Extremes of chennai – Photowalk on 8th of May 2011

All ready set go for the next day and I went to bed. I came out of my dream and then slowly opened by eyes after hearing the loud bang of my alarm. Soon with great enthusiasm in the morning I went to wake up my sister. Within half an hour of time, both of us were ready to start our journey for the day. I had fully charged my android mobile, in which I had already set the maverick destination to Talanguppam the previous day by feeding in the latitude and longitude of the place accurately.

The first destination was around 28 kms from my home. We started from adyar sharp at 4:00AM as planned and took the beach road after taking a U turn around the corporation grounds. We stopped the bike near the Napier’s bridge and took few snaps.

I switched on the GPS on my mobile when we reached beach station and took the suryanarayana road to reach royapuram. Then we continued on the state highway 114 to reach Kasimedu. As soon as we took the surya narayana road from beach station, we could find trucks lined up in a queue. When we reached Kasimedu, we gotta feel that we were very near to the sea. It was around 4:20 AM when we reached Kasimedu after crossing the Chennai Harbour. Trucks aligned in a never ending queue were waiting for the Harbour gate to be opened. We could actually hear the sound of waves. At a place where we could find a gap in between the trucks in queue, we peeped out to see the shore. To my surprise, the sea was just 5 meters away from the shore.It was then My sister asked me, what if a Tsunami strikes now? It was then we really understood the magnificence of the nature and its unlimited mercy over us.

Then we crossed the Tiruvottriyur and then continued on SH 114. The road was full of ups and downs. The road was absolutely dark and we could hardly find any lamps. I stopped my vehicle near a temple on the road and pulled out my mobile to see where exactly we were and to know the target distance. It showed the distance as 6 km and I confirmed we were on track. I asked my sister whether to proceed or to wait until the sky becomes a bit bright. She was keen on capturing the sun rise at Talanguppam. So we proceeded on the same road. After traveling for another 2 kms, we found a board reading “Thazhanguppam” and an arrow pointing upwards. It was then I understood the real meaning of the place. People screw up the meaning by their horrible spelling when they transliterate in English. Then we started to proceed on the same road.

2 more kms, we could find the waves of the sea gushing on the stones and the rocks. The sky slowly became brighter and we decided to park the vehicle and capture the dawn here. The scenery is so beautiful and the whole place is silent except for the sound of waves. My cousin sister is ready with her DSLR and I had my cannon powershot(I know its chota compared to the DSLR). slowly the whole sky became red and the sun started playing hide and seek amongst the clouds. We started taking photos and it is then we understood nature is to be perceived(natural) and capturing it as a photo can never get you the real feel of it. Some sort of happiness started blossoming within us. I don’t have words to explain the total scenery!!!!



We then proceeded further to reach the beach of Thazhanguppam. After reaching the beach, I parked my vehicle in one of the houses there and ensured it was safe. Then we moved towards the beach and saw the beautiful vanishing piers taking us into the sea. We clicked as many pictures as we could until we felt it is sufficient enough, so that we get couple of good ones from the pool of photos. We then met some of the police officers on duty there and they asked us where from we were coming. Then the police officer started explaining about the movies that were shot at that spot.

After spending half an hour there, we started our way back to marina. On the way we snapped couple of photos of war memorial, marina, vivekananda house, Santhome church and reached mylapore.

We had a nice breakfast in Saravana bhavan and headed to Mylapore temple. Then after spending couple of minutes, we headed to Mamallapuram via ECR. We took some photographs of Tiruvanmiyur beach, Pattipulam beach and the beautiful ECR road,Tiger caves before we reached Mamallapuram. A day’s time is not enough to see mamallapuram. As our theme is different we didn’t spend much time there. By this time, the glucose and the energy bars that we carried ran out of stock. Eventually we had to rely on the road side shops selling tender coconuts, water melon and ice apples to keep us safe from getting dehydrated.

Around 2:00 o clock in the afternoon, we started our journey back from Mamallapuram to Adyar. On our way back, I asked my sister if she has enough patience to go to one more place and then I suggested about “Dakshin chitra”. Dakshin chitra is situated on the ECR road next to MGM traveling from Adyar. If you wanna see/know the traditions and culture of south india, this is the place for you. We reached dakshin chitra around 2:30PM. We thoroughly enjoyed the puppet shows that depicted the story of vali,sugrivan and hanuman from ramayana and some of the live pottery makings and weaving of silk sarees here.

We took couple of pictures and started our way back to home as we ran out of energy. We had planned to start to broken bridge near besant nagar after taking a nap for an hour or two. But never knew that the nap would extend to a sleep. All together the total trip was around 200 kms. I think, I found a nice way to spend time on a week end.

Extremes of chennai – Plan for a Photowalk

I was feeling tired and bored at office. So started browsing through the photos posted in the “I luv chennai” group in facebook and was fascinated by the way they were taken. Suddenly a thought flashed in my mind, why not to go roam around chennai for the whole day and capture whatever we encounter. I immediately called my cousin sister(doing her B.Sc Electronic Media) and shared my thought. She immediately agreed and we decided to do a ground work on this when I return from office. Then I started browsing the photos again. Then I continued browsing through the photos in a faster pace. But suddenly my hand stopped clicking the mouse and I pressed the back button to go to the previous photo. I was surprised to see the photo. It was nothing but “vanishing piers” of “Talanguppam”. Suddenly I got a feeling is this really in chennai or somebody posted this photo by mistake in this place. But the name seemed to posses a tamil or a malayalam origin.

The next step is obvious…..Google where this place is……OMG, this is part of north chennai near ennore….I have been to ennore only once as part of Industrial visit during my college days. Then I opened google maps to exactly spot the location. It is then I strongly decided to cover this place as part of the photo walk we gonna do that week end.

I shared my thoughts about talanguppam, with my sister and then she told me that she had already heard about this place from her friend. She immediately said this is part of our plan. Then we started jotting down the list of places we gonna cover as part of the photowalk. Talanguppam, Kasimedu, Royapuram, chennai central, city center, thiruneer malai, mamallapuram, and list goes on and on. Then we came to a mutual agreement that the list was exhaustive and cannot be accomplished in a day. Then we decided to stick on to the coastal chennai and obviously by now you would have guessed our starting point. Yes our plan was to start our photowalk from Talanguppam from north chennai and proceed till mamallapuram (south of Chennai).

We prepared a excel sheet with a table of places in our plan, distance and the travel time in bike. The photo walk was planned on that Sunday. So we had enough time on Saturday to plan. I started browsing for the routes and the distance in the Google maps. We also have to decide about where we gonna have our breakfast and lunch. My sister then reminded about the TV commercial for glucose where the sun sips out the liquid from the boy’s head through a straw. We know about chennai’s hot weather(furnace). We procured few glucose sachets and energy bars to keep up our energy levels and to avoid dehydration.


The other thing is the glucose for my bike….Yeah I fueled my bike for Rs.500 and this is one of the few times when the needle of my bike’s fuel indicator has touched the right most extreme. All ready set go for the next day morning. We planned to go to bed a bit early as it is going to be a long day. I set the alarm in my phone to 3:30AM. Our plan was to start by 4:00 AM in the morning and our first destination is Talanguppam.

To be continued in my next post…..

A State of unison

Recently I went to my Friend’s village kattuputhur, Trichy (40 kms from my home town) and was gifted to witness the Seetha Kalyana Maha utsavam. The total trip made a great impact on me and I wish I could share it here.

It is their 49th anniversary of Seetha Kalyana Mahotsavam. I came to know that they generally celebrate the total festival for five days. On the fourth day of the festival is the main event of Seetha kalyanam. The highlight of the event is the Namasankeertana by Sri Rajagopala bhagavathar. Of late, I rarely get chance to hear to bajans and nama sankeertanas. But this time, got a chance to sit at a nearest position and listen to the whole event.

The Bagavathar is accompanied by a flutist from my home town, a mridangam player, a Dolak player and couple of his group members playing jalra. The Bhagavathar’s voice need a special mention. What a great range and a bold nature. His renditions were totally clamped to the sruthi. The mridangist and the dolak player were enthusiatic and their playing was awesome. They were switching from Tisra nadai, kanda nadai and Misra nadai appropriately for songs. The total crowd started following/repeating the sangatis. This is what I will call a unison. I could not find anything odd or infact there is no second entity. I could not dissociate anything. I started getting goose bumps and now I am struck up with words to explain the situation.

I had always seen my parents and grand parents telling me the reason for conducting such Bajans. People come out of inhibitions only in group events i.e., bajan in this context. when a group of people perform an activity, we are influenced to do the same. The inhibitions are killed and you come out. The easiest way to reach god could be this.We have crores of cricket fans here. What is the state of their mind when they witnessed India’s worldcup victory? How about the people who are in the stadium to watch the finals? The happiness level is inexpressible. I experienced thousand times greater happiness and peace of mind over here. People please forgive me for this analogy. I know the experience in listening a namasankeertan is incomparable. But just wanna quote an example of the state of mind.

I know the principle of a trans-receiver, the receiver has to be tuned to the same frequency as that of the transmitter to receive any data. similarly this is a way you tune to the frequency of god. As per advaita, the only entity that separates us from God is the abstract mind. If you are capable of bringing this mind in unison with god, what else do you need. I saw people clapping their hands for the tune and this is the outcome of a perfect blend of music and Bhakti. This really took me to a trans state. It is then I understood the importance and significance of bhakti through bajans and nama sankeertans.

The Ragas chosen by the bhagavathar such as Sindhu bairavi, Surya, Hamsadvani, Hamsanandi, Durga, Shudha dhanyasi, Mohanam, kalyani etc were beautifully rendered. I was surprised to see such a great musical knowledge/ skill. We were tied in place for couple of hours that I almost forgot about everything. The total group was immersed in the river of bhakti. Where the ego and jealousy annihilates, the Godliness creeps in automatically. I had a great peace of mind after a long time. Thanks to my friend Arul Murugan for giving me such a great opportunity and a divine experience.