Exploring Gods Own Country - I

3 weeks before I landed in Kochi. For the first 2 weekends I never stayed at Kochi. This was the first weekend I stayed here. On the first weekend I went to Bangalore to collect my things. And on the 2nd weekend I went to my home town for Pongal. And this weekend I thought of staying back here. Since I don’t have any friends over here, weekend was too boring here. So I planned to go to some places around Kochi. I thought of starting my roaming with a Holy place. So I decided to go to Guruvayoor. Saturday I went to Guruvayoor. Guruvayoor is around 90 KM from Kochi.

Guruvayoor is called as the Southern Dwaraka. And the chief Deity is Lord Unni Krishnanan (Balakrishnanan). I started at 7.30 Am from Kaloor (From Ernakulam KSRTC bus terminus no buses are operated towards Guruvayoor. They directed me to go to some other place from where I can board KSRTC bus. Since I’m not familiar with Kochi I decided to go to the Private bus terminus at Kaloor). It was a 3 hours journey. I reached Guruvayoor at 10.30 AM. On nearing the temple premises I found that gents are not supposed to wear Pants, Pajamas, Shirt and Vests. Only with Dhoti and bare top gents are allowed inside. For ladies Saree, Skirt and Blouse are only allowed. No western/northern (Salwar kamiz) outfits are allowed. Few people even make money over this rule. For guys like me who come over to this place without knowing this fact, these people lend dhotis (do they even lend saree, skirt&blouse?) My pants were cleaner than the dhoti that I got. I don’t know how many people used the Dhoti before I use and I don’t when it was last washed. But still the security people will allow me inside the temple only if I wear that dhoti. Crazy customs. I was bit embarrassed to be on bare body (of course, I was wearing a dhoti) inside the temple. Every male inside the temple followed the same. Temple was bit crowded, I think I got only 5- 10 seconds to stand in front of God and pray. I had the free launch at the temple with several other devotees. Rice (of course its Matta rice or red rice), MooreKuzhambu (a gravy made of butter milk, vegetables and spices), one poriyal (scoop of fried vegetable) and one kottu (a scoop of boiled vegetable), rice payasam (a sweet made of rice, sugar and milk), butter milk and banana. The food was good.

Before starting this trip, I browsed in the net for any interesting place around the temple. I found few places. One place excited me a lot. It’s “Punnathur Kotta”, an elephant farm, maintained by the Guruvayoor temple.

I left the temple around 1.30 PM and enquired about this place and reached there by an Auto. The auto driver charged me 40 Rs for the 3 KM journey (which is bit costlier in Kerala). Entrance fee is Rs 5 and If we want to carry a still camera (including Mobile Phone camera) we need to pay 25 Rs/camera (for video camera/handy cam its 1000 and for movie camera its 5000 Rs) and get a receipt. The security officer at the gate checks for the camera that we carry. I have never imagined a place like this in my whole life. 60+ elephants are maintained in a single place. No words to describe place. All the elephants where tied with a fairly big chain in the leg. Most of them were calm and eating the coconut leaves and plantain stem. Most of them are male. I could see only very few female elephants. Also I couldn’t see any young elephants (Cubs?). For few elephants the mahouts were giving a bath and some elephants bathed on its own. After the bath, around 3.00 PM the elephants are given their launch. Rice balls with banana, Jaggery and little other stuff are given to the elephants. I left the place around 3.00 PM and got in the bus to Ernakulam by 3.30 and reached Kaloor by 5.45 (now it was only 2 hrs).

I will upload more photos soon in Picasa/flicker.

After reaching my room I got few questions in my mind.
1. Why do they don’t allow people with pant and shirt inside the temple. What’s the reason behind wearing a dhoti ?

2. At Punnathur Kotta, How do they handle the elephants during the mating season?

3. What do they do with the elephant’s dunk/shit/solid excrete? I remember that using cow dunk gobar gas is generated and it is also used as farm manure. Do they use elephants dunk for any such purpose. The reason behind my question is each elephant eats a large quantity of bushes, leaves and other stuffs. Since there are 60+ elephants in the farm, the total amount of shit generated will be very large.

Next time when I go to Guruvayoor, I want to check with the respective persons with the above questions.

Update: Feb 1, 2009: More Photos on Picasa
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/lh/sredir?uname=thiyagarajan.vp&target=ALBUM&id=5297822086895565441&authkey=c82YlrZBzXE&feat=email

Adieu and Arrival and a Movie

For the past few weeks I have been quite busy. Several expected and unexpected events happened in my life.
As my father got retired from his service on May 2008 my parents moved to Tirunelveli. At last 23 years of life in Pudukkottai came to an end. A new place, new neighbors, new environment. I don’t know how they will adjust to this new environment. My Grandfather after his retirement from service left Nagapatinam, where he lived for 35+ years and settled in Palavoor. My father after retiring his retirement from service left Pudukkottai, Where he lived for 23+ years and settled in Tirunelveli. So What I will do?

Back in Bangalore, my assignment with the American Bank came to an end. Now I’m to a victim of Subprime crisis. The Bank wants to cut it its IT expenditure. So they reduced the team size. By Dec 31, 2008 my contract came to an end. The Resource Management Group of my organization asked me to go to Kochi. Since I don’t have any commitments I too agreed to work in Kochi Branch. From Jan 5, 2009 I’m working in Kochi and again for an America based financial institution. Work is pretty good here. Currently working on R7 and soon they are planning to move to R8. So I expect some good learning here. Initially I was afraid for the food in Kochi. But Inside the office the food is not a problem. I have fairly good choices (but the cost is more) and even outside the office I can manage.
Last week (Jan 15, 2009) when I was travelling to Tirunelveli, I happened to see the movie Jayamkondan (Vinay and Bhavana). The directory/story writer copied the story from the English movie “A Good Year” (Russell Crowe, I don’t remember the lead actress name). Previously our kollywood people only copy the successful/more visible English/other foreign language movies (example: Durai – Gladiator, Aanai – Transporter2 etc) . But these days the trend is getting changed. If the story can be adopted for Indian/Tamil audience then they take/steal it.