Siva’s wedding

Siva was the sixth wicket to fall in our wing getting clean bowled by Swetha. His marriage was held in a village called Thekkur (don’t ask me the whereabouts of this place; I am still as ignorant as you!! Its not there in any form of Tamil Nadu map) It was a pleasant evening when I along with Raji, M and P set our journey to Trichy by train. There was a cute little baby in our bay who was the center of attraction to everyone in the train and of course along with M. To be very precise, M's actions are so robotic and slower than Rahul Dravid's batting in tests. All the passengers were amused to see the baby because they would not have seen such a cutest baby and similarly they were awestruck about M because they wouldn’t have seen such a weirdest creature. The baby thought M to be its Robot toy and started pressing his nose expecting the robot to make some sound and was looking for battery on his back. Poor baby, she doesnt know that God used seven sigma technique coupled with Chinamatic Japanese Technology to manufacture that Robot which operates without battery.

We reached Trichy at 4 45am and Chennai guys joined us at 6 am. All of us started our journey to Nerkuppai (Siva's native place - another non-existing village in TN map). The journey was about 2 hours and we reached his Nerkuppai. We saw the board "Nerkuppai Welcomes You" and was enquiring where his house was and after 2 buildings we saw the board "Thank you for visiting Nerkuppai". One of the two buildings happened to be his house and we got ready there and proceeded to Thekkur which was about 10 minutes drive from there. Thekkur can give a stiff competition to Nerkuppai for its immense size. By mistake if you drop your hand kerchief on the road, it would become a carpet for the entire village. There was a huge house decorated with flowers and lights welcomed us to the village.

When we stepped in, Siva was tying the knot. He was such a KNOTTY boy that he took 5 minutes to complete three knots. The couple were looking great together. It was the first time we attended a Chettinad wedding and it was so different from others. The number of formalities in the wedding were so much that it merely outnumbered the number of tamilians living in Bangalore. Swetha's friends who were present there added colour to the wedding and our man A didnt miss that opportunity to flirt with them just to live up to his BITS reputation and to his bitsian name. We wished the couple, had lunch and proceeded to Madurai.

My visit to Madurai was my second, the first being when i was very young. All of us became so religious after reaching Madurai we wanted to visit Meenakshi temple. The cab driver warned us that it would take about 3 hours to complete the temple visit. But when we entered, i found that it was a blatant lie, infact it would take more than 4 hours to complete it. The temple was so vast that if someone gets lost, it would be difficult even for Google searches to find him out. We finished the Goddess darshan and were going around the temple. In our gang, J is so huge that once we mistook him to be the 1001st pillar of the 1000 pillar hall of the temple. There was an elephant and A was scared to go near and get its blessings, so he gave a rotten banana to J who happily blessed him with all prosperity. After 2 1/2 hrs we came out of the temple and got to know that we completed only 50% of the temple - only tem and ple would be completed when we visit Madurai again in Feb for P's marriage.

I know I really made you wait for more than a year for an update in this section. I apologize for the delay from my end and affirm that I would be consistent enough from now on and you can expect new blogs from me with NEW LOOK and NEW LANGUAGE. (George Bush's mother tongue)

Crazy Safari

Coorg, being a wonderful place for a weekend trip from Bangalore happened to be our fourth honeymoon spot. Thanks to my colleagues who had arranged for a package tour (They know that I am as lazy as a slowest tortoise suffering from back ache to book it for myself).

On the second day, there was an optional tour of Nagarahole, a forest which was about 120 kms from Kushal nagar. Raji and I love animals, she likes them in the forest and I like them in my plate. We got ready in the morning and were so enthusiastic to go to the safari that we asked our hotel management for a Tata Safari car to reach the destination. But they magnanimously denied and sent us on the cheapest running vehicle on this Mother Earth, Maruti Omni. The whole of 120 kms was on Ghat roads and there were more pits on the way than the number of entries on a Chinese Phone Book. During every jerk some of the internal parts of the body got relocated and some of them prudently dislocated. By the time we reached there, our lunch got digested but the previous day dinner came to the throat.

We reached at 3 pm and were so excited to know that there was a safari on a van at 3 15 pm. We got the tickets and got into the van and were eagerly waiting for the safari. Slowly the van was getting filled. First entered a very tall man who had to literally crawl to enter the van. I guess it would take 2 days for the food to reach his stomach from his mouth. Then entered a measly person who was so short that even his feet would show up in his Passport size photo. Time was 3 45 pm and we were still waiting and were pre calculating the number of animals we would be witnessing. Suddenly Raji shouted "A Monkey!!" "Monkey!!" and I became curious and looked in to the direction she pointed and found a ugly looking man entering the van and proceeding towards the driver seat. He was so fat that his feet wont even get wet when he is having a shower. He can just maneuver the steering wheel sheerly with his tummy. We were so convinced that there was a mini safari inside the van and were half satisfied with the outcome.

Finally the so called Safari began when the van moved into the deep thick forest. When we entered we saw the photographs of tiger, bear, elephant etc which made our expectations rose as high as the tall person's head. After 5 mins, the van stopped and all the inmates of the van began clicking, we looked outside the window to spot a herd of spotted deers. Some deers got scared at the sight of the 12th Century BC van and ran for their lives. Some of them were bold enough to stand right there while the others were posing for our clicks. The poses were so professional that it would put even our models to Puppy shame. The van moved on and again stopped at a herd of spotted deers and it happened for 20 times. We saw lots of animals - deers, its relatives, its siblings, its parents, its friends, cousins, etc. Yes, we saw only deers and not even a mosquito more. After 45 minutes, the van took one deviation and for the next 5 mins we didnt find any deer. All of us woke up from our sleep and were waiting to see some wild animals. After 5 more minutes the van stopped again and our curiosities reached new heights. We looked into the direction the driver showed and saw a different animal rather a different form of deer - the Sambar deer. We used all the expletives we knew cursing the driver. For the 21st time, the Van Driver became a Screw Driver. After an hour of dejection & disappointment we reached a place where you can find more animals, the city. When we were about to get down, I asked that driver about the non existence of other animals, for which he cooly replied saying that they would be inside and wont come out. He could manage to add salt to the wound. When we started our journey back, I should certainly not deny the fact that even the stray dogs on the road were looking like spotted deers for us. Laughing at our Crazy Safari experience and being so tired I leaned on the shoulders of my DEER wife.