Nostalgia

It is really nice to recall those wonderful moments which takes back to my good old days in chennai. When misfortunes stared at me at every step of my life, this city gave me the courage to face up the challenges.I love chennai for what it is.
Though singara chennai is my native place, i never had a chance to explore even half of it because of my conservative family. Like travelling in pallavan bus, shopping at T.nagar Ranaganathan street!, The beautifully cut strips of unriped mangoes that is sold in streets of tnagar or marina beach, peanut sundal!,etc etc :)
A sample picturesque beauty of the chennai life that i tried to capture during this trip:

Lady selling fruits :

Tnagar Usman Road busy street:

Street vendors selling real peacock feathers, beautifully tied :

Street toy shops:

Peanut sundal :

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! ~Owens Lee Pomeroy

Visit to Temples - Part 1

Whenever I come to Chennai I never fail to visit temples and there are a bunch of them as my favourites. Apart from which i also visit few new temples if time permits....so this time I started with Thiruverkadu SriDeviKarumariAmman Temple & as usual Mangadu Amman Temple.

Thiruverkadu:
This is the first time im visiting this Thiruverkadu temple; although i have been meaning to visit this since very long time (say about 6 yrs).This is very close to Koyembed (Where i stay with my parents).The temple has a busy street filled with shops selling garlands,statues and picture of god & goddess, some devotional things that people believe in like a miniature craddle to tie it on the sacred tree meant for devotees who aspire for child, and the sacred threads to tie it on the sacred tree again thinking that it will fulfill their wishes. You can see such a cute petty shop in the picture below.

The whole street filled with beautifull petty shops that sells similar items.

On entering the main entrance as usual vinayagar welcomes you into the temple,seated beneath the peepal tree along with nagaar statutes both sides of him,now moving to to visit the main deity karumaariamman's gopuram(temple tower) is covered with gold.

Amman is seen as her body being submerged in the earth, and is covered with silver Kavach(kavasam in tamil) which adds more beauty to the goddess.Godess parvati as Eswari just above the head of karumari is seated with four hands. kungumam,viboothi,theertham along with lemon is given as prasadam for the devotees.
Adjacent to the temple a huge anthill is present were people worship amman in from of naaga valli(snake form) . But i didnt happen to see that .

MAangaadu:
This is my favourite temple i have been visiting this temple for the past 10 yrs. Its a great temple and one of the most powerful too. Like others, this temple has a great legend too, you can learn it by googling.

Kamakshi Amman is the main goddess of this temple. Amman is seen in standing posture in the moolasthanam with a Ardhameru sri chakram.Also you can see tapas Kamakshi in the same temple on the other side.

This is the praharam surrounding the moolasthanam fully built with marble which becomes very easy for the people who does Pradhikshanam around the temple.

I have never asked for anything to the Goddess when I pray as per my mother's advise, not to ask for anything to the God , but just her grace. And she will take care of everything about you. I cant really explain how true my mother's words were.

Picture of my parents and my little one standing in the praharam.

Mangadu Amman has showered her graceful blessing on me in many ways for which i owe her so much.

Divine Thought

I have been watching all the tamil channels right since i came here last week. I was really astonished to see so many channels emerged over the past few years. Most of them offer the same kind of programs which seems a little boring after few days of watching them. Yet i do see few interesting programs in some channels.
One of my favourite is the latest TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devastanam) Live Channel which telecasts some of the sevas at the temple live on the channel. The channel also features devotional programmes, bhajans and religious discourses. For people who cannot visit the temple due to various reasons, this channel is really a gift .

One cannot deny the fact that the divine aura attracts millions and millions of devotees across the globe towards Lord Balaji who is the main deity of this Temple. TTd is accredited for being the second richest temple (first being the vattican church) in the world. The devotional activities for the Lord is awe inspiring. The daily Thirumanjanam or Abishegam done to the Lord and his consorts is a feast to our eyes. All the ornaments set and the vessels used for the Lord are made of Gold.
You can see it from the pictures below. Tried to take a snapshot of the live Tv.

This wonderful service live on TV for viewers should be really appreciated. But somewhere in my mind hails a humble opinion that the Lord is being continuously restless. :)) throughout the day which starts as early as 4.00AM and goes till night, with all the pujas and abishegas and archanas; on top of which millions of devotess leaving their burdens at his feet. Poor Lord has so much of responsibilities in this world to take care of.His inconcievable mercy exhibited over this universe never fails to astonish millions of people including myself!

My typical day

Nothing feels good than seeing a sunrise, as the first thing in the morning with its vibrant color . Breathing the fresh air in the morning gives an unexplainable sense of great feeling that gets rid of sleepiness.

The sounds of birds chirping, along with our man made noises like the car reverse horns, are all the wake-up call for me, every morning. After which i can hear the devotional songs being played in the television by my mom. Ahh, such a simple yet great things which i really adore and i feel its the perfect thing to start my day!


First thing i do right after i get off from the bed is to set right my hair and brush my teeth.Well I know thats what every body does, but what i meant was, I never ever had a bed coffee , ever in my life. I hate it.
Im a morning tea person.(I dont like coffee.) One of the niciest thing in the world for me is the masala chai made by my mom. But today my mom made masala milk as i had some cold/caugh.

This is our flat - Arihant Majestic Tower Chennai, and lives upto its name!

This is the play area in front of our building where i usually take my L.O(little one) in the evenings. But i havent yet started taking him outside this time, as we havent yet recovered fully from illness.
I have briefly explained my typical day in chennai at our house. will post more detailed pics in days to come...