My Musings

When we shifted to Karpagam Avenue six years ago in August 2005, i opened/transferred a PO account to Raja Annamalaipuram. From then on, for the past six years, myself and Vijaya used to visit this Post Office every month without fail. The post office was very near to our house,just 10-12 minutes walk. Even when we shifted to Besantnagar and then to Kalakshetra Avenue, we continued visiting the PO every month. I paid my telephone bills every month at this PO. Though the PO was a not a modern structure, its staff were efficient ( i have written a couple of blog-posts on this) and i got my jobs done very quickly. Yesterday i pre-closed the account (their interest rate is too low) and today i collected the cheque. Our association with Raja Annamalaipuram PO has thus come to an end after 6 years. We came out of the PO today with a heavy heart . Thank you all the staff at the PO. rajappa 12:50 noon 12-10-2011

We celebrate Kolu every year and this year(2011) was no exception. We started the preparations on 28th Sep when the slotted-angles and sheets were taken down from the attic and steps (படி) were erected. The dolls were also taken from the attic, dusted, and generally cleaned. This is the first KOLU in our new, own house at Kalakshetra Avenue.   With this step over, Krithika decorated the place and arranged the dolls. Arvind took care of serial lights. Thus the Kolu started this year. Guests started coming from the next day. Aditi was ecstatic and excited. 3 Oct 2011 Today we hired a driver and we two, Krithika, Aditi went to Ambattur first. We took the Chennai bypass road to reach their house. Then to Lalita-Kumar's house at Avadi. Lunch there. Then to Vadapalani (Jayaraman-Kalyani). On our way back, we went to Mrs Saveetha's house at Adyar. She is a close friend of Krithika. Back home after 8 hours' travel. 5 Oct 2011. Today is Saraswathi Poojai. We perfrormed it nic...

IMPORTANT WARNING AND CAUTION: Patients, feeble and weak hearted, those having high/low BP, and other sensitive persons are cautioned before reading further. Be forewarned. VACHATHI . A sleepy hamlet at the foothills of the Sitheri Hills about 12 kms from Harur, in Dharmapuri Dist of Tamilnadu. Inhabited by extremely poor, illliterate Adivasis. On June 20, 1992 (nineteen years ago) about 155 forest personnel and 108 policemen, and 6 revenue dept officials (a total of 269 personnel) swooped on this sleepy village and raided, searching for sandalwood, allegedly hidden by villagers. In the name of inquiry, villagers, mainly women, were dragged out of their homes and fields and assembled under a banyan tree where they were allegedly beaten up; then, they were bundled out to the Forest Ranger's Office in Harur where they were allegedly subjected to savage brutality. 18 women were picked randomly and were gang-raped. 103 women,including a pregnant one, were remanded to Salem Centr...

Appa's Sraththam - 2011 Appa's Thithi is Aavani, Sukla, Dwadasi. This year (2011) appa's thithi came on Thursday.  08 September. This is the second sraththam we perform at Kalakshetra avenue. Vijaya and I purchased all the items like grocery, vegetables, fruits, Vetrilai, pushpam, Vennai, and particularly Vazhai Ilai from around Thiruvanmiyur. This time too got the long variety of pudalangkaai. I purchased Vazhai Ilai from the road-side kadai near Reliance Fresh on 8th morning. Ilais were very expensive this time. Savithri came from Hosur on the previous evening and she, I and Vijaya cut all the vegetables. On 8th, all the three of us  got up by 5-30 in the morning and Vijaya and Savithri started work. Jayaraman, Kalyani, Purnima came by 7-15. Then Saroja, and later Sugavanam. Padma, Prakash, Rajeswari arrived by 10-30. Our regular sastrigal mama had told he wont be coming for the sraththam, so he deputed another sastrigal, Ramani by name from Mylapore. He came by...

This year's Vinayakar Chathurthi was on 01 September, Thursday. We celebrated the festival at our own house, 3 Kalakshetra Avenue. On the previous evening, Arvind and Krithika purchased the Poojai items including Pillaiyar idol. On 01st, we started decorating the poojai room. The idol was also decorated and kept ready for the poojai. Arvind and Krithika did all this, while Vijaya took care of Neivethyams and the meals. She prepared two types of Kozhukkattai (Thengai and Ellu), methu vadai, payasam. I started the poojai at 11-30. Arvind and aditi performed. It was over by 1PM. We had lunch, phoned many relatives re poojai. Sruti had come the previous evening and left after poojai. rajappa 11:40AM 02 Sept 2011

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...