KUMBAKONAM -1

Note : This is my first attempt at spiritual and religious stuff . It surely is not my cup of tea. Kindly excuse me for any inadvertent mistakes that might have crept in. Many fundaes which I have acquired might seem trivial, nevertheless read on .All corrections, bouquets, brickbats are welcome :)

After infinite planning and confusion thanks to my cousin ,I was finally able to make it to the temple town of Kumbakonam with her . We left by a non AC, non deluxe , ear splitting and headache causing DVD coach day bus on Thursday (10th ) at 8am and reached at about 2-30 types. It was a total scorcher of a trip.The first few words of my paati left me sad for the rest of the day - Enna kanna thala mudi poye pochu , karuppa, olli aa irukke. Chennai varache evvalavu nanna vellaya busku busku nnu irunde . Paarka romba kashtama irukku. Looks like glamour enhancement has to be given some serious thought. After thulping awesome food and facing usual stuff like you are eating very less I crashed. My cousin and I set out to cover the local temples late in the evening. The Big Street has a Raaamar koil , Anjaneyar koil, Koorathazhwan Sannidhi, Udayavar Sannidhi and Chakrapani Koil ( Chakrathazhwar - who is an incarnation of Lord's Sudharshan Chakra. Btw learnt that all Azhwars are incarnations of weapons and accessories of Lord Vishnu ) . A small connecting street leads to Sarangapani Koil , which is one of the 108 Divyadesams (No 14 - Thirukudandhai). With the exception of Sarangapani koil we covered all . My Chitthi had just returned then from a week long south tour covering about 25 Divyadesams and we spent the rest of the time with my Chitthi and her daughters.

The following morning we started off with Suriyanar Koil near Kumbak and Uppiliappan Koil and NagaNathaswami in ThiruNageswaram ( 8 kms off Kumbak). Uppiliiappan Koil , another of 108 (No 16 - ThiruVinnagar), is probably one of the most important and famous temples for Vadagalai Iyengars . The Lord was decked in Thanga kavacham - total gold from top to bottom. It is a very rare privilege and my paati and mama who have been in Kumbak for more than 50 years have not been able to witness this grand spectacle. It was a sight to behold and I just could not think of praying anything at upon looking at the Lord. Btw Uppiliiappan Koil is also referred to as Tirupati of the South as He is known to protect every devotee and fulfill each of their desires. The prasadam here is given without salt ( Uppu illadha appan I suppose) and the saltless Puliyodharai was as divine as the ones in any other temple. NagaNathaswami Koil , which is just 5 mins away, has a Rahu Kshetram and is visited to ward off the doshams that are associated with the stars (Dosha Pariharam). Milk is poured over a black idol of Rahu during Rahukalam and is viewed in batches . It is said that the white milk turns blue on being poured. It did turn blue but I felt if white milk is viewed in a black blackground it will surely be seen as some other colour. No more fundaes either on colours and physics or on legends , the milk did appear blue, so I'd better shut up.

This was the first innings for the day. We went back home , thulped again , rested for a while and the second innings resumed at 2-45 types. My Chitthi wanted to go to Koothanoor which has a famous Saraswati Koil . My paati just then intervened and told us to go to Thirusirupulioor, (Divyadesam No 11), which was just 10 min away from Koothanoor. She remarked that the Lord there was so small in the sayanam form that one could easily carry the idol at the hip. The idol was really small but the state of the temple was in shambles. A typical description would be "ee kaka illa koil la" . There was no power either. The temple was small but very airy. The Moolavar is Arumakadalamudhan and the Utsavar is Kripasamudrar.In the Thiruveedi of Perumal, there is an idol of Puli Muni (His actual name is Vyakrapadar).Legend has it that Lord was pleased with his penance and granted him a boon to have the hands, legs and fingers of a Tiger which would enable Puli Muni to cover more Divya Desams .The sayanam is Bhujanga Sayanam.It’s the smallest Thiru Oruvam in Bhujanga Sayanam.The Azhwars felt that Perumal here was too small.So Perumal asked the Azhwars to view his Thiru Oravam in Thirukannamangai ( Divya Desam No 27.Moolavar is Bakthavastala Perumal. I heard it is one of the biggest Thiru Oravams - not very sure about this).

contd. in the next post

WEEKS- BEFORE AND AFTER

May 6th-12th :

At granny's place in Kumbakonam. Cracking food , many cousins, hazaar temples, nice fundaes. A memorable trip

May 13-20th :

Chennai on 14th.
3 temples - Tiruneermalai, Ashta Lakshmi Koil, Tiruvallikeni
Middle finger to mess- did not even register and thulped outside daily.
Infinite movies, many revisions.
Infi hours of crash

May 20th-26th :

Board train today. Munnar, Kochi, Kumarakom, Allepey, Thekkady

May 27th-June 26th :

Hyd :D

June 27th ............. (till maybe I get placed :P)

Sit alone in room without my dosth, sitcoms, movies,books, mug for CAT, GRE, do MTP etc etc

Chennai Nagaram urangum neram thanimai adarnthathu
Veyil sooper aa kollardhu…
Nangu kannadi suvarkalukulle nanum mezhukuvathiyum…
Thanimai thanimaiyo… Kodumai kodumaiyo…


Roughly Translated as :

Its night in Chennai City..
Sun killing me in a sooper manner..
And Wind comes via Ship and its walking on the streets now..
But in my room now…its only me and some candles..
Oh .. its very lonely…and lonely is pain..

There is a logical error I know. How can you have sun in the night ! Just to morph that song and indicate that the summer is horrible right now :P Reminds you of that sardar who wanted to land on sun when a fellow Surd tells him to go in the night :P

TA RA RUM PUM

Listen Rani! Please stop crying. We have had enough of it in Black , Paheli, Hum Tum , KANK . Give us a break.

UNNALE UNNALE

Scene in the airport where heroine's parents do pooja etc : Straight lift from HUM TUM

Scene where the Sada tells the hero to decide between friends or her : Straight lift from DCH

Similar scene where Vinay's friend calls Sada and tells he wasn't there in his room : DCH

The final scenes of Day 1, Day 2 etc : KAL HO NAA HO

And hazaar other straight lifts. Jeeva says " it is a whiff of fresh air ". He was partially right . A whiff of air only - fart . Like Salman's hawa ka jhoka in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Mark my words, stay away from the theatres. Kajol , please teach your sis Tanisha . Acting is not only showing cleavages. The only points worth mentioning are the neat ending, good picturization of June ponaal. The ULLAM KETKUME team has come a total cropper.

AAH SE AAHA TAK

Phew!!! What a sem! Surely would have beat my peak JEE prep days . Yesterday was the last paper.The only things in my life were assignments, projects, models, reports, seminars .We had to shoot a video for the hostel night and wing junta got shit pained with my eternal absence . Incidentally there was zero mug and needless to say got screwed royally in the end sem. I don't remember having slept before 4 am for the last month or so. I am still not vetty. A classmate threw another bomb yesterday saying 3 lab reports were pending . Somehow garnered enthu and finished one yesterday. Actually thinking of packing the other 2 . I am already half dead , add a couple of lab reports and stuff and soon there will be a " Requiem for a Desi " level movie :P

It was the same with all Dual Deg students because most of the projects were group ones. At one point of time I was with 3 groups , the sets not being disjoint though. I literally had to "allot" times and dates!!! Add to this some weekly presentations etc. I am shit pained with this pres and ppt. I would have given some 10 this sem . The summer interns have been another futile affair so far - Infinite rejects and cupaxe interviews . The only ray of light is a Bangalore company TIMKEN , the results of which are pending. Apparently these guys are world leaders in bearings ( yeah the same ones which you encountered in Engineering Drawing ) . It will be out today. Of course there is no tension whatsoever , if not an intern will start the " In partial fulfillment of my Mtech Degree" Dual Degree Project ( DDP ) . Else the regulars are always there - CAT , GRE , Kumbak trip etc.

Amidst this energy sapping , limbs crying , brain dying, stretching me beyond me physilogical and psychological limits , I managed to catch up a few Tam flicks . Mozhi was a very nice movie . Prakash Raj's timing and Jyo's performances were the highlight. Jyo , I will miss you . Pachaikili Muthucharam had the typical Gautham touch - awesome first half , nice songs and background music by Harris, 'cut the crap' dialogue , dull and protracted endings . He seems to be a huge fan of Scorcese and wants to have the same language and gore in Tam. As Kesavan once said - He puts maajar fight for the first half and appears to finish the second half in one night out or so. I love his movies but for the last half hour or so. It has been the same with all his movies - Minnale , Vettaiyadu , Kaakha etc. Pachaikili is worth a watch certainly though. Harris is totally rocking these days. Apart from the aforesaid movies Unnale Unnale has a couple of very good songs ( June ponaal , Vaikasi nilave etc) and has given good numbers in a gult movie Munna (Prabhas and Ileana) also. Good stuff, but Rahman is way ahead. ( Please don't include Sivaji . Yucky music :P )

This sem was over in a jiffy and I think I can live in totaal bliss next year. The grades will not be relevant anymore after this sem . There are not many courses either - just 2 next sem . 4th year has been good. I have discovered the joys of sitting under the teacher's notes , nodding my head in the class , writing down notes , submitting assignments on time etc for one full year. The team projects were the best part . The usual misunderstandings and verbal duels aside , there haven't been any problems at all . I am pretty satisfied with myself and decent grades will only be the icing on the cake. Actually I am not bothered about it right now, my deep sense of satisfaction overshadowing the smallest thoughts about grades :P

Coming up soon- senti and parting

CAPTIONS FOR MECHANICAL ENGINEERING T-SHIRT

Note : Some of you might find some parts of this post objectionable. Just read it and apreciate the creativity without dwelling much on it :P

In the mech forum here our guys were discussing the possible captions for our dept t-shirt. Some absolutely brilliant ones -

1) The cracker :

Elec T-shirt : Said God " Let there be light" and we took over.
Mech T-shirt : Said God "Let there be light" and we said "Lite ra mama"

2) I am a stud. I can screw from both sides. ( If you are bulbing , see what a stud is in images. Ensure that safe search is ON)

3) Where there is a drill , there is a way.

4) We're mechanical nuts. Screw the universe.

5) Since there are a huge number of U-shaped tubes in Thermal Power Engineering we shall call it "U-Tube - Sandcast Yourself!!!"

6) If you cant screw or you have gone nuts, God might have RGed you. Dont despair , come to us for better design.

7) From screwing to manufacturing , we do it all.

CRICKET,MOVIES,FOOD,BOOKS

Very much mean life for me.Probably books not much.Still nothing wrong in claiming that as long as there is no one to test me on the same!
We had our inter hostel cricket match against Ganga last weekend at the lush green CCG i.e Chemplast . Ganga was a tough opposition with about 6 insti players. It was going to be very tough for us. We batted first and lost our thulper within no time.In fact the very first ball! It was like I was padding up and adjusting the thigh pad and hear "Desi jaa bey" in no time! The new ball was swinging and decided to see it off. Some studd max quality left-arm pace bowling saw me eternally defending and it was the right thing to do then. Unfortunately I continued in the same vein and couldn't accelerate later and got out for a paltry but solid 10 with no edges or misses :P. Thanks to some quality batting ended with a decent 143 off 25. Ganga chased it in a professional manner. Mayura came up with a wise crack - "Ganga is mightier than Jamuna da. So it was obvious that they would defeat you"!After a slow but solid start without losing wickets they shifted gears and scored it in 20 overs. It was a clinical performance and we were beaten comprehensively. The singles in the middle overs did all the damage and they always kept the scoreboard ticking - the essentials of cricket in the middle overs. This was something we failed to do. The atmosphere was glum and our Sports Sec started crying. We were answerable to about 200 guys back in the hostel but what about our players who are answerable to 1 billion! Can't imagine what they would have fet like. A pic in my Orkut album gives a feel of the same.It has been a memorable journey with the red cherry, willow, Chemplast and more importantly the team for the past 4 years. I might play in the coming year but will surely miss this team, many of whom are my wing mates. The "under-lights" tennis ball encounters at Sangam too will be missed sorely.Imagine a high-voltage chasing match under lights with the entire opposition hostel booing and baying for your blood and your team requiring 3 off 1 ball level stuff. Well I have been there and done that. Also received a gold medal last year without being in the playing 11 , so not many regrets now. ( Reminds you of Parthiv and Amby Valley?).

To forget the cricketing debacle we went to Bessie beach . I wanted to thulp Southie stuff and so we headed straight to Murugan Idli. It was a a huge letdown, given the hype surrounding it, the scores of people waiting outside etc. It is simply too costly for the stuff served (single idly 6 bucks). The chutney was the only saving grace. Somehow I dont find Saravana Bhavan too much to my liking. Quality is good but quantity is minimal. I can show hazaar cheaper restaurants in Hyd with almost the same quality. Beats me totally, given that Chennai is the hub of all these idli-sambhar stuff. Infact my classmate, who had a one year stint with BITS Ranchi remarked that the 5 bucks Masala Dosai in the canteen there was the best he has ever eaten!
Murugan Idli : Just about ok, nothing extraordinary

Finally saw Quentin Tarantino's cult movie Pulp Fiction. I was not at all impressed by Kill Bill and thought Tarantino was over-rated. However I wish to change my stance now. Pulp Fiction is simply too good and the choice of the actors like John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson etc only made it better. I suppose Mani Ratnam's non-chronological way of portraying the events in Yuva was inspired by movies of this genre. Just can't wait to watch his first movie Reservoir Dogs which was Kaante in Hindi. A Tarantinoish description would be :It is fuckin awesome :P
Verdict : Strongly recommended. Hazaar gory and obscene,unparliamentary language.

This sem has squeezed me to the last drop literally. Just manged to read one book- Triple by Ken Follet. It is a classical espionage thriller revolving around Israel and its fights to acquire nuclear weapons. Totally engrossing and riveting stuff. Once again looking forward to reading Eye of the Needle. I think Fanaa had its inspiration from this. I am not sure though.