Pollachi trip-1

She has been looking forward to it for weeks - to our Pollachi visit. My mother needed a change from her monotony in Mysore. My wife and I wanted to look up Sambu chitti-chittappa as we could not make it to her grandson Dubai Karthik's wedding in Chennai.
We decided to do Pollachi when Bhagya is with us in Mysore, on a visit from New Delhi. We finalised our travel plan the day after she arrived, on Thursday last. And mother was all packed and ready by Saturday, for our Monday start. Such was her excitment level,for our three-day trip.

Much of the road from Nanjangud to Aasanur(Tamil Nadu)is bad; has been so for years. Besides,there are no 'public conveniences' along our roads,like they have 'rest-rooms' along highways abroad. We drove into a PWD Inspection bungalow at Chikkahalli
reservoir(near Chamaraja Nagar), and talked the caretaker into allowing us to use the bathroom facility. During our last Pollachi trip,an year back, Raghu, retired
irrigation dept.engineer and my wife's brother-in-law, who was with us, had arranged for us to halt for breakfast at this place.
Having freshened up we were ready for the three-hour drive To Coimbatore, where we had lunch break at R S Puram Annapurna. Stepping out of Annapurna we headed for the Velliangiri foot-hills,40 km from Coimbatore,to visit Dhyanalinga at Isha Foundation centre.

The meditation hall, dome-like, is eminently structured for its purpose - meditation. Visitors are required to leave their cell-phone and camera outside before entering the place where pin-drop silence is maintained. Sound of even the rustling flap of a saree or trousers can disturb the quiet of this place. Volunteers,communicating in gestures, ensure zero-noise level.
Leaving Isha Yoga center, we drove up the jungle road for another km or two, to a secluded Shiva temple. Pujari there said this place was a staging-point for pilgrims who undertake an arduous trek to the hill-top shrine, across seven hills. There are well laid stone foot-steps for crossing the first four; the final three hills have no such steps and the climb is said to be rather steep. The trek across the hills takes six hours, and visits there are restricted to adult males and seniors (both male and female), and only during certain months in a year.
My late grand-father Venkataramana Iyer, they say, used to make annual pilgrimage on foot to this temple. On our way back from the temple we happened to pass through Telugu Brahmin Street, where he lived and I had spent much of my primary school days. My
grand-father, a police head-constable, was a prominent figure in the street.A severe disciplinarian at home ,as he was in uniform, I felt mildly intimidated in his presence even though he never ill-trated or used any harsh words. Grand-father even had a smile for me and granted time-off from studies on odd eveings,if he was pleased with my compliance with his discipline.
This is how our street looks today. I could hardly recognize our house; and the only landmark by which we guessed its location is the primary school in front our house.
The school is among the very few structures that retains its shape. And the building, still being used as school, qualifies to be a heritage site. The school was founded in 1874 by A S Rama Rao. As its student I used to see him taking rounds of school. He wore his
trade-mark fur cap; and diamond-studded ear-rings. With a thick and well-set mushtache Mr Rama Rao instilled fear among us. My uncle Tirumurthy Iyer served as
school-head at the Ramarao school before moving on to the Veerasami School at Raja Street as head-master.
Reached home at Pollachi, late afternoon. The house in the foreground is Sambu chitti's ;the middle one belongs to Sita chitti; and the green structure at the far end, partly visible, belongs to their elder sister and my mother.
The lane that leads to our family houses that are obscured by the houses on the street-front. The Chakrapani family had once seen better days; and I remember coming here, to
spend school vacations with my meternal grand-father Chakrapani Iyer at his British-type cottage, with vast open space in front.
The family land stretched to the end of this street. Our property included even the space on which the municipality laid this tarred road. As a mark of gratitude for the gift of land for public use they named this street after my grand-father Chakrapani Iyer.

Pongal in Mysore

Pongal was different this year, in the sense that Bhagya, my sister in Delhi, joined us in Mysore to spend some time with our mother. Her visits has been an annual routine ever since we shifted residence to Mysore. On one occasion (a couple years back) she came to spend some six weeks to 'babysit' mother when my wife and I were away in the US.
Her train was late. Bhagya made it to Mysore around 11 p m. At breakfast the next morning she tasted some left-over pongal, which, incidentally, tastes sweeter the morning after.

We had, on Pongal day a couple of visitors, women with whom my wife became acquainted during her frequent visits to the neighbourhood temples. In karnataka they have a tradition of women visiting their friends with assorted offerings, including pieces of cane and thil. Bhagya, knowedgeable about rites and rituals says that in our book accepting thil from someone makes us indebted towards the one offering thil. In Karnataka, it carries a different meaning and offerings of thil is an accepted form of social ettiquete on Sankranthi Day.

I don't know if she brought thil. But then she is our family. Among our visitors was my wife's niece Savitha, with her husband Vinay and the kids, Diya and Samarth.



Savitha makes it a point to visit us on festival days to seek our blessings, notably that of my mother.

Father's fifth anniversary

It has been five years since my father V Gopalan died, aged 94. The date was January 5, 2004. But we observed the anniversary today, Jan.9 , in accordance with the Hindu calender. My father's death came two days after Vaikunta Ekadesi, considered so auspicious that those who die on Ekadesi Day are said to be destined for a place in Heaven. My father missed out by a couple of days.

His father Venkataramana Iyer made it. He died on Vaikunta Ekadesi. I was a schoolboy then. Grandfather had been a head constable of police at Coimbatore in Pre-Independence days. And I was brought up by him and my grandmother in Coimbatore during my primary and mid-school days. I was in 6th std. when my grandfather died. This photo with my father was taken when I was schooling in Coimbatore, during one of his periodical visits from New Delhi.

My father, in the central government service, was posted in New Delhi; and his job involved regular touring that kept him away from Delhi for two to three weeks every month. Besides, the offices of the central government those days shifted to Shimla during summer months. The nature of his job was not conducive to my schooling. It was only after my grand-father's death I moved to Delhi with my parents; and continued my schooling in New Delhi.

My parents settled in Pollachi after my father's retirement. And it was in Pollachi where he died. That my wife and I were not with him when my father expired remains an enduring regret in my life. We happened to be visiting our son and daughter-in-law in San Francisco; and we couldn't make it back to Pollachi till three days after my father's death. Irony was that my sister Bhagya, who had come from Delhi to Pollachi to spend a couple of weeks with our parents, left for New Dehi only a couple of days before our father died. She however made it to the funeral.

The boys in wonderland

The photograph says it all. For Sidharth Disneyland , L A, is the best place to be in, anytime. During Christmas time the place morphs into a paradise for children. Disneyland gets lit up and ready to receive an onrush of children and their parents during the Christmas break.

Nikhil & Sidharth in paradise. Among the milling crowd is someone in wheel-chair.
The doll here apprears to convey that it is okay for you to be seen with a walking stick. Which, for elderly children, is what a stroller is to Nikhil and Sidharth.

Nikhil is out there with his role-model brother, right at the railings. You can't get any closer to the scene of action at Disneyland.
To begin at the beginning, the brothers are seen here at their hotel room, getting ready for Disneyland. Conveniently for the kids, and more so for their parents who get tired chasing their hyper-excited children all over place, they stayed at the hotel located within the Disneyland complex. By way of bonus the boys can get a Disneyland darshan from their balcony, like my wife would want to have, the Chamundi Hill darshan, from the terrace of our flat in Mysore.

These pictures ought to give you an idea of the excitement level of the children; and of what it takes for their parents to keep pace with them.Sidharth would do anything to keep them on the move , including pushing his own stroller. Sidharth's mom kept the children on a diet of fruits, cookies and juice right through the day so that they could take in as much of the attractions as they could, without having to waste time at the food queue at the in-house cafetaria. For Nikhil they had home-cooked upma they brought from San Ramon. Besides, Meera had carried an electric rice-cooker, just in case young Nikhil fancied pappu-anna.


Snapshots of model children who were at their behaviourial best throughout the L A trip. A touch of excitement and a bit mischief are okay, even welcomed by their parents. Besides, Sidharth and Nikhil had so much going for them that they simply didn't have time for tantrums.

Though he didn't have enough of Disneyland, Sidharth wouldn't leave Los Angeles without looking up his friend, who entertains him to some music. The young man, sure, has a way of holding his guitar. Nikhil appears uninterested in the musical proceedings.


The sights and colours that still linger in Sidharth's mind as he went back to school, at San Ramon.

New Year in Mysore

We usually sleep through the new year.Which is what we did this time as well - my wife, mother and I. But then 2009 is different. The difference is the presence of Ashika,our young friend from Coonoor, who is spending her Christmas break with us. We wanted to treat the nine-year-old with cakes and badam-kheer. She came up with a bright idea.
Why don't we make it a birthday cake for 2009, asked Ashika. And why not? Kavitha who helps us with household chores ordered a cake from Raghavendra bakery in Devaraj Urs Road.
And the cake sat on our dining table waiting for Ashika to do the honours. The cake-cutting was scheduled for tea-time.

Ashika blows off the candle.

With Ashika cutting the cake we could declare the birth of 2009 , in our Mysore residence.