trip.. so all pictures you see from the India trip were taken on the iPhone 11 Max (some of them with the 0.5 or wide angle lens) and edited on Snapseed app on the phone. 

The best camera is the one you can get access to! 

I really wish they would dismantle all these sheds with the blue coverings in the temple that have been put up recently. spoils the beauty of it and makes for an eyesore. They also keep filling the gaps in the stones with cement which clogs up the natural drainage that was set up 100's of years ago.. the temple floods at the first hint of rain. Sometimes new technology when applied without understanding to ancient temples which already had been well thought out, backfires! 

I see 700 hundred year old stone walls and floors intact while the structures built with bricks and cement 30 years ago is crumbling.. better to leave the old temples the way they were.

They will outlast all of us... they should! Our kids and their kids deserve to play in the same halls and with the elephants the way we did..