SATURDAY, THE 20 TH, MAY
It was a cool morning at madurai,on that saturday,..... Looked like there were few summer showers during the dead of the night...and we woke up to a slightly chilly breeze turning in the early hours......Seemed as if the weather was determined to be pleasant to us through out the day, kodai or not.
Over the morning coffee, , we took stock of the situation...In spite of two days of hectic travel , untimely meals and ruptured sleep schedules, none of us seemed really the worse for it.Anasuya was nursing a massive cold, but announced herself fit for the journey again.Srinivas too was sneezing now and then, but was game too.
However,there were going to be few changes to the party.Sundaram"s a/c qualis was giving way to a non a/c one, the travel agent ,himself having decided we did not need one at kodai...Britto,a dark ,stocky,bulldog of a man, in his late thirtees,was taking the place of sundaram...we were sorry to him go....he was such a safe driver....Now anupama joined in as alekhya dropped out,strictly adhering to their gentlemen"s code.
We started a bit late, aroud 9 "o"clock or 9.30...We saw another part of madurai that day as we drove past the kamaraj university,and hotel tamilnad.The day was cool, the way was pleasant, shady with trees .
The kid"s faces brightened as britto put on some hindi music. you see...sundaram had only very old tamil melodies to his collection, that too those which have never been heard of,.. really... not even some old hits..not that i knew any...My knowledge of tamil oldies started and ended with ...PARTHA JNAPAGAMILLAYYO ..As a six year kid, i saw the dubbed version of that film....It was called SINGAPORE C.I.D...I still can remember sowcar janaki looking stunning in a stylish black sequinned chiffon, singing that song, and looking supercilious ....well,... well...and,some other mgr and b. saroja(?)number which started like ORU PENNAI PATHU ....i only remember the lalalalala bit that went with it...sung by soundararajan., .Some thing about a girl and her eyes....you see, i had an uncle, my dad" brother , who used to sing them way back in my childhood. He did his b.sc at madras, though i could not for the life of me understand why he went aaaal that way to madras for a mere b.sc...He used to flaunt his newly acquired tamil skills by singing these numbers as he leisurely bathed at the pump head in our open courtyard. Men never bathed in closed doors those days....that was for women...tcha.. Men bathed in open air, under the stars, listening to the birds and carrying on conversations....My uncle who used to be young ,handsome and unmarried at that time,, was in the habit of gathering all of us,(his little nieces and nephews)...(.ofcource,out of the earshot of his elder brothers and sisters.).. around him... would sigh , shake his head and say that girls swooned over him when he sang these, particularly the latter number, and would not leave him alone....all of us gaped and tended to believe him .
Coming back to our trip, bored with sundaram"s oldies, the kids quickly took up their own anthaksharis, and games and worst of all...their own singing... We were treated to srujana"s sudden out bursts as she belted out A DEVA DEVA DEVA DEVUDA in intermittent jerks, just when we seemed to be slipping into a nice stupor,. Poor me , having never followed current musical trends had no clue as to what this "deva deva devuda." was.Later they told me it was a popular number from POKIRI,a recently released hit. Now, they perked up at this familiar sort of music, even though the songs were as old as DULHE KE SAALIYON, HARE DUPPATTEWALIYON..
We started ascending the ghat section very soon,...just an hour or half from madurai... and it was not a very frightening or hair raising sort of one..No doubt there were the usual hairpin bends etc, but the road was quite wide enough and comfortable.The greenery on both sides was..oh...sooo eye pleasing,,,The mountain rocks looking wet ,cold....The ghat section itself covered fifty km or so i believe. The kids were excited and alternately gasped and ooohed and aaaahed as the vehicle lumbered round one bend, to reveal another beautiful scene.
There was a big traffic jam just on the spot of silver cascade falls,so we got out of the qualis, stretched our legs , went and admired the falls.Then within ten minutes , with the typical tourist mentality,ignored the falls, shopped around with the numerous hawkers ,...Anasuya said she forgot to pack her sweater, and her dad bought her a new one...Srinivas and Prasanna inspected other items., and we ate every thing in sight....The luscious baby carrots of kodai are a must buy...we bought them in kilos...alubakaras too...how juicy?..some other new looking fruits,,my husband, ever a connossieur of fruits, could not help buying...Then jyotsna wanted fresh peanuts boiled in salted water steam....so ofcource all of us ate them , to give her company.....Then i looked at a name board which announced HOME MADE CHOCOLATES, and just when i was heading there, my huband shoved me into the qualis, saying that since traffic was moving we must hurry in.....so,i regretfully abandoned the chockies, making a mental note to look for it at kodai.All this when we did not even step into the place, so to speak.
We reached the place, and after slightly fumbling around,checked in to the cottage,yasoda"s husband, a bank officer, kindly arranged for us to stay.It was a neat ,compact three bed roomed affair, of duplex type...standing on a slightly elevated position,surrounded by perfectly kept lawns, and we immediately fell in love with it.
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