On the way to Mangala Vilas, we ran into Mr.Shekar who is the cousin of Raghu. I had been given instructions to catch up with this dude and more importantly with his father. Me being me, I didn't do that.
So it was nice meeting the hommie and that too very near his home (Believe it or not, Sirkazhi is not that big a town). We asked him about Managala Vilas and he gave a positive response.
We entered the place, took up our seats. It was a typical "andha kaalathu hotel", what with separate wooden almirahs to stored sweets.
Anyways, the waiter told us clearly that the kitchen was pretty much closed and we could only have Plain Dosa or Rava Dosa and that too subject to the availability of the respective maavus, the stock of which was fast reducing.
We ordered one Dosa in each type. The waiter told us to go one by one just so that we can find out if we really need 2 Dosas. He served us the dosas and I must admit, it tasted good. Even though it was big in size, we went in for the second round. Obviously my mother couldn't handle and she passed on a good half from her rava to me.
While nearing the end of the eating process, my parents wanted some milk or curd. Looking up the menu wall (city dwellers need to know this - in places like this, they dont give u a menu card. they actually paint the items on their wall and scribble the rates with chalk piece or balbam), my father asked the waiter for Badam Paal.
He coolly replied that they didn't have any. And went on to add that even if we went in search of it around town at this time of the day, it would be impossible to get it. It sounded like the fancy gross pay that all of us see while joining a company - the number that you will never ever come across in real life!
So, my mother asked for coffee. The waiter responded that "aam. ingu kuzhambiyam kidaikkum". Which when roughly translated meant that he responded positively to my mother's question about the availability of coffee. And that coffee was known as kuzhambiyam in Tamil.
My mother was not one to let this go by. Her retort was "vadi kattiya kuzhambiyam kidaikkuma?". This again when roughly translated meant that my mother wanted to know if the coffee that was available was filter coffee.
The waiter took a step back at this stage and the conversation took a more saner tone to it. Anyways, they had their coffee and settled the bill with a good tip to the very enthu waiter.
We then returned to the lodge. Made enquiries about how to go to Vaitheeswaran Kovil etc. We decided to start by 7 in the morning, finish the temple rounds, have breakfast at Sathabishegam (a famous chain of hotel/motel in that stretch of Tamil Nadu), return to lodge by 1o. Check-out and start the trip by 11 and finish up lunch at Cuddalore.
Unfortunately, while we did stick to most of the timelines, we did have quite an adventure at Vaitheeswaran Kovil.
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