A Trip To Connemara -- Circling the City

Today was Saturday and since quite a few nights I had been staying late, I got up late today after some sleep. Just casually dropped in my workplace since I had some work too and in one of the discussion lists, I came to know of Ahobilam Divyadesa Yatra and Parikkal Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Yagnam. I have gathered details regarding the same and have blogged them in my Sri Vaishnava weblog.

I had some books due to return to Connemara Public Library and before dropping at my work, took the almost long route bus 1 (Tambaram to Tiruvottiyur), got down in Central and came to the library. I had some interesting books to read and then came to my workplace.

Now feeling bit tired and trying to get some sleep and rest.

Trip to Tiruvottiyur on Sunday

This sunday has been a holy pilgrimage for me.  I was at my workplace in the afternoon since I had some small work and something I was thinking that I should visit Thiruvotriyur. At about 4 PM, I started from Guindy and reached Parrys. For some reason, I could'nt take my lunch and I was feeling lazy in the scorching sultry sun of Chennai in the month of Aadi. Hence I took some quick bites in Shankar Cafe in Parrys corner. This is really a very old hotel in Parrys.

I remember my college days when I had to board the Vellore bus, I had to get some tiffin parcel from this hotel. After that, I was looking out for the bus to Tiruvotriyur. A traffic cop guided me to the new bus stands. Entire Parrys corner has a new look bus terminuses since long distances buses have been moved to Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) in Koyambedu. It was about a half-an-hour journey to reach Tiruvotriyur from Parrys.

It was a peaceful darshan in the temple. When I entered the temple, it was almost like entering my favorite Thiruvanaikka temple in Tiruchi. I felt as if Thiruchi fondly entered my hearts and whispered "Buddy. You have'nt visited me for long". I regularly visit Thiruchi and her temples almost every six months to one year. 

Well. Coming back to Tiruvotriyur, the temple is very excellent and it has a Lord of Shivalingams and the Lordess temple is near the entrance. After about an hour in the temple, I started from there at about 8 PM to reach Velacherry and Tambaram from there. I have also collected information about neigboring temples from the priests and temple officials besides gathering information from various websites. I have posted these to http://deepakvasudevan.blogspot.com/ The most interesting thing was the number of different Shivalingams in the temple.

This Day That Age :: Engineering Counselling Admissions

Anna University is currently conducting counselling sessions for various cadres of candidates to its diversified category of Engineering Colleges like its own admissions, Government Aided Engineering Colleges and self-financing engineering institutes.

I was browsing through the university website and I fondly recall about the sametime in 1995, it was our batch that we got the invite to the Counselling and after painful and agonizing schedules through the various processes, I got an admission to Vellore Engineering College (now Vellore Institute of Technology).

At this instance, I would like greet best wishes to engineering aspirants towards a prospective engineering career. Good Luck!!!

Incessant Flow of Appreciation and Congratulations...

An incessant flow of appreciations and congratulations for the recognition described in my other post ("Selected as Microsoft MVP again"), makes me more happier and merrier than ever. As my colleague, Prathiba, has described in her post, "Need for recognition", the words of appreciation really gave a great boost and energizes ourselves to conquer further peaks of victory.

This post is dedicated to one and all who supported, helped and encouraged me. To requote Prathiba,  "It takes more than a good heart to let a person step forward when he took the only first step".

Thanks again...

Selected as Microsoft MVP again...

A few moments back, my mailbox was glad to recieve the mail from Microsoft India Community Manager,  Abhishek Kant  that I have been selected as a MVP (Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional) in ASP.NET category.

A few things to recall -- I have been MVP for two years consecutively from 2003-04 and 2004-05 in .NET framework and then C# categories.  I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Microsoft MVP selection team for considering my humble contributions towards this recognition. You can see the MVP logo in the left hand profile of this weblog.

I would like to extend my hearty congratulations to my collegue, Vadivel Mohanakrishnan, who also has been nominated back as MVP in his favorite SQL Server category.

A Review of Tiruvallikeni

Even though, it has become a regular weekly observation for me, I have been sharing with you diversified information on Tiruvallikeni in this travelog. Just thought, we would have some more indepth history review of Tiruvallikeni today.

Privileged History of Tiruvallikeni

Tiruvallikeni has been more popular since olden days and even to support casual visitors of Chennai. There are a lot of facts and a rich heritage that Tiruvallikeni (now called as Triplicane) claims and owns with pride. I was seeing an advertisement of Ratna Cafe in T. Nagar and something I was thinking regarding the various facts on Tiruvallikeni. And just thought, I would share the same with other readers as well.

1. The most important landmark of Triplicane is the holiness, godliness and divinity attached to it. For Hindus, it is the Sri Parthasarathy Swamy temple. For Islamic fraternity, it is the Big Mosque.
2. Additional tourist attractions are the world's second largest beach, Marina Beach.
3. There are also historic places in Tiruvallikeni which are the following: Royal residence of Prince of Arcot — Amir Mahal.
4. Educationally, Triplicane hosts the University of Madras, which is by far the best and most popular university in the world.
5. Guest Mansions: With a lot of floating population around in the City, Tiruvallikeni provides a best hospitality for them by arranging for a lot of boarding houses and mansions in a more economical fashion.
6. Established and Famous Eateries: Don't worry. I am not going to advertise on the more exhorbitant Taj group hotels to burden your credit card. There are eatouts and restaurants like Gopalakrishna Bhavan (now under the management of Krishna Bhavan), Ratna Cafe which has been in the neighborhood for years. Ratna Cafe has been synonymous to Tiruvallikeni and is called 'Triplicane Ratna Cafe' and with this name, they are now opened an outlet in Velacherry Bypass road.

Tiruvallikeni from the pages of ChennaiOnline: Check out this article.

Quick Pointer to Archives

Blogdrive is no doubt an excellent weblogging tool. Of late, I needed to quick link an archive from my friends weblog, since I had been discussing on a topic, on which the other blog there was a discussion. But I could'nt directly found what is called a Permalink feature and hence I had to give the straight link to the archives page and then a manual instruction to use CTRL+F to find the text.

Thanks to Blogdrive extensive and comprehensive collection of database, I found the Permalink format. http://username.blogdrive.com/archive/blogid.html For example, the archive URL for this would be http://deepak.blogdrive.com/archive/169.html

Possible Network Issue :: Inconvenience Regretted

I have been hearing from a couple of my friends that my weblog is sending multiple notifications for each post that is being created. In fact my webmail too has recieved about twelve emails for 'Wedding Bells Ring'.

I humbly regret for the inconvenience caused. I was browsing through the network forums and here is the issue that has been discussed. Currently I have a new travel log on Melmaruvatur trip this weekend and it has'nt elicited superflous emails. I hope it has been solved.

If you still encounter this issue, please let me know so that we can have a support ticket raised to BlogDrive for thier attention.

Spiritual Weekend

This weekend has been a religious or a spirtual weekend. As has been scheduled in my MSN Calendar, I started off to Melmaruvathur at about 9 AM. While Tambaram bus stand was overflowing with crowd, by God's grace, I got a bus bound to Tindivanam, which was having seats available. It was about an hour's journey to Melmaruvathur through serene greenery the moment the bus crossed the concrete jungle of city at Tambaram through Chengalput, Madurantakam and other small villages and towns.

At about half past eleven, I reached Melmaruvathur. In the shoe stall, I was informed that the sanctum sanctorum, would be closed at one on Saturdays. During a inquiry inside, I understood Saturdays and Thursdays also follow this schedule. There was'nt much rush and hence I calmly had one circumambulation, worshipping the Lordess. When I came out of the sanctum sanctorum, there was an instinct  on why should'nt we enter again, since anyway the crowd is not there. Well! I had one more darshan, with the blessings of the Lordess.

I got some prasadams from there and after a brief bite of lunch at a restaurant in the town itself, started off to Chennai back. I reached Kathipara junction sometime about half past two and now just writing off a small and quick travelog -- a compendium of the various places visited and travel narrations. There are also some more observations during this trip:

1. The route between Chennai and Tindivanam is kind of very speedy highway. Drivers must exercise extra caution while using this and we should try avoiding this for late night journeys. On my way back, I found a lorry laden with industry packages had overturned in Chengalput bypass road and since it was a median-divider bound road, the stretch had been cordoned off by the traffic police for about two kilometers and only the onward stretch was available for commuting in both directions.
2. I found one more small town and a temple called Vada Thirunallar. Thirunallar is a very popular shrine for Lord Saturn (Planet Saturn). I would try collecting more details. Meanwhile, if some reader has information on this temple, please feel free to share for the benefit of other readers.
3. Adhiparasakthi Siddar Peetam, Melmaruvathur is not only famous for the deity but the trust has a lot of other services too. They have medical colleges that offer free to subsidised treatement for the economically challenged and a state-of-the-art engineering college. Check out the trust information here.
4. Melmaruvathur has very important poojas during the month of Aadi. Check out Sakthi Peetam website for more details.

Wedding Bells Ring

It is time for the Wedding Bells ringing again. Two weddings in a single day.

An auspicious Ekadasi day and the most adored Friday would witness the wedding of two friends, one in Chennai and the other in Pune. They are:

• Santosh Sinha with Priyanka(in Pune)
• Sharmila Lakshmipathy with Vinoo (in Chennai)

Let us join hands to greet each of them hearty wedded life for thier respective weddings.

Happy Wedded Life to the brides and grooms!!