My Favourite Season - Winter: An essay by Vivek Kasture

Pune is an amazing city to live, work and enjoy our life. We all love to travel and explore hidden and unseen places. In Pune itself, we have lots of places to visit, like old Pune, some narrow roads, architectures, historical places and forts. But what do you think about the best season to visit such places? In my opinion, the breezy winter of Pune is definitely the best.

Generally in Pune winter starts in November and it lasts till February. This is the most pleasant season to travel, dine out, visit hill stations or go shopping or wander aimlessly with our friends. This season gives us an opportunity to look inside ourselves (introspection).

In many ways, this season affects the way we feel, sometimes we like to stay at home and enjoy a coffee sitting by window. Suddenly we change our mind to go outside to feel the windy atmosphere or sometimes we like to lie in bed and read romantic stories or listen to our favourite songs/music and so on.

Also, this season is beneficial to agriculture. Almost all schools and colleges arrange their cultural activities for students and most importantly, we celebrate many big festivals within this magical period. Overall, this season gives us so many reasons to enjoy and have some fun.

Besides, this season has short days and long nights and less sunlight. This can affect our health. We may catch a cold and get sick. Therefore, while going outside or traveling, we should wear warm woollen cloths. Definitely, by taking care of these things we can enjoy this amazing breezy winter of the city!

Two Banks of A River, Never Meet and Yet Never Separate....

The two banks of a river

They never meet and yet never separate

Tagging along;

So near, yet always far!

Endless moments entwined together

Incessantly they flow

Making memories which forever stay!

Yet, the more they try

The farther, they drift away

The meandering curves of the river

Turn and toss

And the two banks come a little close

They meet, wink, touch and cross

But, before the moment gathers momentum

The curves widen

And the banks separate

Again apart

Yet, the feelings remain

Sometimes, the river is more than a river

Like two people, touched by love

Separated by Destiny, stars shine

Perhaps, the river does cry

Hoping one day, lovers unite

Rameshwaram Diairies...

When a long weekend approaches, you often wonder what is the best use you can put it to. It could be a break to a hill station, to the beach or catch up with friends and relatives. Or the other option is a pilgrimage. And believe it or not, I think a very large number of people, young or old, plan  pilgrimages on the long weekends. Of course older people may be retired so they need not wait for a long weekend, unlike the younger ones.

Our plan to make best use of the Indian Independence Day long weekend was made well in advance: A pilgrimage to Rameshwaram or Rameswaram is how I also saw it spelled. It started with a group of 6 people supposed to join, ended up with 5: Me, Mani, Vignesh, Ram and Kannan. While writing this blog, it just struck me that other than my name, all the other names are names of Hindu gods: Manikandan is another name for Ayappa, the son of Vishnu and Shiva. Vignesh is another name for Lord Ganesha, Lord Ram is the 7th avatar of Lord Vishnu and Kannan is another name for Lord Krishna. So some divine company this :-)

We planned to cover a distance of almost 1500 kilometers in 3 days. We were going to visit Rameswaram, Chidambaram, Kumbakonam and Thanjavur formerly known as Tanjore. Quite a ride along the Tamil Nadu coast, starting from Chennai in the north to Rameswaram down south.

14th August.
Finished work and went home to pick up my bag. Got picked up about 930 PM by the guys. The pilgrimage begins. Stopover at ECR Dhaba for dinner. Dinner done, the long drive begins. First stop at a tea stall at Pondy. Everyone is wide awake till now. Next stop at a smallish hamlet, the tea was awesome. After this stop, the guys in the back start to snooze. its about 2 or 3 AM.

15th August
I wake up at sunrise and Mani tells stories of the number of snakes they saw on the road while I slept. Our first morning stop for coffee and some breakfast. Tasty vadas accompanied by coffee. We are almost within touching distance of Rameswaram and now the scenery gets breath-taking. Tall swaying palm trees and the train tracks going to Rameswaram. And now something that will stay in our memories forever comes up: The Pamban bridge. The Pamban Bridge is a cantilever bridge on the Palk Strait which connects Rameswaram on Pamban Island to mainland India. As you stand on the bridge and look around, you are surrounded by water on both sides, many little fishing wharfs out at sea. Such views always remind me of how beautiful this planet is, how enormous the sea is.

Crossed the bridge and into APJ Abdul Kalam's hometown, Rameswaram where Lord Ram crossed the sea to rescue Sita Mata. The town housing the Ramanathaswamy Temple, which is one of the twelve Jyothirlinga temples. Rameswaram, one of the "char dhams" for Hindus. As a devout Hindu, it feels divine to be in Rameswaram,

Found a hotel to keep our bags. Hotel owner explained how you could find an agent who will take some money but make it easy for us rather than having to find our way around.

Off to the temple. Start with a dip in the sea. Actually, some people come here for "pitri tarpana", a ritual to pray for the dead departed. Find a tout who will charge 1000 rupees for a bath in the 22 wells or what we can call tirthas. Hence, it is called a tirtha yatra :-) Bathing in these Tīrthas is a major aspect of the pilgrimage to Rameswaram and is considered equivalent to penance. We begin with the Mahalakshmi tirtha. The ritual is basically that the tout will draw water from a well and pour it on you. The water of each well has its own distinct taste. We also collected the water in a bottle to take home. The entire procedure took a good couple of hours and ended with Jyotirlingam darshan. Rice plate lunch at a hotel just outside the temple. And then time to rest. After all Mani drove all night so he deserved it.
In the evening we head to Dhanush Kodi, the point where Bhagwan Ram build the Ram Setu to cross over to Lanka. As we were headed there, I logged into Google Maps to see where we are exactly at. And this is another awesome picture I captured. Right at land's end, in the little channel connecting India to Sri Lanka, feels like you could almost touch the Lankan coast. Amazing.

Back to Rameswaram as the sun begins to set and I have to take some pictures of the temple because we had left our phones back in the hotel when we went to the temple in the morning.

Back on the road and on to Chidambaram. 

16 August

We try to stop for a visit to the Shani temple at Thirunallar at about 2 AM. We reach there and try to look for a place where we could catch a few winks, but no rooms available. It seems that the Saturday today is a big day in the zodiac and half the world descended to pay their respects to Lord Shani. Mani wants to go but I try to reason that we will then miss out on the Chidambaram temple because there will be a very long queue. We have an altercation but eventually decide to make a move, on to Chidambaram.

At Chidambaram, we get rooms to snooze off. Wake up and on to the temple which is right behind the hotel. This is the Thillai Nataraja temple, Nataraja is a form of Lord Shiva. There is an interesting secret which we hoped to witness but after some reading, realized it not a visual secret but a philosophical one. Alas.

Lunch at a nice restaurant where the captain was the waiter was the chef was the accountant and was running around from one table to the other. Then on to Pichavaram: The Pichavaram Mangrove Forest near Chidambaram, South India, by the Bay of Bengal is the world's second largest mangrove forest. A nice afternoon spent boating in the mangroves.

Back into Chidambaram and the cheapest and most filling dinner on our trip. 15 INR for a Dosa. I think we paid 270 for the 5 of us. The menu in Tamil if you can read. Finally some peaceful sleep on a bed, the first one in our journey so that we can leave at 4 AM for Kubakonam.

17 Aug

Up as planned and headed to Kumbakonam. Delicious breakfast (and cheap too) on the way. First stop: The Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple. UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE site. 1000 years old. Tallest shiva linga in Asia as per pujari at 13.5 feet. Part of Chola history.

On to Tanjore. Last stop on this temple trip. Another Chola temple: The Brihadeeswara temple. Outside the temple, people are trying to sell us Elephant's hair, tiger's nail, tiger's claws, Spatika Shiva Linga and other exotic materials. Mani finally ends up buying the elephant hair. It's going to bring him good luck, he says. And this is the end of the Rameshwaram diaries. Thoroughly enjoyable trip and completes my visit to one of India's char dhaams so 3 more to go!

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