Faith Faith Faith

Faith is an interesting thing.. it makes you do things that are ingrained in you from childhood. Everytime I lose something and I have to find it in a time sensitive way, subconsciously say a prayer to Ganesha and say "will light a camphor light(karpooram) for 10 paise at the local temple".. 

a. we don't get camphor lights in the US that easily

b. there is no 10 paise anymore

c. local temple can be anything but was originally intended for Vembadi Vinayagar, a little ganesha under a pipal tree that I have circled with prayers to remove obstacles real and imaginary..

But it gets done.. and we are not even talking about if we actually found the thing on time or not.

In 2014 my MIL was going for a bone marrow test and in pure panic mode I prayed to my family deity (Gunaseelam perumal) that if the test came negative for cancer, will go shave my head in the temple. That was more of an extreme case of the camphor lighting thing.. 

Have made at least 6 trips to India since that time but never got the opportunity to go visit Gunaseelam. Faith is interesting.. seeing your family deity is not up to you, it is up to your deity.. or so the saying goes! Guess on this short trip to see my dad, there was no agenda. 

Three weeks ago, was lying in a hospital bed myself, dreading some worse case scenarios, which fortunately turned out to be something a lot less threatening. While there, the thought of unfinished business with god somehow bubbled up to the top of the already buffering thought process.  What if I died and did not do the "mottai"? After all the bone marrow test for MIL had come out negative! 

The original plan was to just go alone with a driver and get things done and get back. Then my parents said the words "Can we come with you?".. In case you didn't get the reason Faith got mentioned three times in the title, "you cannot say no to someone when they ask to come to a temple with you".. My dad was bedridden two weeks ago and he barely started walking again. An adult in diapers who just started walking, coming on a day trip where we spend 11 hours in the car and 3 hours in a temple is no joke. 

Somehow, we told ourselves, if it was meant to be, we will make it. I did a risk mitigation plan that would make any project manager proud and we left at 3AM. It was still raininig in Chennai but we were off to a flying start.. We had one stop for 25 minutes and were back on the road. 

Given this is my n'th mottai at Gunaseelam, the whole thing was done in 7 minutes.. then came the best part. There was water in the river that flows to the temple! Had a great time taking a dip in the river and have the fishes nibble at me. We were on a deadline and I had to pull myself out of the water to go in and finish the rest of the prayer. 

Our driver and some total strangers helped me navigate a wheel chair through the temple. The priest knows our family and was extremely nice and made sure my dad got to see the deity up close. 

On our way out a puppy came up and lay down under our vehicle. This one knew how to put on a sad face like a pro..

It was time to drive back. My dad is like a kid who just got his tonsils out and knows that his parents won't say "no" to anything... we just got out of the temple and he mumbles "elaneer.. I want elaneer". He wanted coconut water. Was not even sure if this is coconut water season and we were watching the road for it and sure enough we found a vendor selling fresh coconut water. It is not a good idea for a person of his age to drink that instead of lunch. We stopped at an A2B for lunch and it was really delicious. Had a full course meal. As an added bonus this place had a wheelchair ramp!

Then came the bombshell from my dad "I want to use the restroom". That was not part of the plan. It was going to be diapers all the way. But a kid without his tonsils... is a kid without his tonsils. The restrooms here are not typically wheelchair accessible. They are simply not for anyone who is not fit and can manoeuvre around a potty, a door that swishes past the potty with millimeter tolerance and a bunch of taps and buckets on the floor that are trip hazards. In what can only be described as a houdini move, managed to get my kid to go potty and get him diapy changed. That coconut water was a bad idea. Our driver concurred. 

The rest of the drive back was calm and serene. There were cops every 100 feet. So I started counting cops. After 270, I stopped counting. That was only on one side of the road from Dindivanam to Melmaruvaththur. My mind boggled at the efficiency of this whole security apparatus with so many cops just standing on the roadside doing nothing.. then again, maybe this system works, who knows! We actually slowed down to ask one of the cops to find out what the big deal was. He proudly answered "The Chief minister of Tamil Nadu is making his way back to Chennai on the same route!"

We made a dash for it to avoid his motorcade and made it back in exactly 14 hours. For a few minutes after reaching could not find my legs.. had let my dad doze off on me. . . which reminded me of my kids dozing off on me on another recent trip.

It has been another interesting day. 

A picture that says it all..

and a short video of the days experience.. 

It is always a great feeling taking a dip in the river.. mottai or not. Was glad to see my parents smiling again, even if for one day! 

Now the only thought in my head is "the mosquitoes are going to get me good tonight with this exposed scalp.. they will suck my brains dry and I might actually wake up smarter!"

My head feels lighter already, both literally and figuratively...

When the skies cleared just for us..

During the Thanksgiving week, which seems like ages ago, I got to visit India. First stop was Varanasi for our class reunion for two days. Then I got to spend the next 4 days in Chennai.

The trip was interesting from start to finish. When we landed in Chennai from Varanasi, the airport had 600+ stranded passengers with the access roads to the airport being closed and a "no taxis" sign greeting us. Luckily my friends dad who had started 6 hours earlier to get to the airport made it past the closure on one side. We went through waterlogged roads and a very interesting route to get back to my brothers place. 

But a miracle happened. It had rained for 17 days before that. The next 72 hours saw only slight drizzles. We did not even use an umbrella. And on the one day San and the kids came to visit Chennai, the sun came out! 

They are really lucky angels.

We jumped from one auto rickshaw into another and were pretty much on the go that day. It also happened to be my star birthday and the previous night we had celebrated Kaarthigai deepam! You can see the contrast between celebrating this in Cupertino and Chennai. 

The highlight of the trip was to see my grandma, who is not doing well after her surgery. I was glad that the kids got to talk to her, sing for her and get to take a selfie with Grandma.

I also got to spend 4 days with my parents after almost a year and a half. It is very difficult to see my dad's physical abilities deteriorate over time. His hands are constantly shaking and so are his lower jaw. The docs say "it is part of old age"... I was quoting Bikram and saying "never too old, never too sick..." but don't think it registered with my parents. 

We also got to visit San's granparents. They got hit with the rains a lot worse than my brothers area. It is amazing how resilient they are. Hoping some of that resiliant gene has transferred to our kids in case they need it some day!

This photograph was taking on Kaarthigai deepam. 

The one day that the sun came out, the schools reopened. We asked my nephew to bunk school on that day to be with us and he obliged. The next day he did make it to school but what happened after that was epic rains and the city was badly hit.

A day after I left, there was so much rain that the airport was flooded and shut down. There was some real luck guiding me through this trip!

Do not know when the next trip will be, so till then we look back at memories.. here is those 4 wonderful days crammed into 7 minutes of video!

Still missing everyone in Chennai, more than ever after editing this video! 

It has been a month since this trip already. We have to make it to India on a more regular basis for longer times. Maybe we will have a better shot at it in 2016?!

The birds and almost bees, not to mention a few animals

En route to Kerala from Tamilnadu, we stopped overnight at Theni, a beautiful and cool place in itself. On the way to Thekkadi preserve we stopped by Suruli Falls. It was a waterfall about 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide and it had an artificial look to it. 

They had put steel bars everywhere to let folks bathe and that gave it a very man made feel. The water though was cold and refreshing and given it ran through a bunch of herbs, was supposedly medicinal. 

Those of us who decided to take bath in the falls had a great time. There was no photographing this falls because of the bathing folks! On the way back from the falls (it is almost a mile hike one way with some steep steps at the end to get to the falls), we saw a bunch of vendors selling fruits, cut mangoes, beads etc. 

It was a treat to watch the kids go check all this out.

Took a chance and got a "towel" for the bathing thinking it would be a good souvenir. It has turned all my baniyans and other white garments that went to the laundry load a nice purple! 

Did get to take photos of the monkeys near the falls. They were such a menace, stealing waterbottles, purses and even trying to grab at little kids.

and this one posed nicely for his portrait!

We saw firsthand the problems of having wildlife interact so closely with humans. It was neither good for the monkeys nor us!

Later we were rewarded with sightings of lots of different birds, deer, wild buffallo. On this trip we got to see bee hives that were thrown in the ground, possibly by the monkeys!

The boat ride!

It was raining on and off  every 5 minutes and that made the bird photography challenging, but the weather resistant 70-200mm lens proved itself!

The cormorants (if I got that right) were amazing. They are smaller than the ones we see in US or the ones we saw in New Zealand, but they make up for their stature with speed! The wild buffallo we saw were huge. This is my first time seeing them in the wild in India. 

We got to see baby birds crying out to their parents!

Kerala, is truly "gods own country!" The scenery on the way to Suruli falls was pretty much this for a good 25 miles. 

The Thekkadi lake itself is a sight to behold. The colors are vibrant, the sky was perpetually ominous and the constant rain makes it difficult to forget that even though you are on a large boat, you are not secure..

and my favorite photo in HDR of the lake!

It is not easy to do multiple exposures on a moving boat in the rain. It was worth a try. Unfortunately it did not work out. This shot though is a single exposure tone adjusted using PS5.

We had a great time in Theni, Thekkadi and on Thekkadi lake. Would strongly recommend this as a three day trip without time deadlines.

This is not one to be rushed. We will definitely try to revisit this place in this lifetime!

TamilNadu on the global news

No..this is not about the guy who got petrol from plants..

This time the email forward making the rounds and being featured on popular blogs is

.....

this!

Vedic hymns, indeed!

The people who wrote the Vedas are probably looking down in disgust..

This also gives a new twist to the south Indian arranged marriage concept!

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Deify

This is actually a very heartfelt post in the Tamizh blog, but wanted to share this with regular readers in this space as well.

It won't make sense unless we go through some glossary of terms. So ....

Tamizhnadu (Tamilnadu) : The south eastern state in India where the official language is Tamizh (Tamil) .The language is at least 5000 years old!

Kazhagam : Literally means "organization" or "collective" and is a short reference to Dravida Kazhagam (DK) and to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)

Dravidar (not to be confused with the cricket player Rahul Dravid) : The original people whose roots are traced to the local indiginous population that had its origins in present day Sri Lanka and Tamizhnadu - history will tell you that these people spoke Tamizh in a purer form and were dark skinned and eventually mixed with the Northern people (who were not necessarily invaders) but the people who migrated down from the Indus valley. Most of this history was concocted by the British who used the divide and rule policy to separate the North Indians and South Indians so they could rule India. They succeeded in their divisive policy because long after the Brits have left, the Aryan-Dravidian concept is still a sore spot for Indians.

Periyar : The man who is also referred to as "Thandhai" (Father) Periyar or EVR was the brains behind the origins of the DK. The man was a social reformer and tried to knock some sense into the common downtrodden folk in the south to come forward against discrimination by Brahmins. He also became an atheist and todays politics and politicians are all his legacy!

M. Karunanidhi : The present chief minister of Tamizhnadu and the head of the DMK party, who also goes by the name "Kalaignar" (artist), Periyars political grandson (It was Periyar->Annadurai-> Karunanidhi). A fantastic orator, poet, writer and thinker, he used his experience as a story/screenplay/dialogue writer for movies to good use. The man is single handedly responsible for 80% of punch dialogues over a 15 year golden period of Tamizh cinema.

Kalaignar is also a staunch atheist and takes a shot at God, Brahmin bashing at every public speaking opportunity he gets. In his lingo God does not exist. When I was an adolescent, somehow this used to appeal to me. Believe in mankind, not god. Somehow that struck a cord. Service to humans is service to god, god lives in us etc. etc. So the guy striking out against god or striking out god was in my opinion a means to an end.

Later of course when I found that he struck out only against Hindu gods and he did not necessarily go against all the evils in a caste based society and the many other things where he showed that he was just another politician without a consistant standard, the charm was lost on me.

Having gone through all that explaining, here is the funny part. Recently there was a music album release function for the upcoming Tamizh movie "Dasavadharam". On stage was Kalignar. He was introduced as "Tamizh thirai ulagai kaakkum kadavul!" or in other words "the god, the protector of Tamizh cinema!"

That was really ironic.

What happens when an atheist turns into God?

Atheist alone knows!

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