Lets talk about books - part 1

This year I had the privilege to attend not one but two book festivals in two different cities. The first one I attended was in early January when I had the opportunity to attend the Chennai book festival with my kin. It looked a mega event with hundred of stalls and thousand of people thronging around but we had very little time in our hands due to some other commitments. We spent just over 30 minutes but still I was able to buy a few good books.

The first stop was at a comic book stall and to my surprise there were so many comic books for a very nominal price. I bought two english comics - one for me and one for my new-to-the-book-reader's-club nephew. I snatched this tamil comic book randomly but later found out I had read the exact same book during my school days ( in my fourth standard summer vacation days to be exact).

This is one of the first few books I have ever read in my life and I was stunned to see I recalled this particular page after all these years.I had something similar to a Anton Ego's surprise moment when I saw this page..

I remembered this page so well because that was the exact moment I understood the story of the book and was surprised with myself on my book reading improvement.Wow, what were the chances I would be picking the exact same book after all these years!!! When I read the book again this time, I found it to be a dud but during those early days it looked like a mega adventure to me.

The next book stall I stopped at was a used book store that sold English novels for a flat rate of hundred rupees each. I was surprised to find a Le Carre there(A man most wanted) and picked it and also bought the Sacred hearts novel as I knew I had seen postive reviews of that book somewhere before. I read it shortly after.Interesting premise and good story telling made for a quick reading.

I asked my bro to pay for the books with a promise I will pay back later but I still haven't and he hasn't asked and now I am happily going to consider them gifts :)..

Apart from the above, I also had a surprise gift offer from my sister. She offered a New year gift of my choice and asked me to pick anything I liked from Amazon. I picked this Le Carre novel (The Spy who came in from the cold) which I had been wishing to own for a long long time now. It was on a moderate discount and arrived in the first week of Jan but still waiting to be read..I must sure read it before atleast the next new year.

A masterpiece

Last Saturday saw us getting up at 3.30 in the morning and going to the Srirangam temple. These days this is the norm to be followed if you wish to get a good darshan of the Lord even with an entrance fee. You can still try the expensive line anytime during the day (Rs 250) but I am willing to do the early morning darshan that gives a calm and serene and a divine experience for a modest entrance fee of 50 rupees with no hassles and rushing.

A few months back I was able to see the Lord this way with just above two hours waiting period. Last Saturday even though we were at the main inner shrine door at  around 5'o clock in the morning, we still could not go in further as the doors were closed and a board display said darshan was cancelled  for the entire day,with no prior announcements and any reasons mentioned.

We felt a little bad but we reminded ourselves of the popular saying in tamil 'You can see the Lord only when he calls you' . There is a consolation price though--the early day's start gave us an opportunity to roam around the vast premise of the temple freely.Almost half way around the thayar sannithi, we saw the west side door left opened and a sign directing towards the thousand pillars hall.Often we have visited the temple in the past and almost all those times we had never seen this door open. Instantly we decided to go in.

This is where the title of this post comes in. The moment we entered the lane through the west door and turned left we saw this big elephant statue in a distance.We were the only ones in that area and the sun had not yet risen.The light was dim and I had only my mobile phone which did not have a good flash effect but I still took a decent photo or two.

I have vague memories from a long long time ago,of sighting an elephant statue in a big temple but was not sure of exactly which temple. Recently I read an article in a well known magazine about the elephant statue present in Srirangam temple and showed it to my folks that that was the statue I had been talking about occasionally. I had seen it during a visit in my school days and recalled that it was quite big.

After reading the article I thought it would be impossible to locate the statue again in the vast temple premise after all these years and I was happy to spot it all by co-incidence in my second visit after reading about it.


Its astonishing to note that the elephant,the trainer and the patron are all of  life size. The sheer size of the elephant itself floored us.

Here is my father serving as a scale to show the statue size

The statue is atleast a thousand years old.It was made in the 10th century AD.The craftsmanship shown even in the minute designs is just so marvellous. The statue is present at the rear end of the thousand pillar hall and is part of a twin set. The other identical elephant statue is present within ten feet of the first one along with a trainer and a patron.

The elephant on the other side of the wall

There are notable damages visible in parts of this monument viz the broken trunks and the elephant rider's head missing in both the statues. What a stunning view it would have been had it been complete!! It was paining to see the damages on such a masterpiece.

We were there for atleast twenty minutes looking at it and a dozen or so people passed us in the meantime but many did not even turn in the direction of the elephants. A couple of people stopped to take a selfie and thats that.Not their mistake..This is how the society is these days and there is no action being taken by the authorites to protect or spread knowledge about our ancient architectural wealth.The often seen headlines that our statues of deities are being sold for hundreds of crores in the international market by thugs are the best example of how the temple authorities work.

At this point of time, those things are beyond my say.. but I am very happy I was able to view this masterpiece and make some happy memories that too at that Godly hour in the morning.This post is my two cents to spread awareness about this extraordinary masterpiece. Do try to see the statue when ever you get to visit Srirangam temple. I assure it will be worth your time and effort.

Silhouette sunrise

Only twice a year I could catch the Sun rising in this spot.
It is worth the effort to remember the weeks and catch the Sun at this place at least once, for it is a view to behold with a glorious silhouette of the roadside tamarind tree.. 

In company with clouds

People who knew me better,would know that the moment I step out anywhere outside I immediately look up to the skies. If I don't then I most certainly had an horrendous day.

Luckily the clouds don't come in single shape and size, so there is a sure chance of finding something new every time and that instantly cheers me.

These are the very interesting ones that I caught this June. 

Rainbow clouds just before dusk

Cirrus clouds during a mid morning

Rainbow in the clouds

Rains pouring from a distant cloud

Sun rays piercing through the dark clouds.It started raining a little while after

Thank God for them I will never know boredom. 

Do you watch the clouds..?

Indian Golden Oriole / Maanguil

My bird watching hobby started only a couple of years ago. I do not go to lengths to keep up this interesting hobby because of mainly time constraints and also I am not the most patient person you can find anytime and in bird watching patience is a must. And my limited knowledge related to bird stuff could add in a factor too. 

Thankfully I dont have to go to lengths to see different birds as there are a variety of local birds living in our neighborhood and just a pop into the house terrace will give me a good view of many of them when they stutter around for food.I think the hobby became more interesting when one of my google searches led me to a link containing the name of all the local birds of the state and a clear picture along with to identify them. Most times all you find in many websites is either the name or the picture of the bird and so it becomes difficult to identify a bird that you dont know.For this reason I considered the link perfect for me and had it downloaded immediately in case the link ever disappeared.

One problem that arose after the link discovery is that I started secretly wishing for a very particular bird to appear in nearby area. Earlier I was content with whatever bird came in sight and trying to take a picture but after going through the link I picked two of the 'color fullest' birds and wished to see them. One of them is the Indian Roller/Panangaadai which I soon found to be very common here and flying in thousands during the autumn evenings. There were literally thousands and all flew at a great height so making photographing very difficult and did not perch anywhere nearby but instead choosing to sit on the electric lines near the distant rail lines. I was happy to see them atleast though that too in that large numbers. 

The other one is the Indian Golden Oriole known as Maanguil in Tamil. This was the only yellow colored bird in the entire local bird DB and very pretty to look at and I thought what a fantastic sight it could be if it ever came here. A year went by since wishing so,with no sight of the yellow colored bird and then I came to the conclusion that it would never happen and that they don't live nearby. I generally do not go into lengths researching about the habitat of any bird and left the matter at that.

A couple of months ago one day I was watering the plants and suddenly heard a bird cry that was deeper than the croaking of a crow.I will put it bluntly- it was such a horrible voice.I was alarmed and then looked around and stunned to see the very bird I was looking for so long sitting in a tree in the opposite compound.Wow, who would have thought such a pretty bird would have the most horrible of voices? Also it was as if the Universe heard my wishes and sent this one to come and sit in a place just directly in front of me with a perfect view to photograph. I slowly inched back into the house to get my camera but when I was back out again it was long gone. I did not bother.I was just excited to see it atleast once in real life.Now knowing that it lived nearby,I had confidence that it would come again as the (drumstick) tree in which it had sat was infested with caterpillars and guessed that it had come for feasting on the worms.

I told my mom to keep an eye on the tree (or an ear exactly coz nobody would have heard that horrible a bird cry before- the voice will certainly alert anyone).More than a week went by and then it came again and sat in the same exact place.Perfect to view and photograph. This time again it was its voice that showed its presence first. I also liked the fact that it was not photophobic like the Kingfisher at all. The moment I took my camera to view,it gave a stern look at me then the lunch in front of it and then a look at my side again and decided its lunch was more important and ignored me completely. I took loads of pictures but it never bothered to look again at my side.

Okay that said, this is how the bird finished its lunch, after giving me that stern look.

You can see the big worm in front of it. The bird took it and flew to another small branch nearby giving me a much better view.

First it started beating the worm to death. First right ... 

then left ...

note the force with which it was doing the task. Pretty sure within seconds the worm was beaten to pulp..

and just as we were looking,with one gulp it swallowed the worm

After finishing the lunch, it sat still for sometime giving me a good view of its feathers. Guess it is a male bird from what the internet says on the feather pattern. Then off it flew and never came back. This happened in March and after that I have not seen it anywhere nearby. 

I am not sad in anyway that it had not come back as I had the best bird watching session I ever had and from such a vantage point. The tree had been cut too as it was obstructing the road.Thinking back, I think things happened as if to make my wish come true and if only the Universe listens to some of my other wishes soon I will be ever grateful, :) ...haha.

Don't you think how pretty the bird is .. If you enjoyed this post, there are some more bird watching posts that I have posted earlier - you can find them easily using the search feature.Also please do leave by your comments if you like the post or you have your own bird watching tales to share.

Visiting the hills .. contd

I have not been to many hill stations. But among those places I have visited, Coakers walk will be deemed my #1 favourite spot without a doubt. Coakers walk is a long stretch of a walking path running along the edge of a hill where you get a good view of the valley.The view from the walkway is just amazing and you can drink every bit of the scenery present in front of you leisurely without any hassle. The walkway was like this five years ago

                                          *** I lost the picture I took last time. This one is borrowed from tripadvisor

but that is not the case anymore.We were shocked to find most of the walkway space now occupied(littered!) with stalls. Talk about how to spoil a perfect place with consumerism and commercialization! I felt totally robbed off an amazing experience and that seemed to be the general theme for all of Kodaikanal now.

I said in my previous post that it had started raining when we were walking in coaker's walk area. It was only a mild drizzle at first and we enjoyed a light drench while taking in the scenery like this row of trees in a distant hill 

or spot another row of trees perched on top of a hill still further

But soon the droplets were big and started raining continously. The numerous stalls came in handy in a way..we bought caps and shawls from a winterwear shop and an empty stall nearby helped us escape the rain. A quick chat with a shop owner let us believe that the rain would soon stop as it had happened often the previous days. The rain stopped for a while and we hopped into the car and started driving towards the lake. I loved cycling around the Kodaikanal lake in my last trip.It was a two hours well spent in my life and I had been dotting on to do just the same thing this time too but no, the rain Gods had different plans.

When we got down in the lake and paid parking fee and started walking towards the lake and the heavens opened. We went to the lake house to find some respite but it was jam packed. It only took us a minute to decide and we hopped back in the car and started climbing down the hills well earlier than we planned.To be honest we were happy to get out of that swarming crowd of tourists and traffic let alone the rain.

Without realizing it, I had taken many pictures of a number of variety of trees all through the day.We even had a fun game of trying to identify any of them.My mom rightly identified this to be 'malai vadhanarayan' tree(Delonix elata). 

These trees are suffering the effects of soil erosion but note how deep their root system going into the ground

This majestic one could be seen on the way to Guna caves. It was definitely well above 100 feet in height and stood solitaire- it was a view to behold

How about this one which is present to the left of the pillar rock view point..?I have seen this tree with full of leaves the last time I went but it looks totally different when devoid of leaves

I love it more in close up

While taking a look at its root, we found a small stream of water(can't say it was clean water) flowing nearby its root

and this pretty wild flower was seen blooming a little further

When I was cycling around the lake last time,I was surprised to see the tree whose flower I was named after.I had never seen the tree in my life till then though I know it characteristics.It had been planted and maintained by Kodaikanal widlife dept and it was very young so we never saw any flowers in it.I had wanted to see the tree this time and see whether any flowers had come but as I said before we never got to even walk around the lake.

But fret not, I identified a close relative of the said tree in the Coaker's walk area and it was bearing pink flowers.This particular tree was much older and already in many knots..

I think it is best to wind up the post on our trip with this lest I might go on and on. It was an interesting one day trip braving both the extremes-weatherwise. I do not regret making this trip on a long weekend but if there is a next time I would plan well and choose a time when there would less crowd like a mid weekday or extreme winter when it would be off season.All other times I would happily pass the option to visit until the government officials do something to make it a place worthwhile visiting in Summer. I think it is time to start exploring other exotic and less famous hill stations.

A lovely sunset

I was about to do my kodaikanal part 2 post but I could not help posting this sunset that I caught recently. It was a lovely evening and this one view of the Sun made up for all the scorching heat we endured during the day. And a while after, it started raining. 

What more could you ask for!