Trip to Kumbakonam

Last Wednesday I had an opportunity to visit the divine land Kumbakonam. It was my year long plan to visit this place and finally I had the chance now. My spritual tour (!) started with Thiruvalchizhi , the abode of Lord Vinayaka (unique white Vinayakar made of Sea foam ). Then went to to Swamimalai , abode of Lord Muruga , 4th house of famous 6 houses of Muruga in Tamilnadu. Then moved onto Kootanur. On this day we missed our lunch at Green Park, Kumbakonam but planned to have lunch at a mess in Peralam . Though it is a small house serving as a mess their hospitality is very high class(wouldn't have got it at any other star hotels!). I really enjoyed eating their similar to a home ambience. It is just near to the Police station at Peralam. Thus went my first day at Kumbakonam with the rest of the day spent in Government Circuit house, Kumbakonam.

The next day we started with breakfast at famous Kumbakonam Gourishankar hotel (always busy! No matter what time but hey good taste ya…!). We had a wonderful darshan of Lord Saraswathi at Koothanur in the morning. And once again I realized that how the Golden scheme of former CM JJ ( I meant to say Annadhana scheme ) is being implemented. I would wholeheartedly call her Puratchithalaivi for being implementing this scheme if not for any other schemes / reasons. The whole money collected is fully utilized in a proper way and the food was served to the devoties.

The food quality is also ok and it also gives direct employment to 4-5 people per temple where this scheme is implemented. Later we enquired about this scheme and its implementation and got very positive feedbacks. They said that it costs around Rs.600 per day to feed around 50 people. This apart from the cook’s wage (Rs.110/day) who is happened to be a Brahmin. They also informed us that there was enough amount of money is in the coffers even if no money is collected for 2 months.

I request you people to contribute to such schemes generously, I had a first hand experience it is being spent in the proper way and after all it serves the purpose.

Then we visited a place called Iyyavadi near Kumbakonam. This is the abode of Sri Prityankara devi, very ferocious god. Even I was little frightened to see the God when they opened the doors first. She appears with very ferocious look.This is a very small temple which become very famous after our former CM’s visit to this temple. This temple is famous for Chilli homamas (called chatru smahara homam) which is done on new moon days. Apart from these, this temple also has rich history and a banyan tree with 5 different leaves bearing a unique story. I don’t find links for this temple, so will post the story later.

Then visited Lord Oppiliyappan temple one among the 108 divya desams and moved to the nearby temple Sri Naganatha swamy, (Thirunageswaram) temple famous for Rahgu dhoshams.Actually we spent very less time here not more than 20 minutes(!) and headed to Sri Ramsamy temple in Kumbakonam town after taking a round ( not a dip!) of famous Mahamagam tank.

- Second day travalogue will rollout later -

Sojourn with a Buddy

After some long months I met one of my friend last week. Actually I am not a frequent visitor of friends or to relatives house. I comfortably prefer to sit in the house listen to songs, reading books or chatting or surfing. I too have some friends who used to visit me at my home. But on that day I felt so happy after visiting him after a so long time and my heart was filled with joy. Then later I repent that I had missed a joyful ambience of friends during school and college days. Hope I would never ever miss a chance to share sometime with friends here after.