Ah!!! is my interest in blogging waning?? or is it just that I have had plenty of other things to do?? I think its the latter. Playing cricket and watching Ind battle Aus have taken up a lot of my time and more than that its the lap dance that I have been enjoying with my new Laptop. You beauty!!!! Its a Dell XPS M 1530 and its my first laptop.
Getting back to the series on my holiday, this one is about the Functions - both occassions and religious, that were part of my trip. It all starts off with a Satyanaraya Pooja at home. The pooja started barely 16 hours after I reached home (of course after the delay) and I was up that morning very early because of the jetlag. With lots of relatives arriving that day for the string of functions, it was a busy day. The excitement of being home and seeing all my relatives was good enough to overcome the jetlag and the lack of sleep.
The pooja went on very well and there started my tryst with full meals on banana leaves. Yum Yum!!!! 3 days later it was a couple of functions. Aayush Homam for my Dear Puttu Darling and the Kanakabhishekam of my maternal Grandpa. It was a wonderful day and Puttu darling in her cute 'Pattu paavadai'was the heroine of the day. The heroes of the day were my thatha (grandpa) and his great grand son (Pranav). The age difference was a staggering 93 years between the heroes. The occasion was one of joy for my Grandpa(and all of us) as he had all of his children and their spouses, most of his grandchildren and most of his great grand children. It was a wonderful feeling. For the uninitiated, Kanakabhishekam was performed to commemorate the fact that my Grandpas eldest son(my mama)'s eldest son(my cousin)'s eldest son(Pranav) was born :) A rare happening!!!!
The next day was the Shashti poorthi of my parents - celebrated on or after the 60th birthday of the husband. The Vedas describe 120 as the life span of a man and at 60, he ishalf way through life. At this stage, there apparently is a loss on interest in life and the purpose of the Shashti Poorthi is to tie the knot again in eth midst of children (who are in their youth) and rejuvenate life in general and married life in particular. A proud moment for us to get my parents "remarried". Again, this happened in the presence of the entire family and with some black and white photos as proof of the day, it was a complete affair. The Western culture of rewriting marriage vows when the husband gets to 60, is a similar ceremony.
After this there were 2 more Satyanaraya Poojas, one at my uncles place and one at a family friends place. I was part of both of them.
Now to the next function - this was my friends wedding in Chennai. I travelled to Chennai to see my friend from school (who is now in sydney) get married to his girlfriend of many years from Canberra. It was an Iyer-Punjabi wedding and the unique mix provided a lot of entertainment. Firstly it gave me the opportunity to meet with friends and see many more classmates who visited and then there was the wedding.
The Sangeet function which we turned into an Antakshari and Dance function was a whole lot of fun with a contrasting mix of 'Dappan koothu' songs & hindi songs & bhangra moves and pelvic thrusts :D:D:D I am yet to see the video. i will reserve my comments until i do see it. But i enjoyed the evening. After missing the wedding of many of my friends (all gals to date) it was good to be part of the wedding of this friend (the first guy to fall prey).
Phew!!! wasnt that a power packed set of functions that I was part of on my trip?? At first 5 weeks looked like a long holiday, but with all this going on, it started to look very short indeed.
In the next part I will write about the time I spent with Puttu kutty, my adorable niece :)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
India Visit Nov-Dec 2007 : Part 1 - The Journey
With a visit to me real Home, my online home lay orphaned for about 6 weeks. I must say that I am glad to be back taking care of my online home, but at the same time I miss, very badly, my real home.
My 5 week holiday was the longest I have had in about 4 years. This holiday, like most, was filled with family functions, visiting relatives and friends, travelling in India, shopping, a bit of relaxing, a lot of pampering and more. In the next few posts on this blog, I propose to relive the moments from my trip with the twin aim of sharing it with you and creating a holiday-log of sorts. In this post I will focus on the flight in and the journey.
Flights to India always seem longer than they actually are. Especially because I am ever so restless to get home. This time the feeling was no different, and thanks to Malaysian Airlines, they also made the journey longer than expected. I landed in KL only to realise that my ongoing flight was not displayed on any of the information monitors. I smelt a problem. I walked up to the Transit counter and my suspicions were confirmed when the counter officer handed me a few dinner coupons and told me that my flight was delayed by 12 hours. WHAT!!!!!!!! I bumped into 2 other passengers who had the same exclamation on their face. Being in the company of someone is not a bad idea, especially when in a sitaution like this. The 2 men turned out to be great company.
After dinner and after going through immigration, we assembled at a particular spot, as advised. A whole lot of confusion ensued and at last we were on a coach to a Hotel. The KL Intl Airport is about 70 kms from the city and we figured that the ride to the Hotel would be a long one. It turned out to be an hours drive even though it was close to midnight. We had to contend with long queues at the Hotel and being at the end of it, we were requested to share rooms. There was a unanimous outcry and the Hotel staff succumbed and started handing out deluxe suites to individuals. I was one of the lucky ones to get a Deluxe suite. It was a plush suite, but Hell I would have preferred reaching Home on time for "MY Bed" is a million times better than any other in the world.
It was 1am when I tucked myself into bed and managed to get some sleep - disturbed though. I was woken up at 3:30 AM by a phone ring. I picked and I heard a recorded message that said "This is your courtesy call". Strange!!! I had not asked for any courtesy from anyone. Infact all I wanted was to get home to Bangalore ASAP. I went back to sleep assuming it was an alarm set by the previous occupant of the suite. A few mins later, I decided not to take any chances and called Reception to find out what it was about. Thankfully I did. I was informed that it was a call to tell me that I should be ready to leave for the airport at 4:30 AM. Well - "Courtesy call" = "Be ready at 4:30" did not make any sense, But I am glad I called them to find out. I went down to hand in the keys and Check-out when I was handed a bill for the one phone call I had made to inform my folks about the delay. I told them to bill it to malaysian Airlines when the counter officer told me that I was allowed calls worth 6 Ringgits and anything above that I would have to bear. Ah well no point fighting over a few ringgits, even if 5 Star calling rates means that with 6 Ringets I hardly get to say HELLO.
We had an early brekkie and then were driven to the airport. My 2 new friends were again great company as we were talking about a lot of things. They were both Indians returning from Japan and we had extended discussions about cultural differences between India, Australia and Japan. At the airport there was a further delay of an hour before we actually took off. The plane soon was circling over Bangalore waiting for a landing clearance and the sight of Utility building told me that I was indeed home. Immigration was slow and the baggage handling "forces" had offloaded my baggage from the carousel even before I got there. Obliviious to the fact, I waited and waited and waited and waited. After a good 30 mins, a Malaysian airlines official announced that all bags from the KL flight have been offloaded. Phew!!! luckily my bags were not lost in transit. UC I was in India and I had started seeing the positive side of everything :D:D:D:D
Reaching India was more a sense of Relief, than anything else, after spending over a day in travel.
Keep tabs on this space for more on my holiday!!!!!!
My 5 week holiday was the longest I have had in about 4 years. This holiday, like most, was filled with family functions, visiting relatives and friends, travelling in India, shopping, a bit of relaxing, a lot of pampering and more. In the next few posts on this blog, I propose to relive the moments from my trip with the twin aim of sharing it with you and creating a holiday-log of sorts. In this post I will focus on the flight in and the journey.
Flights to India always seem longer than they actually are. Especially because I am ever so restless to get home. This time the feeling was no different, and thanks to Malaysian Airlines, they also made the journey longer than expected. I landed in KL only to realise that my ongoing flight was not displayed on any of the information monitors. I smelt a problem. I walked up to the Transit counter and my suspicions were confirmed when the counter officer handed me a few dinner coupons and told me that my flight was delayed by 12 hours. WHAT!!!!!!!! I bumped into 2 other passengers who had the same exclamation on their face. Being in the company of someone is not a bad idea, especially when in a sitaution like this. The 2 men turned out to be great company.
After dinner and after going through immigration, we assembled at a particular spot, as advised. A whole lot of confusion ensued and at last we were on a coach to a Hotel. The KL Intl Airport is about 70 kms from the city and we figured that the ride to the Hotel would be a long one. It turned out to be an hours drive even though it was close to midnight. We had to contend with long queues at the Hotel and being at the end of it, we were requested to share rooms. There was a unanimous outcry and the Hotel staff succumbed and started handing out deluxe suites to individuals. I was one of the lucky ones to get a Deluxe suite. It was a plush suite, but Hell I would have preferred reaching Home on time for "MY Bed" is a million times better than any other in the world.
It was 1am when I tucked myself into bed and managed to get some sleep - disturbed though. I was woken up at 3:30 AM by a phone ring. I picked and I heard a recorded message that said "This is your courtesy call". Strange!!! I had not asked for any courtesy from anyone. Infact all I wanted was to get home to Bangalore ASAP. I went back to sleep assuming it was an alarm set by the previous occupant of the suite. A few mins later, I decided not to take any chances and called Reception to find out what it was about. Thankfully I did. I was informed that it was a call to tell me that I should be ready to leave for the airport at 4:30 AM. Well - "Courtesy call" = "Be ready at 4:30" did not make any sense, But I am glad I called them to find out. I went down to hand in the keys and Check-out when I was handed a bill for the one phone call I had made to inform my folks about the delay. I told them to bill it to malaysian Airlines when the counter officer told me that I was allowed calls worth 6 Ringgits and anything above that I would have to bear. Ah well no point fighting over a few ringgits, even if 5 Star calling rates means that with 6 Ringets I hardly get to say HELLO.
We had an early brekkie and then were driven to the airport. My 2 new friends were again great company as we were talking about a lot of things. They were both Indians returning from Japan and we had extended discussions about cultural differences between India, Australia and Japan. At the airport there was a further delay of an hour before we actually took off. The plane soon was circling over Bangalore waiting for a landing clearance and the sight of Utility building told me that I was indeed home. Immigration was slow and the baggage handling "forces" had offloaded my baggage from the carousel even before I got there. Obliviious to the fact, I waited and waited and waited and waited. After a good 30 mins, a Malaysian airlines official announced that all bags from the KL flight have been offloaded. Phew!!! luckily my bags were not lost in transit. UC I was in India and I had started seeing the positive side of everything :D:D:D:D
Reaching India was more a sense of Relief, than anything else, after spending over a day in travel.
Keep tabs on this space for more on my holiday!!!!!!
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