Monumental bulbs

On the day that India was celebrating the birthday of M.K.Gandhi, Mrs. and Mr.Raghu and self, decided to go out on a long drive along the ECR. Our dear friend Nilu, however, couldn’t make it due to “prior commitments”. We weren’t really clear about where to go, but we were clear that the main intent was to spend time out of the house and not inside a mall/movie hall.

In October 2007, while returning from Vaitheeswaran Kovil by car, I had noticed a board near Kalpakkam that talked about the presence of a Dutch Fort. Since I have a mild attraction to archaeological monuments, I have been thinking about visiting this place ever since.

So I broached this venue to Raghu and he accepted it with no qualms. After working out the logistics, we decided to head out by 2.30 PM and believe it or not, we actually left by 2.50!

After we started from home, we first headed out to my usual petrol bunk at Adyar to fill in fuel. In what turned out to be a harbinger for the rest of the day, the bunk was closed. We moved on to another bunk nearby, filled up the fuel and proceeded with the trip.

We had a pretty decent drive, notwithstanding the efforts of an SUV to run over us a few kilometers after Mahabs. We finally reached Kalpakkam. But there was no sign of the board that I saw last year. We stopped over at a couple of places to enquire about the fort. And no one actually knew about it. Finally there was a cop buying some stuff at a shop and I approached him. He finally understood what I was looking for and gave me the directions to the “koattai saar. British kaaran kaalathula kattinadhu”. He obviously lived with the maxim that all Caucasians are British theory and I had no patience to try and correct him.

We followed his directions and after passing through the Kalpakkam Township, we finally spotted a rather small board that said “Dutch Fort and Cemetery” and had an arrow pointing to the left. We looked to the left and lo behold, there was this long wall which had shed its plastering and was proudly exposing its bricks. We turned left and took the road alongside this wall, only to find a longer wall exhibiting a similar constitution. We then reached the entrance.

After having reached the entrance, we were worried if there was some other way to go inside the Fort. The reason was the presence of a tall iron gate that was locked. There was a small gap in the fencing (by design) and there was something like a path that led to another of the walls I mentioned before. This wall however was different, because it had the semblance of a formal entrance in the form of a gate capped by a minar like structure and there were 2 canons on either side of this gate.

One thing that was glaringly visible was the ABSENCE of people. In a country that’s known for its density of population, it was scary to see nobody at a monument where some kind of history exists. There were no visitors. There were no officials. There were no sign boards other than the one at the main gate that said that this was a protected monument. The only way we knew that we were not trespassing into someone’s private property was the assurance from a local woman who looked like the caretaker of the place.

Even as we stepped inside these walls, I was still alive to the possibility of seeing some relics. Some more cannons. Probably a spot where some major fight took place. The place where they stored their ammunition. The place where chief’s office was. The place where they had their flag post. And all of this explained with lot of signboards.

But all I could see inside was a big piece of land with growth of wild grass and a few trees in the middle. There was this muddy path which was headed towards a few structures which were in a dilapidated condition. You just cannot say what these structures were meant for, by looking at it.



The caretaker lady pointed us to an area which was basically the Cemetery mentioned in the board we had seen 10 minutes ago. We went inside and came out in, probably, 39 seconds. Then, we headed inside the grounds I mentioned earlier. We went inside one of these structures and found them to be just rooms; rooms with windows and arched ceilings. The area we went to appeared to have walls that were plastered with modern day cement. Obviously some amount of restoration has happened, but then, the charm of the old building was lost. There were more ruins of course, but we were in a deep state of bulb to try and venture there.

We took the mandatory pictures of our presence in that place and made a hurried exit. The visit to this Fort would probably rank in the top 10 bulbs I’ve had in terms of expecting great things and getting sheer nonsense. In fact, it is high time the authorities call it the “Dutch Cemetery and an extended ruined compound wall around it”.

And thinking about the Fort now, it is clear why the Dutch never ruled us. Going by the reports in the article related to the excavations done here, this Fort seemed to have been some sort of a glorified club/watering-hole for the expatriates of those times. In fact, the fight between the Dutch and the Brits must have come up due to suspected foul play during a Tiger-Goat-game! Or else, this Fort was just a warehouse for the Dutch traders to stock their goods. And probably they sabotaged their stock to take the insurance benefit. Unfortunately, they may have insured with some Brits who found out the truth and took over the Fort/Warehouse.

Anyways, after we came out, we decided to head to Mahabs with the knowledge and assurance of being able to see ancient architecture. We stopped over for a quick cup of coffee that extended itself into a plate of vegetable bonda. We set out to the Shore Temple.

Unfortunately, that day turned out to be “Kaanum Eid” – at least that’s what I am calling it since I don’t know the technical details for that festival. You see, we Hindus in Tamil Nadu have this event called “Kaanum Pongal”. This is the day after all other Pongal days and families make it a point to visit important tourist spots. I called this Gandhi Jayanthi day as “Kaanum Eid” because there was a lot of crowd around the Shore Temple and most of these were Muslims. Since the previous day was Eid, I created this event called “Kaanum Eid” to equate my Muslim brethren with the Hindus.

Anyways, by the time we reached the Shore Temple, the authorities refused entry since the stipulated visiting hours were getting over in 5 minutes. We then braved the crowd and headed to the beach just for the heck of it. We spent some time in the Mahabs Promenade (c’mon there were merry-go-rounds, bonsai giant-wheels, air-rifles to shoot balloons, lot of small shops selling souvenirs and hell even an apology of a LifeGuard’s outpost) and after Mrs. and Mr.Raghucompleted their souvenir purchases, we walked back to our car.

Even as I was driving the car back home, I got a call from my team-member at onsite about a serious problem that had come up. Raghu being the great guy he is, he quickly took over the steering wheel and drove us back, while I chalked out some plan with my team-member.

The only good part of the day came after we reached home. We had decided to have dinner at Eden and as is always the case with them, we were not disappointed. The really good dinner helped round off what was otherwise a day filled with one bulb after another.

Note: The Dutch Fort and Cemetery is listed at # 66 in ASI’s list of monuments in Tamil Nadu.

Iron Man and Dinner

I watched Iron Man. I was accompanied only by Nilu since certain other people ditched their friends and watched the movie with their family already. The same certain other people ditched us yesterday as well for very whimsical reasons.

Anyways, the movie was really good. Nice special effects. No unnecessary sentiments that are now becoming mandatory in super hero movies; which in turn meant that the movie was fast paced and didn't sag at all.

But one thing though, I just cant see Robert Downey Jr. as a super hero; any hero for that matter. Though the role doesn't call for any acting skills, I felt let down by his expressions and voice modulation.

We watched the movie at Mayajal, which by the way, finally has a new food court with decent brands in it. After the movie, we had our dinner at PitStop which is a restaurant designed on the lines of the joints in the USA. We would have seen many such setups in the movies from the 50s and 60s. But the food was really bad and service was equally worse. The only good thing there was the restroom!

The next movie to watch would have to Speed Racer. And once again, I would have to go only with Nilu since certain other people would surely give some vague excuse and watch it with their family!

Hectic weekend

This weekend - Oct 27-28 - has been quite a hectic one for me.

On Saturday, I had to go to a resort near Mahabalipuram for an official project party. I had a lot of fun there, especially playing cricket.

In the evening, I went out to dinner with Raghu, Madhu and Nilu. Was meeting Nilu after almost 4-6 weeks I think.

We had a pretty good dinner at Wang's Kitchen in Adyar. Nilu and Raghu conspired to make this my birthday treat in advance. While booking the table (and occupying it first, buy virtue of arriving a few minutes earlier than us), Nilu had apparently told the staff there that he would be joined by a birthday boy and asked them to do something special.

So I was surprised when a place of salad was brought to the table. There was a carved capsicum in the middle and inside it was a small candle. I humored these guys by blowing out the candle. One of waiters had even come to enquire about who the birthday person was and after being pointed in my direction, he even shook hands with me!!!

Anyways, dinner was good, though we couldn't finish most of it. They did screw up our order of fried ice-cream. I used my negotiation skill and had one of the extra items on our order canceled out.

We had ice-cream at Arun's Unlimited in R.A.Puram. It was nearly 11 when I returned.

On Sunday, there was a small hiranya shraardham at home for my father's mother. In the afternoon, I went to Raghu's place and dragged him along to buy a watch for me. You see, my mother is gifting me a watch for my birthday and sanctioned an amount of 3k towards this.

So, I went with Raghu to Landmark at City Center. Got a Casio Edifice watch costing me 3.5K post discount.

Then, there was a dinner tonight, hosted by my colleague Rajkumar. Ganesh, Raji and Vidya had come too. The dinner was at Creame Center. The place is really good. Great ambiance. Good crowd too. However, I wont give them good marks for their Mexican dishes. It failed on all parameters - taste, quantity and price. But it was a fun evening.

After such eating binges, it comes as no surprise as to how I've managed to put on 6 kilos over the last one year and how I've increased my trouser size by 1 (pre-eating).

Road Trip to Vaitheeswaran Kovil - Part 8 ::: Dinner at Mangala Vilas, Sirkazhi

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.

Calm after a storm

You may not have noticed, but for the past week or more, I've not been in a great mood. Mainly because of a raging battle with my mother.

Ever since she heard that astrologer say some dreadful stuff, she's been on my case a bit. Natural at some level. But my short-temper got the better of me and I started talking back.

I said things I SHOULDN'T have and I regret it completely.

But ever since I started telling her some things, she pounced on the opportunity to pin me down to the mat completely. All my failings were dusted and presented to me. Starting from my apparent theru porikki life style (see cash, go roam around; just that i am doing it with more money compared to a slum dweller), indisciplined eating habits (too much masala in my food), absolute disarryed state of hair (no oil, so hair is falling, also hair is picking up sembattai shade and lots of white as well), not completing my MBA (if u had read even one hour every sat and sun over the past 3 years, u could have completed it by now) and probably some more mistakes from my previous births.

All these charges were levelled against me incessantly, especially from Sunday night till Tuesday night. I had absolutely no defence and she was clearly having the upper hand.

It also didnt help, that on Sunday evening I had taken my parents to City Center. Unfortunately, that evening it was VERRRY crowded and there was way too much noise. Obviously, she didnt like that and didnt like the fact that this was my weekend habitat.


Only this morning, I sensed a bit of retreat from her side. It was confirmed the minute she launched into my hair with hair oil in hand and gave me a violent start! I was given a stern warning to not wash it off.

She has been normal this evening, but a lesson for me is to keep my tongue under control - both in terms of speech and in terms of gluttony.

So, I will be less visible in the society for the next couple of weeks. The only break in schedule is, of course, the birthday party of Mrs. & Mr. Raghu and a get-together with Ms.Yi Hsuan - my former boss at Citibank in Los Angeles. She is here on her once/twice a year official visit to Chennai and wanted to see some of her old project mates.

16-Feb 7:15PM to 18-Feb 4:30PM ::: Part 5 ::: Reception Food and Lime-Soda

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.