Tour De Tirupati

Annual hol­i­days are more impor­tant as annual exams. When we look back those days.. Stop.. Stop !!! It’s became cliché [ எழுதுன‌தே 10 ப்ளாக்.. இதுல‌ க்ளிஷே வேற‌ ?!! ] that I intro­duce the con­cept of hol­i­days in the first para­graph and the ‘good old school days’ nos­tal­gia in the last para­graph. Let me avoid this time :). My clever school­mate avoids the first and last para­graphs of the sto­ries told in Siru­var­malar [ last para — என‌வே குழந்தைக‌ளே : ].

Des­ti­na­tion : Tiru­pati ; Sum­mer hol­i­days in Uncle’s home. Some themes related to Tiru­pati.. Moun­tain back­ground, Tata buses run­ning round the clock, ever­last­ing crowd on the roads, Tel­ugu cin­ema posters [ Nagar­juna was intro­duced in remake of Kamal’s Vikram ! ], Kapila theertham, mon­keys, cement roads, sum­mer games [ TT in din­ing table :) ], crush/color/panneer soda, story telling, cycle/scooter learn­ing, TTD Hanu­man [ he looked gigan­tic then], rick­shaws with bot­tle caps piled up in axle [ ஜ‌ல்க்..ஜ‌ல்க் ], gaali gopuram, learning eng­lish with THE HINDU, jaathra fes­ti­val, car fes­ti­val of Govindaraju(lu) tem­ple, one time priv­i­leged trip to Tiru­mala, aston­ish­ingly watch­ing the skill­ful bus dri­ving while com­ing down, The Garu­dan statue in Alipiri.. It’s been sym­bol­i­cally con­veyed by the above pic­ture as vague mem­o­ries [ Ada ada ]

Our after­noons were mostly spent on unload­ing the old books from the laft and research­ing them. Though I couldn’t read a sin­gle word in Tel­ugu, the draw­ings were attrac­tive in the Tel­ugu mag­a­zines. On Sun­days, I fight for the Tamil film because of the clash between DD Tel­ugu and DD Tamil. My aunt used to tell the sto­ries from epics or Vikra­mad­hithyan sto­ries or the films [ her brother was Sivaji rasi­gar man­dra tha­laivar in Pondicherry — how’s the link :) ].They had gramo­phone records and she nar­rates the story with every dia­logue of it — Thooku thooki, Uthama­puthi­ran, Thanga malai ragasiyam, Kalyana parisu, Bhad­hala bairavi. I remem­ber watch­ing some strange BW movies like Keelu gur­ram, Gun­damma katha, Mis­si­amma [ I never sat there patiently :) ].

The moment you land up Tiru­pati bus stand, you can’t miss the hoard­ings of Bal­aji and of course, Tel­ugu cin­ema ban­ners [ at least a dozen ! ]. My cousin takes me to the movies of Chi­ran­jeevi, Suman [ James bond of Telegu with 7 fights and 6 songs ], Nagar­juna, Rajen­dra prasad [ com­edy movies ]. I usu­ally get the con­fu­sions when I lis­ten the Tel­ugu ver­sion of the famous Tamil songs. Ghar­shana [ Agni natchathi­ram] , Nayakudu [ Naya­gan ], Geethan­jali [ Idhay­athai Thiru­dathe ]. Most of the tel­ugu fam­i­lies are the fans of Viswanath films like Sagara sanga­mam, Swathi muthyam, Sankarabharanam,Sruthilayalu [ S Series ] and they don’t con­sider Krishna, Krish­na­ma­raju [ Tel­ugu Mam­bat­tiyaan :) ] as good actors — even their films run eas­ily for 100 days. I watched few of them in Srini­vas, VV Mahal the­atres. The sum­mer jaathra is very famous and I was scared of those jaathra Kali who comes for col­lec­tion.. Some of them paint them­selves pitch black with the black grease used in carts.

Our senior cousin used to take me to the mar­ket for record­ing Tamil songs as they don’t have much in touch with the Tamil films. My uncle is very strict and he s the only per­son who reads ‘THE HINDU’ paper. He asks me to read the paper and the eng­lish car­toon books [ I escape mostly and read Rathn­a­bala, instead — Vel­langum :) ]. The inter­est­ing page I read in the eng­lish news­pa­per was weather [ Ram­a­gun­dam paththi eriyum 45 degrees ], gold price for the ladies, sports col­umn about the recently watched matches. 

Unusu­ally, it rains in a sum­mer and it’s a treat to watch the tem­porar­ily formed water­falls on the hills. Also, the Kapila theertham water­falls flow­ing fero­ciously after the heavy rain, in light brown color. We were threat­ened that croc­o­diles live in the tank and were never allowed to get in the water­falls at all.

வாழ்க்கை..
ப‌ஜார் மாடு போல‌
இல‌க்கில்லாம‌ல் [ சாவ‌காஸமாக‌ ]
அப்போது..

க‌ள் குடிக்க‌ வைத்த‌
ஜ‌ல்லிக்காளை போல‌
மிர‌ட்சியோடும்
யாரோ எடுக்க‌ப் போகும் ப‌ண‌முடிப்போடும்
இப்போது..

:)

Toto.

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