Kula deivam et. al.

The previous post in this series is here..

We had yet another day where sleep was limited to 6 hours. The hotel in Trichy was not as good as the one in Madurai, but given we were going to just sleep, get up, shower and start it was good enough. 

The new driver showed up on time but the car had no working AC. So it was going to be an issue on a hot day. We could not wait. So we asked him to start towards Ranganathar and figure it out from there. 

Just like the previous day we went into the temple at 6AM and were out in a little over an hour. We made our way then to Thiruvanaikovil. We managed to do a super quick darshan.

By then we got a car with working AC. There was an appointment at our Kula deivam temple, Gunaseelam with the priest. We made it in time for me to take a dip in the river behind the temple and go see perumal. 

This was the third highlight of the whole trip after meeting my dad on his 85th birthday and taking bath in the wells of Rameshwaram.

They were nice enough to take care of the annadhaanam on our behalf as we had to leave right away. The pongal prasadam was great on an empty stomach. 

We were to be dropped off at Tanjore Railway station that evening in same car after a visit to the Big Temple in Tanjore. Given we had time, we visited three more temples.

We saw the Thirupanjali temple (which has a special shrine for Yama, the god of death), Thiruvellarai (a very old temple) and Uttamar Kovil (also known as bikshaandaar kovil). 

We finished all these temple visits and had lunch at Ashwins a local favorite.

We also bought some snacks for the road/Train ride later that night at Ashwins. If you are in the Trichy area, don't miss Ashwins food and snacks!

A short video clip ..

Then we made our way to Tanjore. The ladies dozed off. FIL was working in the car. I was busy finishing off some of the snacks.  The three hours in Tanjore did not disappoint.

That on another post..

The temples of Madurai and a few other stops

The previous post in this series is here..

We had reached our nice hotel in Madurai the previous night from Rameshwaram after a few extra stops by car. FIL had requested that the same driver take us around Madurai the entire day. We got 6 hours of sleep and had to get ready at 5AM. It was going to be a busy day. 

We started by visiting the Madurai Meenakshi temple. I have an interesting blogging history with this temple. You can check out my very first ever post where it starts off as an angry man venting.. have become a lot calmer now, at least on the blog!

This is my visit to this temple after 2005! It was a much better experience. Had sworn never to go near this temple again.. but guess there is always some fate or destiny..

We entered the temple at 6AM and were out in 45 minutes. Then it was time to visit two more temples. First one was Koodal Azhagar temple. There was a wedding party there and we had to rush past the crowd from the wedding to finish seeing the temple and getting darshan.

Then we were to go to Thirupparankundram Murugan temple. Given we were ahead of schedule, we talked to our driver and decided to go Pazhamudhir solai. We went up to the Noopura gangai (MIL decided to stay back given the climb to the top of the hill was steep) and me, San and FIL made a trip to the top and came back. Then we got to see Pazhamudhir solai. The priest was friendly and he was telling us about his cousins in Mumbai and US. 

We made a stop at the Kal azhagar temple which I believe is part of the 108 divya desams. It was a beautiful temple. By now we were cutting it close. 

some of the stuff is in ruins.. but looks like folks are working on preserving these few hundred year old temples. The temples older than these seem to be doing fine!

Once we came out, we drove to the other side of Madurai to Thirupparankundram. We drove past this beautiful church on the way.

The Murugan temple closes at 1PM and we made it to see the deity and deepa aaradhanai at 12:55. It was touch and go. We were also very hungry after that visit. 

We had a quick bite to eat at one of the local Vegetarian hotels. The ladies in their infinite wisdom decided that they will shop for Saris. They had seen the Thirumalai Nayakkar Mahal (palace) and were not impressed. I had never seen it. So my FIL said he will take me there after we drop the ladies at a Sari store. While they shopped we walked through this massive building and its hallways and took pictures. There is usually a light show in the evening which is the rave, but we were going to miss that anyways.

We drove past the city center and saw the amman temple tank during the day.. our driver was nice enough to park, so I could go get some pics.

We also stopped to get some Madurai famous Jigarthanda.. a sweet drink that has 3850% of your daily required fat and 80000% of the daily required sugar levels. 

After that we decided to change plans.. more on that later..

Navarathri 2024

Last year's Navarathri post is here..

We do not have the concept of Golu(Kolu) in our house. My blog readers and friends know that. However we do Saraswathi pooja and celebrate Vijayadasami. 

This year, we do not have any celebration as my oldest cousin (who is only 5 years younger than my dad and who is like a brother to my dad) passed away. To honor him there is no poojas this year.

We did go do the rounds to meet friends and participate in their golu's. Even got to sing in a few houses we visited. My guru had taught me enough small songs that I could sing without going into complicated territory. 

Here is a slide show of the Golus

and a slide show of the unique dolls.. 

the ayodhya temple replica that was built with a Ram Lalla inside probably will stay in our minds for a long time .. as was a creative mom who didn't know about Chitchen Itza but managed to realized that the Muruga doll perfectly fit on a souvenir as a base! there were many other new dolls that we saw that were not seen in past years golus. they are all in this slidshow.

As is now the new tradition, managed to match San's sarees to the best of my ability, given my diverse shirt collection.  

She definitely keeps going back to some of the sarees every year..and there were some very unique colors this year!

Here is to new beginnings!