Gokarna, Murudeswar And Mookambika Visit

Today we reached back from 4 day tour to Uduppi, Gokarna, Murudeswar and Mookambika.

we started our journey on 24th evening by Mangalapuram Express, from Trivandrum. As pe our plan, we reached at my sister's house at Kannur at 10.30 on 25th December.After lunch, about 1.30 we started from there in a TATA Turbo, a hired taxy. It was a new vehicle, the registration was done just three days before.

Around 6'O clock, we reached uduppi. Visited the famous Sreekrishna Temple.There was not much rush in the temple. Finished small shopping and left uduppi at 7.00pm.

Due to three days continuous holiday , we came to know that there is heavy rush at mookambika temple, and no rooms for stay is avaialble there. So we planned to check in to some lodge

at kundapuram. Luckily we got the last room at Hotel Parijatha.

Next day(on 26th) morning 6.30 we left to Gokarna. After 4 hours journey we reached Gokarna.

Yesterday I visited the 3rd-Trivandrum International Book fair, at Kanakakkunnu palace campus. The fair started on 18th December

and will be continued till 28th December,2009. It is part of The Great Kerala Shopping Festival. Flowershow is also arranged as part of this program, at Observatory hill and Institute of Engineers' Hall.

I visited only the book fair. Books from different languages and countries are displayed. 10% -20% discount is given for all books. This time the organisor seems to be initiated for a joint venture with the Famour Fankfurt book fair. A seperate French pavilion is arrnaged. I bought three malayalam books- one is noted malayalm writer M.T.Vasudevan Nair's "Varanasi" , second one is "Ramraja Bahadoor" by C.V.Raman Pillai,and the third one is a malayalam version of Bengali novel "swarnakkotta" ("sonar khella" or "Golden Fortress") by SatyajithRai, well known Bangali writer and Film director. It is a part of series of detective stories, "Adventures of Feluda". I read the full story yesterday night itself. This particular Story was made in to film by SatyajithRai himself.

Last Sunday, I had to attend a marriage function at anikkad, Near Muvattupuzha. First we planned to go by train. But later changed mind to go by car. I never drove more than 100 km alone in single stretch. Anikkad is nearly 226km from trivandrum. So I was little bit tense before starting.

Our journey started at 4.20AM.Had our breakfast from Hotel Annapurna near Kottayam. At about 8.45 we reached Ettumanoor. Visited the famous Mahadeva Temple there. That was the first time I visited this temple. At 9.20 we continued our journey to Anikkad. Reached ,the venue at 10.15. The venue was in the auditorium of noted , Thiruvamplavil Mahadeva Temple , Anikkad. This temple is said to be the south kasi (Dhakshina Kaasi), because of the water stream there from the rock, which is supposed to be a channel of Holy Ganga River. Another speiciality of this temple is, there is 26 different trees planted, each associated to the 26 stars ( for eg. For Rohini- Njaval, for Karthika-Athi, like that...)

After noon, at around 12.30 we started our return journey. It was not smooth like early morning journey. First, due to heavy feast I was feeling sleepy. and the day was very hot, I was feeling head ache. Morning it took only 5 hours to reach there. But return, took nearly 6.5 hours to reach back my home. So at 7.30pm we reached back home.

Route to Anikkad,

Trivandrum-----80km--- >kottarakkara----80km---->Kottayam------50km---Muvattupuzha----4km----Anikkad.

Teaching Vs Learning

Few days back my daughter told me that she was taught to say 'thank you' and 'my pleasure' in turn, in her class. She continued...' we should say thank you when somebody helps us or gives something good to us.....and if somebody says thank you we should say "my pleasure" in turn...

'OK' I agreed.

Few days later, in my house my mother was preparing a tradition sweet. On seeing this my daughter demanded she want to give it to her teacher also. It was granted and prepared few extra for her teacher. It was packed and gave to her.

Evening my daughter came desperate....

"What happened?" I asked.

"Dad.. I gave sweet to teacher.....But she didn't say 'thank you'..." And so I could not say 'my pleasure'..."

I wondered.....a small incident made not so small impact on my daughter.Though she forgot it next day, next time when she come across such a situation she will think twice ..whether should I say thank you or not??

Does teachers not learn what they teaches? I am not blaming them . But for the students teachers are the roll models. So it may be wise to apply the theories in practice .

Today is a special day for me because of two things.
First, my wife went her home alone for the first time,after our marriage. You may ask what is the specialiaty in that..well..we married five years back, and this is the first time she is travelling without me and that too a distance of around 30 kilometers. Considering her character, this is really a courageous move she made, though 30 kilometers may not be a great distance today. Eventhough the occation that forced her to travel alone is sad -that her mother is seriouslly ill- now I understand that she is a person having good courage. Yet another surprice was my 2 year old kid. For him also this is the first time, his mother is not in his vicinity, for such a long period- almost a full day with his grand-mother. I thought he will make so much noise and trouble, when she leaves. But -I don't know whether he understood the situation or what - he was very quite and calm, inspite of occational query 'amma evide?'( where is mother?), and then will wander around with her elder sister who is adaptable to any situation. This changed my perception on my wife and kid, now they are not the persons I used to see till yesterday, but totally different persons.
The second thing is , I happened to had a good training on personality development. I am an introverted person and every minutes I try to come out of that. But I could never success. Now I am confident that I will achieve it. And even this writing is an outcome of that. Thanks to Silpa Sankar, our trainer. Her dynamic and inspirational words were so much encouraging. Now I understands what are my positives qualities and also my negatives that I should get rid of. Now I know the areas which I should improve.I know that it is difficult to change the character, overnight.Better late than never..This is a begining..