We reached Nellaiappar kovil and due to paucity of time, we had to limit our darisanam/pradhakshanam etc to a very short duration. We made a whirlwind halt at Ganthimadhiamman kovil as well.
Once this was done, we stepped out of the temple and before boarding the van, we made an attempt to buy halwa at the famous Iruttu Kadai. This "Dark Shop" is one of the landmarks of T'veli. It was quite evident considering the number of people standing outside the shop.
If you haven't read about or experienced the Dark Shop, its a small shop that sells T'veli Halwa. In the town, its one of the better tasting ones. Also, its a shop that has not changed itself with the times. It still is a small looking shop with an entrance which doubles up as the shop window - i.e. you don't really enter the shop. Its like a potti kadai where only the shop-keeper enters it from the road and all transactions are carried out across the shop.
But contrary to popular urban legend, the shop is not running with a single light source. It is quite well lit up - thankfully. But net-net, it doesn't have any of the jazzy neon lights on a big name board. In fact it doesn't even have a name board.
We didn't buy anything there and returned to the Hotel. After what promised to be a quick shower and change of clothes, all of us set out after almost an hour. We boarded the van and by the time we actually settled properly into our seats, the driver took the van into a building, which turned out to be the Hotel where the reception was being held. It was practically a 4 minute walking distance and we went there by van!
The reception went on well. It had the usual light music, just that this time the singers also danced. (Talk of exceeding expectations...).
After talking to the groom's brother and a bunch of other relatives of common friends, we finally caught up with the couple as well. Exchange of pleasantries were done and all of quite literally ran to the food section.
Man, the food they served was AAAAWWWWWWEEEEEESSSSSSSSOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEEEE. By itself, it was very tasty and considering that we were quite exhausted, all of us had a very quiet dinner. It was a dinner where everyone had a 'hand to mouth' existence for close to 20 minutes.
All the fried rice (2 types), bisi bhela baath, cutlet, uthappan, idiyappam, poori, thayir saadham, halwa, kesar peda, chips, appalam and ice cream settled into all the empty pockets in the food canal.
So stuffed were we that we decided right there that we needed to send in a lime-soda so that we can at least start breathing after some time.
We then took leave and went back to the Hotel. Then, RG and I went out to buy halwa from the other good place that sells this dessert of Gods. The shop is called 'Lala kadai' and is near the bus stand. On the way, we spotted a road side tea kadai which also had some soft drink bottles.
We asked him if he had lime-soda and he gave a positive reply. An order for one apiece was placed. The guy then took the glasses on his counter and immersed them in a big container near his leg. There was some violent shaking of the hands and then he stood up with the two glasses.
Under normal circumstance, I would have run away from the shop - actually I wouldn't even have gone near it in the first place. Anyways, these were testing times with the intestines fighting a losing battle. So I didn't care and preferred to ignore what I saw.
The lime-soda was finally delivered to us and after doing a bottoms-up, we proceeded towards the halwa shop.
After buying 2.5 Kg of it for self (2 Kg was for distribution to my friends), it was finally time to go back to the room and sleep.
BTW, I forgot to mention that during the reception, RG and Sathya were deeply discussing the ways and means to go from T'veli to Madurai, since we had to catch the flight from Madurai to Chennai. The outcome was that a van from Madurai would come to T'veli, pick us up and take us to Madurai.
But we had to leave at 6.15 AM on Sunday. 'Sharp' - was the key word that was thrown into our conversation right throughout the evening.
So after watching a bit of TV, I finally dozed off around 10.30 PM with the alarm set to wake me up at 5.00 AM the next day.
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