The "Thank you" tour

Had called to wish my dad on new years eve. He was almost 85 and in diapers and he was not liking his quality of life. That is to put it mildly. He wanted to see me. Having gone to India every three months the previous year on business trips and having spent at least a weekend with him on those trips made it appear that we were meeting "regularly". 

Since last June my roles changed and India trips were not on the agenda. So it was understanable my dad felt that way. Also my mom reminded me that there were some "vendudhals" that were not done. The family astrologer had requested that we (San and me) go together to visit the family deity in Gunaseelam soon. San and me haven't been to India together since 2019! So we decided to do a bunch of things all at once and on an impulse bought short notice tickets to fly to India for two weeks. 

Given the girls are both in college we picked a time when they will be busy with classes, to go to India. 14 days from start to finish, 3 days for the US to India travel and back.. do as much as possible in 11 days within India! 

We are coming up on our 25th wedding anniversary in 3 months. We wanted to get blessings from my parents, inlaws, family, all the gods we know and all the gods we don't know and any higher powers that be on this trip. We are not Ambanis, but think of this as our pre-anniversary celebration! 

It is a miracle that we did everything we wanted to and made it back without any sickness.  Will blog about this trip over next few weeks. Thanked the gods in every temple we visited, for giving me San in this life.

If my life had a jingle it will be "Sundar, brought to you by Sangeetha!". Somehow this girl I had just met, took a huge chance on me knowing I was a basketcase, and decided to make something of a life for both of us.

Did pray for all my family and friends as well, every chance I got. 

Jr. called me to say "don't over pray or the gods will get bored!".  That didn't stop me!

Jotting down our trip stops in this post, as a memory marker to write subsequent posts.. Eventually will link all of them here.. 

Day 1 (in India) : Land in Mumbai and within 3 hours visit Mahalakshmi, Siddhi Vinayak

Day 2: Chedda Nagar Murugan temple Abhishegam (highlight 1)

Day 3: spent shopping and eating out!

Day 4: fly to Chennai

Day 5: Kapaleeshwar temple, valeeswarar, Saradhambal temple, Vembadi vinayagar

Day 6 : train to Rameshwaram

Day 7: Ramanadhaswamy temple and bath in the 22 wells (trip highlight 2), Ramar padam, Panchamukha Hanuman temple, Lakshmana theertham, Thiruppulaani, Uttarakosamangai and off to Madurai

Day 8: Meenakshi Amman temple, Koodal Azhagar, Noopura gangai, Pazhamudhir Solai temple, Kalazhaghar, Thiruparangundram, Thiruperundhurai Aavudaiyaar kovil, Pudukkottai Bhuvaneshwari amman temple and off to Trichy

Day 9: Sreeranganathar, Jambulingeshwarar, Gunaseelam Perumal (this was the 3rd and biggest trip highlight), Thirupaanjali Siva-Yaman temple, Thiruvellarai temple, Uttamar kovil and off to Tanjore with a stop at the Palace museum and Brighadeeswara temple (Tanjavoor Periya kovil) and off by train to Thrissur

Day 10 : Vadakkumnathan temple, Thiruvambady Krishna temple, then to Guruvayoor temple, Maamiyur Shiva Vishnu temple then drive to Cochin and fly back to Mumbai

Day 11 : Santoshi Maa temple in Chembur and a movie with San in the evening (Fighter.. meh!)

Day 12 : Juma Hanuman temple, Saradhambaal temple, Lakshmi Narasimhar temple (Ahobila mutt's) all in Chembur followed by two back to back movies (my in-laws live right next to a movie theater complex.. we can walk down and it is there!! and the theaters are mostly empty!).. DUNE 2 and Laapata Ladies which we loved.

Day 13 : pack and Visit Jio world Plaza and take off early the following morning from Mumbai to SFO with a layover in BLR

Hopefully have mentioned all the major places where we stopped. 

We fell at my parents feet for blessings and my dad who seems to be floating in space and time and he blessed us saying "now that you are married, may you have a child.. a boy!". My mom smiled and said "let it go".. she knows my take on the "boy child" blessing. I usually burn people to ashes (or try to) with my gaze when folks in India make this an issue with not having boys.  My dad is past all that. So it was easy to let it go. All that yoga has really helped. We made it to see him, even if for a few hours to wish him for his 85th birthday. It was a short and sweet flying visit. 

Grateful to all the higher powers for giving us two wonderful kids and did make it a point to say thanks. 

We do not know when we will visit India.. it might not happen anytime soon given work trajectories and kids getting busier in college. 

There is a saying "you don't get to see god when you want to.. you get to see them if they want to see you!" 

If I had to look for a highlight photo of this trip.. this is it.. Photo on the left is the first ever portrait we took together at a JC Penny a few months after we were married. Photo on right taken by San's mama at Murugan temple in Mumbai.. San gets prettier by the day (she wore the same Sari after ~25 years to make the point)

There are almost 1400 photos and videos in total to cull through and write about. For once I did't even take my SLR on the trip. Everything on the iPhone where photos were allowed.  Will get to it..

Old city charm and an odd Obelisk

The previous post in this series on our travel in Buenos Aires is here..

For some reason, I decided to use iPhone photos for the most part, that too without any processing and my FIL promptly told me that my photos are usually a visual treat and my standards are going down.

Given few people still read this blog, decided to use nicely cropped, edited photos for this post. It is still mostly iPhone photos. Hope it gets the bar back up again..even if slightly..

After the cemetery visit, we drove to La Boca, which is not an upscale neighborhood but is one of the oldest places in Buenos Aires that was populated, mainly by waves of immigrants. There is an old world charm in this place that is very unique! Parts of it, the walls, the doors and windows reminded me of walking around old neighborhoods in Mylapore. In fact one of the steets brougt back memories of TSV Kovil street. My brain does a number on me when in new places and connects random things. So walked around in a daze absorbing the sights, sounds and smells.

one of my favorite shots on this trip!

Caminito was interesting.. with the center piece being an ice cream shop. There was a long line so we skipped the ice cream. We were also on the clock for the private tour. 

this photo courtesy of our tour guide who was trying to direct folks to be out of the shot.. he did a great job!

Then we moved on to San Telmo area and the market. The entire place was full of antique shops. Old books, LP's, cameras that went extinct, Simpson's bobble head dolls, crazy stuff that used to be in the last bottom row in Navarathri golus when I was a small boy.. it was amazing!

we went into a lane that had these umbrellas.. it had more of a French vibe to it than the Spanish vibe we expected.. the place started getting crowded, given there were offices there.. we managed to take a few photos 

Once the crowd saw what I was doing with the next shot, everyone was trying to copy it.. was telling the family that I take it as a compliment and am not the least bit offended.

After the family decided to eat some empanadas at one of San Telmo's hottest places, we made a move to see the Obelisk and what is dubbed the Times Square of Buenos Aires.

There was no parking, so our guide stopped the car on the road side and said "10 minutes is all I can wait if you want to run across and take pictures".. and we did manage to do that and get back, jump in the car and go back to our hotel area. 

this whole obelisk thing was weird. It was in the middle of the busiest part of the city and the barricades and barriers around it made it less appealing. There were too many walking signals around and the pedestrian and car traffic was a disaster waiting to happen. Also there is no way to get a decent shot of us and the Obelisk given the short distance in front of it. The locals seemed to be very happy with the monument.. we were all wondering how it fit with the rest of the area.. it stuck out like a sore obelisk!

the kids never share their pics with me.. and I am definitely not allowed in their social media circle.. but I do have these type of memories.. watching them grow into confident young women!

we stopped at a few more places to take photos of monuments (our time was up and I made a request.. so it was nice of our guide to do this!) 

we even stopped by the area where all the big hotels are.. the lobby decorations in Buenos Aires are interesting..

We thanked our guide who was a really nice person and ate leftovers from what we had packed for lunch at the hotel. Had to finish the food anyways as we were to check out. We had two hours to spend before our ride to the airport. San and the little one stayed in the hotel restaurant after checking out.  Jr. and myself decided to go back to the waterfront to get a taste of the famous Luciano's ice cream. It was a 40 minute walk one way but we made it, had ice cream and got back in time to catch our ride to the airport... only after coming back to the US did we realize that this ice cream is from California but has become very popular in Buenos Aires!! 

the dulce de leche here is apparently a hit.. so we had to get a taste of it. It was yummmmmmmmmyyy!

we walked past the boats (which were museums .. didn't realize it the previous evening!)

We made it in time for our flight.. but it was late. So we ended up in the crowded airport for an extra two painful hours before finally boarding for Porto Iguazu..

A video for the last part of the city tour. We covered a lot of places in 4 and a half hours! 

Would definitely recommend this private guided tour of Buenos Aires through Viator. Our guide was Martin and he was a really sincere guide! Not sure if you can ask for him through Viator tours. . . 

We said bye to Buenos Aires as there was not going to be any more walking around the city.. we had no idea.. 

The whole trip was all about Iguazu falls. Have way too many photos and videos to process from the next day of the trip. The next post on this series will have to wait..

How was this even possible?

In 2005, I had posted this about Naadi Astrology and this unbelievable palm leaves that had poems that could accurately give all my details from my birth to the point those leaves were destined to be read. 

It is now your destiny to be able to hear this !! There was no easy way to upload just an audio to a blog then. Now we have methods!

There was no google in 1997 and even then, getting details about someone including their Indian Horsocope which needs date of birth and place of birth with an accuracy of 4 minutes, time windows, family details, names etc.. all in poetry.. not possible with even today's AI and computing power to write those as recitable poems. 

It was just amazing. A lot of folks reached out to me then and I did give them the contact to go find their palm leaves of destiny. However, not everyone who went there, could find their leaf. That is part of the deal. 

Some folks went multiple times over a period of years and managed to find it later! 

All that said, as part of digitizing audio tapes from years ago, found Naadi tapes from when my parents got my leaf and how years later San found her leaf on a visit to Vaideeswaran Kovil. She rushed it and was impatient as she had to come back to a hungry kid. Still you can see two data points.. 

Majority of what was said in detail was accurate. Then again, a lot of stuff was vague when it came to the future. We have two girls. In my reading, that was off. In San's reading it was right. 

If you have the patience, you can listen to this..  pretty impressive actually for a palm leaf that is a few thousand years old and preserved for generations in a temple! 

Maybe our destinies are all pre written.. or maybe there is some time travel involved here. In either case, the beauty of human existence is that we just go about our daily life with amazing selective memory loss. We all assume that we will wake up day after day and do things as we plan them. We put in for vacations 3 months from now, plan weddings, put 5 year FD's, etc.. forgetting that there is no guarantee for anyone for their very next breath! That is actually a good thing, so we can keep moving!

I usually forget this tape exists, except when someone brings up destiny in a conversation. Guess the readers of this blog can scratch their heads after listening.. 

Not sure if these places are still around and do the leaf readings. Have read articles that there are a lot of fake centers and copies floating around. Still not sure how any fake thing can guess this many details right and come up with limmerics in record time while the person is sitting in front of them.. that too in ancient Tamil script!

If any of you have had recent experiences with "meeting your leaf", do share in comments! 

This was out of sight and hearing and out of mind for a good 16 or so years. So it was interesting to listen to after a long time.. especially with Jr. listening in on every word  and asking questions. 

She was laughing so loud hearing my dad keep interrupting the reader about my wedding plans! 

This was way way ahead of Chat GPT !!!