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..

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..