Anand Nataraj

Posts Tagged ‘temple’

After a long Thursday’s work I went home by 6.30 AM on friday. Then after taking a nap for 3 hours I drove to thiruporur a place that ends Old Mahabalipuram Road.

I’m here to collect Certified True copies of my property which I need to process a loan.

I use to visit this place during college days and it was a village those days. I’m stratled to see elite houses and entire demography of the place changed.

Now I got all necessary documents and I must thank my friend for makeing the process simple.

Another important aspect of the place is; it has a temple for Lord Muguga and it is here LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran got married.

Reached home early in the morning after a boring Saturday party and straight away went to bed. Then I slept till the afternoon and had to wake up for two reasons;

• Firstly it was my father’s birthday and had small party.
• Second is I’ve fixed an appointment for second half of the day.

My sister woke me up to celebrate my father’s birthday. I must thank her for talking all these initiatives as I’m very bad at doing things like these. She has brought a cake as surprise and this is the first time we are celebrating my father’s birthday as he has always stayed away from us and I think this is the birthday where in he has stayed with us and we all as a family were at one place.

Since my father is a person who has very less desire we had nothing to gift him. So we thought of buying him some shares which he trades.

After the birthday party I rushed out to a place called Vedal near Periyapalayam to see a piece of plot. Again it was a finest drive which I longed for. We drove along old traditional roads of Tamil Nadu which were not affected by the expansion of highways. Then we travelled through a stretch of forest and finally came the spot.

I’m not sure if this place develops immediately or not. I’d love to buy a piece of plot as it is within my affordability and its been 3 years since I purchased a land. Also there are small mountains and it would be a perfect place to have a small bamboo house and spend peaceful time or also we can party hard as it doesn’t disturb anyone.

From there we went to the famous PeriyaPalayam Amman temple which is visited almost 15 years back and a lot have changed since then. Since it is a normal day temple was not crowded and we had a nice darshan.

Then while driving back we spent all the money and neither of us had a single penny. After a long time my bank account has gone empty and I’ve been living with credit card for last 10 days.  While returning we didn’t realize that there was a toll. Then we were thinking what to do and one of my friends asked me to get all the old toll tickets in hand. We thought we can elope by the time the toll keeper checks the right ticket.

To our surprise the toll has a barricade where in we can proceed without paying. Also the toll rate was Rs.31 and we didn’t have anything other than credit card. Then with brave face my friend gave all 5 toll tickets to the toll keeper and asked him to check which the right ticket is. Without even checking he opened the gates asking us to leave. We didn’t know if he realized if we were conning him or he didn’t have patience to check all the tickets.

It was a thrilling experience and for long I wanted to explore things without any money on hand. I always thought of putting myself in such a situation and it happened today. I’m thankful to god for creating such an opportunity and I want to be on similar situations even in future.

Over all it has been a very interesting and heart filling day as; 

• I celebrated my father’s birthday.
• Went for site visits to buy land which is one of my hobbies.
• Went to a temple which I use to visit as a kid.
• And for the first time I experienced a situation to manage without money.

A long time plan to visit to Tirumala with my parents, Raghu’s family, Ravi’s family & Prasad’s family got momentum during last week of December. Then after confusions because of Andra volatility things got sloppy and we did know if this trip was on till last moment. Anyways Prasad asked me to make it anyways. Since my parents were unable to make it I came along with my friend. 

So initial plan was to start by 6 o clock from Chennai in Indigo Marina and hand over the car to a driver so that he can pickup raghu and prasad’s family in the morning. Owing to lot of official work we started from office in my Zen by 8.30 and had to fix my puncher wheel. Since the tube was torn we had to replace the tube. I asked Suresh to drop me in my house and asked him to fix the puncher. He returned back by 9:30 and my father parked Indogo Marina in my uncle’s house as some household work was going on. So unable to take Marina out and we had to settle with Zen. 

Then while filling petrol I remembered that I forgot to pick my data-card. Then went back to home collected it and returned and we had dinner at Motel Highway in Poonamallee. Once when we were out it was 11.30 PM. Then got a call from Prasad and he said Tirumala road will be closed between 1 – 4 AM. So we decided to drive slowly. We were driving at 40 Kmph and still we reached Tirupathi by 2.30. We decided to  sleep in the car and we thought we can pick raghu and drive to the hill. 

En route Suresh wanted to know my entrepreneur journey and I was narrating my experience till date. Since I didn’t sleep the previous night I was tired but restrained from sleeping because I didn’t want to make Suresh drive alone. On reaching Tirupathi I slept immediately. We started taking snaps on reaching Andra Border. 

As a surprise Prasad arranged for a VIP darshan by 7 o clock in the morning. We had no time to relax and we all got ready in 30 min and we all went to temple. We had very good darshan where in we were able to see the lord at a distance of 5 – 8 feet. We were blessed to get the arathi & able to see lords feet. Also we had a glimpse of lord for 5+ minutes. It is all a blessing as these opportunities are not easy to come. Also we had a bones of worshiping along with actress Rambha. 

Then we were very tired and we slept for six hours and we missed a visit to goto Tiruchanur and worship Thayar. Again by 6 o clock we had another VIP darshan. Again we got same things what we got in the morning & since we were with Prasad we got some more privilages like getting different varieties of prasadam. Again this time we had the opportunity to prey along with Director Cheran, Actor Dr.Rajashekar, Actress Jeevitha and Actor Tarun. From there we went for dinner and then returned to Guest House. 

On returning we to guest house we changed the costumes, made some calls, checked mails & then myself & Suresh though of going to walk and I usually do this when I go to any place. We started hunting for good photogenic places and we were taking some snaps. On this pursuit we lost the route and we were repeatedly getting lost. After finding the correct route we found the Goa movie team as they were hunting for a hotel for dinner and time was 1.15 AM. We requested them for a snap and they acknowledged. I don’t know if they were lucky to find a good hotel at that time. 

Now reached the room and it is time to sleep and wake up by 6 for next darshan.

It has been hectic schedule in business & also in personal commitments too. My present concerns are to make my new ventures a great success, to spend good time with my friends, be consistent in my blogging etc. But my mothers concerns are different, she is worried about my marriage and she wanted to do a Raghu Pooja in SriKalahastri. I didn’t want to disappoint my mother’s sentiments and I obliged to goto temple and perform the pooja…

We decided to goto SriKalahastri on Sunday(16th Nov 2008). Kalahastri is 120 KM from Chennai & is located in Chitoor district of Andra Pradesh. We planned to start from home by 1.30 PM so that we can reach temple by 4.30. Pooja must be performed between 4.30 PM – 6.00 PM because that is Ravugalam & pooja must be performed at that tim But we had an unexpected visit of a guest by 1.00 PM and we were able to start from home only by 3.30PM. We have two ways to route to reach Kalahastri from Chennai. We choose the shortest route redhills/tada route which is the shortest… Wonderful road and nice drive, but still we were late and reached temple by 6 o clock. So decided to have a normal prayer and again planned to make it on Tuesday(18th Nov 2008).

On return we took the renigunta road, which is little long in terms of KM & roads were also bad. We reached home little late by around 10 o clock in the night. Travel was of great experience, had nice discussion with my sister, it has been long since we had spent time for each other. Then saw a major accident near thiruvallur where a bus ran over a bike, road was flooded with blood, I wanted to take some snaps and wanted to share it in my blog but my mother did allow me to do it and she immediately wanted me to move from that place. I obliged to my mothers request and continued my drive. Then reached home slept & did normal work on Monday.

Again started on Tuesday to SriKalahastri, this time it Ravugalam was between 3.30PM – 5 PM. We started from home by 12 noon & this time decided to use redhills/tada route to & foe. This is a best route at present because of good roads, but we have a toll plaza near ponneri a kilometer before & after the toll gate roads are pathetic. Took some snaps to share it.

A person collecting toll

Toll tariff for different vehicles

Condition of road immediately after toll

Condition of roads immediately after toll, this road a junction which connects periyapalayam & tada road…

En route to SriKalahastri near Varadapalayam & you can see me in the picture…

Then reached the temple by 3.15 PM and got a ticket and had pooja done by 4 o clock, had good darshan & returned back to Chennai on the same tada/redhills road. SriKalahastri – Varadapalayam – Tada road was little narrow and had lots of narrow curves & speed breakers. Caught hold of a car, think the driver is a frequent driver in the route and he maintained good speed. Driver understood that we are following him to have a smooth drive & in the mean time maintain his speed and he helped me by giving appropriate signals. Without him I couldn’t have driven in that speed as it was pitch dark.

Then had a normal drive back home & it was yet another 300 KM drive. It was interesting to have driven 600 KM within 50 hours… It was a nice experience & I’m happy because my parents are happy & I made them happy by somehow sparing time for pooja. It was an happy ending & I headed to Madurai immediately after reaching Chennai.