Friday, April 21, 2006

Ramapuram and Guruvayoor

Lekha and I made a two day trip to north Kerala essentially to attend two weddings. My old friend, Rajan, formerly of the IPS, was celebrating the wedding of his son, Donald Nambuthiri at his village home in Ramapuram near Kottayam. The wedding itself was in Angamaly the next day, but we decided to attend the "ayni oonu", the celebratory meal for the bridegroom. Apparently, after that meal, he can eat only after the wedding.

It was great to see Rajan and his wife after many years. We also met Sarita, Rajan's neice, who was a little child when Rajan and I were in college.

We drove to Guruvayoor on the evening of April 15. We were able to have a darshan of Guruvayoorappan, thanks to the arrangements made by the DGP, Rajan Medhekar. We went to the temple again the next morning before we attended the wedding of the son of Vijayachandran, formerly of IAS. We had a lovely lunch at Vanamala Hotel. Radhakrishnan Nair, formerly of IPS, drove back with us to Thiruvanathapuram. We reached pretty fast because of our "kamikaze" driver, but it was not a comfortable drive. The roads have become better, but the drivers go very fast without observing any of the traffic rules.

The trip was really fruitful, with the darshan of Guruvayoorappan and meeting of old friends.