My Musings

TR Venugopal is known to us since 1971 from our Poona days. He is now Senior Accounts officer at DMRL, Hyderabad. He performed the marriage of his daughter JANANI with Natarajan at Nanganallur Chennai on Sunday, 10th July 2011. Vijaya and I attended it. Venugopal on the right, his wife Saraswathi on the left We left house at 6-10 AM in Wagon-R and reached the Rama Mandiram Kalyana Mandapam at Nanganallur by 6-50. The Mandapam is just next to the Anjaneyar Koil. There we met my former colleagues at ERDL Cell, DRDL Hyd. Ganesan, Nair, Jagadeesan, Saibaba, Subba Reddy, Srinivasa Reddy, S Venugopala Murthy, Venkataramaiah, Ramakrishnaiah, Kaleeswaran, Mohan Rao, Rangarajan etc; they had come with their wives. Ganesan and his wife Gomathi with us NAIR (behind Vijaya) his daughter PREETHI (next to Vijaya) Preethi's husband (Airforce, Agra) is also seen. Venkataramaiah, Srinivas Reddy, Ramakrishnaiah, ME, SVG Murthy, his wife Vijaya, Saibaba's wife, Saibaba Ramalakshmi,...

We shifted to Thiruvanmiyur on 29th May 2011. Since then Vijaya and i are "exploring" the area. First, we went to Sri Marundeeswarar Koil which is about 10 minutes walk from our house. Then, i went to the local vegetable market. Nowadays i go to this market every other day morning to purchase vegetables and fruits. This market experience is totally different from what we had at Kilpauk, Raja Annamalaipuram, or Besantnagar. I won't call Thiruvanmiyur experience is the best but it is not bad either. On 19th June, we walked to see the Pambhan Kumaraguru Swamigal Koil, nearby. Then, yesterday, 5th July, we left house by 4-45PM and walked to Thiruvalluvar Nagar beach (Thiruvanmiyur beach.) It is 50 minutes walk, a long distance even for us ! The beach is quite nice; i had visited it four years ago and now it is totally revamped and good. We walked back to house. Earlier, on 1st July we went to Marina beach. What a difference between the two beaches! Today we went to Marund...

MOHAN, cousin of Vijaya, fixed the marriage of his son VINODH with ANUSHA at Madurai; he and his family came to our house to invite us. Earlier he had informed about the event and asked me to book tickets for GNY family. Accordingly, I booked nine tickets by Pandiyan Express of 27th June and return tickets by Pandiyan of 29th. Mohan - Thilaka We two left Chennai on 27th night for the marriage. Indira, Lalita-Kumar, Mohan, Akila-Raja-Jyotsna travelled with us. Ramani and Padma manni joined us at Madurai Jn on 28th morning. Janani came on 29th morning. The Group [Janani missing] At Madurai the marriage was at Brahmana Kalyana Mahal, SS Colony; we were put up in Hotel Aarathy, near Koodal Azhagar koil. It was about 5 km away but bride's father provided with a van. Mohan's brothers and sisters attended the function. The marriage was celebrated in a nice manner. Vinodh and Anusha became husband and wife. Vratham Jaana Vaasam Oonjal ANUSHA - VINODH We went to Koodal Azh...

Amma's Sraththam - 2011 We three brothers (Sugavanam, Jayaraman, and self) perform the sraththams of our parents every year at Chennai; our elder brother Sundaresan performs at Dapodi, Pune. Amma's Thithi is Aani, Krishna Paksham, Ashtami. This year (2011) amma's thithi came on Thursday, 23rd June. This is the first ever sraththam that we are performing at our OWN house (Flat F2, No 3, Kalakshetra Avenue, 2nd Street, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 41). All these years we were doing it in rented houses. Vijaya and I purchased the grocery items and Vaathiyar saamangal from Marthandam Stores, Lakshmipuram, Thiruvanmiyur. Varatti from a kadai near Marundeeswarar koil. A day before the thithi, we purchased all the vegetables, fruits incl vaazhaipazham from Thiruvanmiyur market. On 23rd morning I purchased Vaazhai Ilai and Pushpam from  North Mada Street Thiruvanmiyur. This year too I missed the Mylapore ambience. Except for blouse bits from Amudam Stores, we didn't do any...

Arun - Gayathri booked their flat with XA realtors nearly 18 months ago, in late 2009. The plot is at Padur village, in Old Mamallapuram Road (OMR, now Rajiv Gandhi Salai) 22 kms away from Thiruvanmiyur. The registration papers were signed by Arun at Tirupporur on 19 Nov 2009 (read here). The flat was ready and the Key was handed over to A-G on 5th April 2011. Even though A-G wished to have the Gruha pravesam in Feb/March itself, the builder wasn't ready; finally the GP at the new house was performed on 17 April 2011 (details here). Once GP was performed A-G started with the woodwork (modular kitchen etc). New electrical fittings like split AC, fans, lamps were bought and fixed in the new house. Date for shifting was fixed as 4th June. As we two had shifted to Thiruvanmiyur a week earlier, we went to A-G's house (10 minutes by walk) by 10AM with lunch. We were ready but the packer didn't turn up. He promised he would come the next morning at 6 itself! Next morning...

We shifted from A1/14/1, "SAIRAM", 22nd Cross Street, Besantnagar, Chennai 600090 on the evening of Sunday, 29 May 2011 to our own house at Kalakshetra Avenue, Thiruvanmiyur. This is the fifth house we have lived in Chennai since our coming to Chennai in Dec 2001. First was the Mandapam road house in New Avadi road (Dec,Jan), Kilpauk, then was the Aspiran Garden house (Feb 2002 to 30 Aug 2005) at Kilpauk, third was the Karpagam Avenue house (30-August-2005 to 28 Nov 2009), the 4th was the Besantnagar house (28-Nov-2009 to 29 May 2011) This is a newly constructed house owned by Krithika and Arvind. The structure that was there earlier was brought down and this construction started. The bhoomi-poojai was performed on 21 Jan 2010. The ground level will be the parking place and above this will be 2 floors; the southern side will be for the erstwhile owner of the site; on the northern side, Arvind will have the 1st floor and Mr. Ganapathysubramanian (Krithika's father) wi...

I started writing blog-posts on 14th July 2004. I have four blogs now - My Musings, En Ennangal (Tamil), My Grand-daughters, Sampoornam Vilas (recipes and cookery). Yesterday - 07 May 2011 - i wrote and posted my 500 th post ! Year-wise, in 2004 i wrote 14 posts. 2005= 7 posts 2006= 27 2007= 71 2008= 86 2009= 129 2010= 124 2011 (07 May) = 18 I wrote the maximum about Mylapore in 25 posts Vishakha Hari in 24 posts Velukkudi Krishnan in 22 posts.   rajappa 08 May 2011 1000 AM