London Experiences

(31st May - 6th June 05)

- Dragging 2 huuuge suitcases and switching 3 underground lines!!! Thanks to my friend maams and his roommate , i managed it :)

- Ordering a fancy coffee for 2 Pounds which came in a cup exactly 1.5 inches in height and 1 inch in diameter, when the guy on the next table got a bigger cup for 1 pound...

-Getting directions from a Red Coat.. :D

- Hopping on and off the local buses just to check out arbitrary streets which caught my attention.... I just loved these buses which had all the stops listed out...... :) ...

- Loved the tubes too... Checking out the office-going crowd in their formal attire is a treat to any fashion lover....

- Donning a skirt in a restroom adjacent to the underground like just another Londoner woman changing from work clothes to party wear....

-Eating a hot waffle with chocolate and whipped cream on Oxford street...

-Window shopping on Oxford Street..

-Watching the artists create awesome portraits on Leciester Square...

- Trying not to stare at the couple making out right across me in the tube like it was what I did everyday!!!

- Touring alone... Something a lot of my friends said they would never do!!!


Things I want to do or do differently...

- Not waste 11 pounds in seeing the royal gallery or mews...
(money was dear !!! )

- The London Eye wasn't a great thing either...

- I missed clubbing and dining in London because I was touring alone.... Heard Cafe De' Paris is happening..

- Though I enjoyed staying with a friend, next time I do want to be in a hostel... where I can meet different people... I wish I had gone to some pubs , just to strike up some conversation with the people there...

- All Women attn : don't step into London without jazzy bangles, long earrings, and fancy skirts !!

- Must Shop !!!!!!!

- Do opera's happen in London? Want to see one!

More pics coming here!!!

In Love With London....

(31st May- 6th June 2005)

This place was a part of my fantasies...I had read about it, I had dreamt about it, I had lived in it with all my characters.....And I finally got to see it....

London just came alive to me ....... Since 4th standard in school, when I started on Enid Blyton's ,all the books I read about were all set in London...Be it Poirot , Sherlock Holmes , Wuthering Heights, Emma, Charlotte Bronte, Treasure Island, Scarlet Pimpernal, St. Clares & Malory Towers or just my history book... Georgette Heyer was the last of the this series who had fuelled my imagination and my love for this place... What with her Genteel Ladies going to bath for the Season or riding up Grosvenor's square in their horse drawn carriages or going to Hyde park for an evening ride........

The city has an air about it. Most of the buildings are representative of Britain's past. The architecture (specially in the city of Westminster) in limestone and gray , with Ornate carvings, you can feel the weight of her history , culture and the power she had once upon a time wielded.

These old buildings, the bridges, the Thames, the redbrick bay windowed houses, the creepers on the walls , narrow streets, Modern coffee houses and pubs in quaint buildings, red coats, small olden day like black taxis, and the buzzing 21st century crowd - all add up to the Soul of the city.

And like a child in a toy store I reveled in going to all these places like Bond street, Grosvenor's square, picadilly, Gloucester, Hyde park..... I could close my eyes and almost imagine and feel the 18th century era......

I took an unlimited bus/underground pass for a week and chose to check the places out by myself, instead of taking the famous Bus Tour. I started off with Buckingham palace, The Mews, James Park... Walked all the way to Westminster abbey and checked out the Big Ben , and the parliamentary buildings. Then I took the buses to places like bond street, trafalgar's square , Gloucester , bakers street......

Next day saw me exploring Greenwich, the trinity college of music, taking a ride on the Thames, going up the London eye . The highlight of the day was the Musical I went to -"The Phantom of the Opera" ..... There are 2 - 3 roads which have a lot of theatres ( for musicals) and the whole place is called as theatreland... And what a kick I got out of checking this otherwise just-another-area-in-London....I am such a sucker for fancy names!!!!!!!! The musical was very nice, the props amazing... Next time I plan to sit right close to the stage instead of on the balcony ( view not too good!!)...






Day 3...I looked up some walking routes... i got to know about hampstead heath - this place seems familiar , but i cant place it!!! a lovely park yet again in a quite posh locality....I also chanced upon 'Keats house' and a pizzeria which was earlier the place were George Orwell worked!!!

Day 4...Maams and me hit oxford street, regent street , leciester square for some window shopping, and some people watching!

Another thing I loved about London- was the fashion ... The way the women dress... fancy skirts, stockings, boots, scarves, tops on tops, a lot of colors all at once , yet not so jazzy.... I still am yet to figure out how they bear the cold in their mini's.....

As I made plans to leave for london, I was warned of their cold fish and formal nature... contrary to that, I found quite a lot of them very friendly ... :) And every moment over here was more than I ever thought it would be!!!!

Made up my blog...

3 night outs... hours of trying to understand the essence of the template.... wrestling with adobe and html, editing , preiewing and re-publishing ...I managed to deck my blog up....:) ofcourse, thanks a ton to blogskins.com for those lovely skins which provided me with a lot of the code (though I couldn't find a skin which was out-doorish )......

ps: I surprise myself... I promised never to see another piece of code.. and here i was breaking my head for a blog!!!!

Back to basics... mayavaram

To my grandma, it is important that everyone of her children and grandchildren come and see her at their ancestral place....I remember when I was 6 or 7, She was very upset that her children and grandchildren have no time to come back to the place of their childhood...She told me ' Everyone is just taken in by the charm f the city that they have forgotten their roots'... And I solemnly promised her then 'Don't worry paati (grandma) ... I will come back Every year..'

After a 5 hour we reached Mayiladuthurai..... The place where my father and his brothers n sisters grew up...... I was coming back after 7 years.... As we entered the house, my aunt rushed to greet us and hugged me ..... My grandma was smiling....

6:00 P.M...My aunt would wake me up..... We would go to the temple gardens nearby and spend around 2 hours plucking flowers .... My aunt would be busy delegating work to her retinue... There would be garlands made the previous nights, which would be then placed on each of the deity's... My dad and grand dad would go on their usual walk around the place...If Kaveri was full, we would head to the banks of the river for our baths.. .. Else , we would bathe in the backyard , out in the open, under the azure sky... After breakfast, the next few hours would go in making fresh garlands for the day..... My aunt and her "gang" would discuss theological issues .... When I was around , (and wasn't engrossed in a book) those hours would be filled with stories of lord shiva and his better half, his devotees and their tales of devotion.... My grand mom and grand dad would bicker over trivial issues....

4:00 P.M.... We would rush to the other temple 'Periya Kovil' ( meaning Big temple) to distribute garlands.... There would be just a handful of localites, and I would feel as if I owned the place.....

7:30 P.M... My grandma would go and sit in the vaasal ( house entrance) and greet the people on the roads.... She knew everyone, and everyone knew her......

9:00... After dinner, while sharing betel leaves and tobacco, the elders would discuss the "what's up with whom in mayiladuthurai" ......

15 years later....
My aunt was still over-active and vigorous with her schedule.... I chose to go for a jog with my dad to the nearby grounds and was surprised to see some health conscious girls jogging too... The ground was crowded with people from all age groups.... Enroute home, we saw one of the big departmental stores that had come up.... There were fancier cars on the roads... And ofcourse the prevalence of cell phones ..... The people were still the same, women clad in their sarees ... The number of women in salwars seemed to have gone up above Nil...

In the evening, we hit the Periya kovil... The temple was still as beautiful as before.... Calm and serene ...Most importantly, un crowded and un hurried... One can really feel the beauty of the olden day architecture over here....

The Mayuranathaswami temple is also called the 'Big temple' of the town, and the goddess here protects her devotees who surrender and worships her. Hence she is called Abayambikai alias Anjal Nayaki ( Abayam means giving protection ). Famous poets like Appar, Sambandhar, Arunagiri nadhar have rendered songs in praise of the deity. Sri Muthuswamy Dikshidar and Saint Thyagaraja who were among the famous Sangeetha Mummoorthis, met in this temple and sang in praise of the god. Dikshidar has rendered nine krithis on Abayambikai called Navavarna krithis.

The other temple I frequented was Sri Kasi vishwanatha Swamy temple.This temple can conveniently be called as a branch of Kasi Vishwanatha temple. Pilgrims, who cant go to Kasi, can worship here and get the same effect. This is situated on the banks of Cauvery.

If one wants to go temple hunting for their architectural beauty, temples such as these are a must see....calm and serene , one can enjoy their beauty in peace.. The acoustics of these temples is excellent... The stones used for construction are such that the temple interiors are always cooler.... The kolam (pond) within the temple premise is supposed to have medicinal value, which was why a dip in the pool was mandated.... Temples also used to act as a community centre those days, an education centre , a place for concerts and performances , a place where the kings could serve food and give away charities...... They also served as a refuge for people in situations like storms....

When we got back, my grandma was in the vaasal waiting for us.... A cold bath under the starlit sky and hot dinner......

Cell phones had come and gone... New apartments... The internet revolution had touched mayavaram too.... mayavaram is now on the www...... But life in my gran's household was frozen in time......

The wiki on Mayavaram. Some of the temple info was taken from here.

I am trying to get some pics.... Will be put up once I unearth them !

Chennai ...My home for 17 years

Being a chennaite, i get a lot of people asking me about what's hot and happening here- and i never know what to say... I have spent 17 years here - but school days and child hood aren't times when one explores "hang-outs" of the city... While i have resolved to check out every inch.... , i am gonna put down a few things i love about this city...

Chennai is a huge city. Even though i have lived there for 17 years, there are still places i haven't even set foot on and places i haven't heard off... We lived in Adyar, with most of my relatives , friends , my school, my hangouts and places I've been to within 20 km radius...


The beach....

The one thing that i love about Chennai - one thing I wish I could carry with me, where ever I go -Elliot's beach ( in Besant Nagar ) . You can find all kinds of people here, families, girls and guys in there most fashionable , old couples going for walks... It's a perfect people watching place. In my view, a quiet patch on the beach is the best romantic spot...

And ofcourse nothing like having manga in kara podi ( mango slices sprinkled with chilli powder) or kadalai ( boiled groundnut) while sitting under a star-lit sky, watching the dark waves crash against the shore.....

The Broken bridge ....

This is on the Elliots beach but at a spot which people don't venture into , because of the slums.... This is a pretty part of the beach undisturbed with vendors, smokers and traffic..... Gets a little stinky (on the bridge)..But some org's are trying to restore the place and keep it clean.

( am soon going to get a pick of this stretch of the beach!)

Theosophical Society..

Though this place has been there since independence, my dad discovered it just few years back while on the look out for nice places to jog.... And am i glad that he did!!!!

founded by Anne Besant during our independence struggle...The scrub forests of ages before has still been retained in these premises. All the buildings and houses are of the British Raj times, and quite a few of them are very picturesque, amidst a mini forest..... There is a very pretty church, a mosque , a Hindu and Buddhist temple on the premises......One can walk from the entrance all the way to the beach where the broken bridge lies.

We go for a jog in TS, all the way to the beach to watch the sun rise.....

The ECR ....

The best road in chennai for an unhampered long drive... (the pic above is off the back waters along ECR)...

Theatre....

Chennai has a very active (English) theatre scene ( something i wasn't aware of till a couple of years)... Madras Players, Magic Lantern, Evam are some of the very popular groups... Almost every other weekend will have a play or 2 being staged... ofcourse not Broadway, but they are good 2 hours of entertainment..... Got into the habit of watching these plays after college....

Shopping at Pondybazar and panthean road....

These 2 places are any "heavy shoppers" glee... While u'll find the latest jewelry at 75% less than what lifestyle tags on it at pondybazaar, panthean road is the place for cheap ( as in less expensive), lovely cotton material.... They have such pretty dupattas too these days....