Trip to India

Looking forward to my trip to India albeit not for the first time. My last trip to India was last year somewhere from late March to early April. It was supposedly a honeymoon cum pilgrimage for the newly wedded couple where the latter took importance.

Well yes, no smoking, no drinking, being a vegetarian and what is the most important thing about being away for honeymoon? I know your yellowed brains would have opted to think about sex and yes that too but of course getting to know your bride better even if you've known her years earlier as being married is definitely different than courting days.

I will give full details or rather adventures of my previous trip to India as I have scribbled its details when I was there on my next posts possibly upon my return from this trip for which I will be leaving friday morning.

This trip will be with my dad, mum and dad's business partner Bala....sighsss..... then again I don't really know why I'm sighing as it is the Poratasi month which started 17 Sept through 16 October 2008 whereby I observe being a teetotaller. YES !! Again no drinking, vegetarian and you all know what else, something that i have observed the last one week. This trip is another pilgrimage (was designed to be so) for me as I would be going to a few temples.

Our itenerary starts with landing in Chennai proceeding straight to Kanchipuram where we will have an audience with the Almighty Kanchi Kamatchi Amman that very night. The following day is off to Tirupati to seek an audience with Lord Vengedachalapathi. You might have seen the difference here when i said earlier to have an audience with Almighty Kanchi Kamatchi and then to seek an audience with Lord Vegedachalapathi.

Apparently it is not easy to see Him unless He gives His blessings for Him to be seen. This was told to me by a few people who have been to Tirupati but unable to see Him. Why go so far, my dad was one of them. Well lucky me, the first time I went for pilgrimage cum honeymoon, I managed to get a glimpse of Him. In actual fact, thats all you get....a glimpse. Just imagine a temple touted to be the second richest in the world after Vatican, opens 365 days with an average number of devotees ranging from 50,000 to 60,000 a day. The crowd can really be overbearing. All the pushing and shoveling. And the temple is only close from midnight 12am to 2.30am to facilitate cleaning works. Never mind about that particular trip as i mentioned earlier that i will give full account of my honeymoon cum pilgrimage trip to India in a later post.

From Tirupati, hopefully we see the Lord and shower us with lots of wealth...i mean health and prosperity, it is down the mountain 40km where the KALAHASTI temple is located. Apparently you pray there to get rid of all your doshams/sins (sounds more like a confession box in a church) and i will certainly need to go there judging by my 35 years of existence in the face of this world.

Thats 2 days and the following day its back to Chennai where my parents will be doing Deepavali shopping, going up and down numerous shops. Nope I'm not going anywhere near there. There is a temple in Chennai itself known as Ashthaletchumi Temple an avatharam ("reincarnation" if this word is suitable to translate the meaning) of Mahaletchumi the Goddess of Fortune which I will make a point to visit.

Two days in Chennai and that is probably how long I would be able to digest Chennai based on my previous 2 trips, it is back to Malaysia on the wee hours of Hari Raya first day celebrations.

Catch you guys laters.