A Wandering Mind

This Sunday, we had been to Karjat, or rather , to a small village near Karjat , where my husband and father-in-law have been involved in Social Service activities. They go there every weekend without fail for some service activity or the other, but this was a family outing for the inauguration of a bridge that they have built. It was a small event which was to be attended by our family, a few invitees, and the local villagers. Students from the local school were the first to arrive, dressed in their best, and full of excitement. They also put up a good show, singing bhajans to the best of their ability. The villagers of course, turned out in full strength, which was expected, but the surprise was the arrival of the local politicians, most of them uninvited. It is amazing to see how well the local grapevine works, for all the politicos were there to see how someone had managed to, single handedly, and without their co-operation, built a bridge in that remote location. All of them, of c

Writing a travel blog is tough at times. I have written about travel experiences that were fresh in my mind, and now have nothing much to write about. Memories of older tours are faded, and I am not confident of doing justice to them at this point, and as of now,school's in full flow, and there is no chance of travelling anywhere. And yet, I cant seem to manage without writing something... So here goes.... My sister in law asked me to make a travel plan for temples around Mangalore during January, and I have done my best by researching all the places on the net. Now, I am putting my plan up online, so all of you out there who have been there , done that, can look over it and tell me if it is possible to cover all the places, the way we have planned. SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME

This Diwali, my sister-in-law and her family from Chennai came to visit us. They wanted to visit Shirdi and some other holy places. There were 10 of us, five elders, over 60, who wanted to visit temples, four over 30, who wanted to go somewhere interesting and different, and my four year old son, who just wanted to get out of the house. So, we finally came to a compromise. We would start our trip visiting the temples t Shirdi and Nashik, but then we would go to the beach at Bordi. Diwali is celebrated early in the morning by us, South-Indians, so after lunch we were ready to leave. We first went to Shani Shingnapur to pay our respects to the planet Saturn, hoping that He would be considerate towards us. Thank God the temple is open all day and night long, for we reached there around 11:00PM due to some miscalculation in the journey time. Then we went to Shirdi, and after a short rest, went to the temple early in the morning for the Kakad Aarti at the temple, to bow before our Gu