Suresh's Marriage

My dear Blog readers,
Yesterday was the day when one of my First close Pal got married. So its a very special day for us also.First, My hearty wishes to the couple Suresh & Sandhya for a happy married life.
In Tamil I should wish them with a Tamil proverb" Pathinarum petru peru valvu Valka" that means live happily with 16 knowledge or wealth. I need to clarify this with some elders at my village. So, this blog is about my trip to Kumbakonam, where the marriage happened.

Our trip started by getting in to Mysore- Mayiladuthurai (No 6232) at cantonment Railway station, Bangalore on Jan 30th. It included Musiri(His real name Satheeshkumar,we call him with his native( a Town in Tamilnadu, as nick name) , Batch ( its jayaganesh, my Labmate in Engineering),Perisu(Periyasamy) , Anitha (My Classmate) ,balaguru(Collegemate) and me( Gundu or blade, I don't know how many funny nick names I have got so far). We missed Mr SUMU ( Sundaramoorthy-a well known and proven expert in pulling our legs, we are still afraid of him) as he had got some urgent work at office. It always happens to him. We are also joined by Suresh's Collegaues from TI.
We had a really special Puliotharai( Tamarind rice)cooked by Perisu for dinner. The night was full of pulling each other's legs, mainly it was mine or Musiri's. Almost the whole compartment was entertained by our chit-chats.we talked about my crush for a girl and Musiri's cruch for his Ex-Colleague. It was a nice journey to Kumbakonam.

We were welcomed by Suresh's Childhood friend Sankar at the Kumbakonam Railway station. Movu( Mohan Raj, Chennai) and Madu(Ganeshamoorthy, Chennai) joined us in the morning.My Another pal Muthumanikam ( PULI- Tiger in Tamil) has flied from Mumbai to Chennai and informed me that he would be in Kumbakonam in the evening. I was expecting him too.
We took bath and had a Tamil Breakfast. We fought with each other in counting Number of the Idlis we had. Then we got in to a CAB and went straight to Tanjore BIG Temple.By this time, We were joined by Musiri's parents from Namakal. Its a Shiva Temple built by the Chola King Raja Raja Cholan (means King of Kings).I was personally enthralled by the Architecture miracle of my fore fathers and was happy to be there first time. ( I will post some pictures very soon), then we went to the Tanjore Palace,which houses the famous Saraswathi Mahal Library, a library has the rare Palm leaf collections of many many Tamil Literature.We couldn't go inside the library as it was closed for lunch. There I bought a nice Tanjore painting and many small handicrafts for my house( I wanted to buy more, but they didn't have Credit card facility and I lost my debit card in the morning). I bought for every Rupee I had and took Madu also with me, If I need more money to pay the bills.



Straight after lunch, we went to Tharasurm, another architectural Marvelous built by second Raja Raja Cholan 2 to 3 centuries later to the Big Temple.It has nice pillars that has thousands of dancing maneuvers , which may take 2 to 3 days to understand everything. We had seen a really nice Sculpture there in which If you hide one part, it would look like a bull and if you hide the another part , it would look like an elephant.Then we went to Swami malai a place which is part of six scared temples of Lord Murugan and then to Uppiliappan Temple ( Lord Vengadeswara Temple) and to Thiru Nageswaram a NavaGraha Temple where Lord Raghu Bagavan has a individual temple. We were back to Kalyana Mahal around 7 PM.

we are still expecting PULI from Chennai.After a small snack some of us went to Lee Garden Inn a decent and nice hotel nearby to the Mahal for Bachelor party. The party was very good, where I irritated all my Pals, which they told me next day morning. I should write another blog about this party,we will see that later.By this time DAS, my another classmate joined us.
Next day( Sunday) morning me and Movu were searching for a Salon for a Shave. you know both the salons we tried were full and some how we got in to the second one and we paid Rs 20 for a Shave. we pay only Rs 10 or 15 in Bangalore. When we tried on Saturday morning, both the salons were crowded like anything.We were thinking, if we are barbers at Kumbakonam, we can make more than we are getting right now.

after bath we reached Kalyana Mahal.Prabhu,My Friend from Pune,and Mohan from Chennai has already arrived and joined us for Breakfast). Many of us wore Dhoti, because we wanted to feel like Tamil Man. Vanitha My classmate also came to the marriage with his father from Tirunalveli. PULI has already arrived and was sporing with nice T-Shirt with Jeans and Mustacheless face. I had four rounds of Pongal for breakfast which I like the most than any other food. the couple got married around 10.10 AM. SUMU reached the Mahal around 10.30 AM. one Foreigner Mr Bill from USA was invited to the marriage by a friend of Suresh, when he was standing at the door steps after listening to the Indian music. I played host to him and explained what ever i know about the Indian Traditional Marriage and the Marriage Food. He presented a greeting note with 10$ note as Gift.

The Lunch was very good and after that those who wanted to go to Chennai took bus at the Bus Terminus. SUMU, Musiri, Perisu,Madu,Batch and me went for a new Tamil Movie "Vennila Kabadi Kushu" a Nice movie which was shooted in Kanakanpaati, a village which very near to my Village Aruvankattuvalasu. I would recommend everyone to watch this movie, I believe this one will become blockbuster of the year.Then we headed to the Railway station, packed our Dinner from the small hotel in the station. Again our Mokkai ( chit- chat) started afresh by SUMU revolving around Musiri,Batch and me some times. Puli joined us to Bangalore and will leave to Mumbai on Tuesday evening.We were surprised to see 2 of Compartment mates while traveling to Kumbakonam also joined us now. One guy was at our compartment this time too and offered home made tasty vadas prepared by his MOM.Around 10.30 after playing 3 rounds of cards, we went to bed. Musiri won twice and Sumu once, I tried hard,but couldn't win.
We woke up when the train reached Byappanahalli and got down at Cantonment, took two auto to Mayo hall for Rs 80 per Auto, and from there we took bus to our house at Bellandur via Marathahalli. We reached Bellandur around 6.10 AM

we gave the cards back to Suresh's colleagues Kalayn, Rajasekar Reddy and Sripal who were very nice during the entire journey.

The last two days has passed ,but the Memories of this wonderful Journey and the Fun I had will remain as a Most memorable days of my life time.