It was our
classmate Madhavi's marriage in Guntur on the night of India's
52nd
Republic Day. We set off the previous
evening by a little known
private
travels bus (Model Travels) to Vijayawada.
Though scheduled
to depart at
5 PM, it was 7 PM, before the bus left the city, the top
being packed
with loads of luggage.
In no time,
we were subject to the first of two Telugu movies - allegedly
a comedy,
but to me, a cacophony of voices (noises?).
The dinner halt
was at a
wayside hotel, with no signs of a toilet, whatsoever. Okay, some
of you may
feel that is superfluous, when the vast wide expanse of open
space is
waiting for you.
Anyway, we
resumed the journey and it wasn't long before movie no.2 began -
the less I
said about this movie, the better - for fear of public wrath -
suffice to
say, the movie starred NTR's son, Balakrishna, and Divya
Bharati, and
had a fight and a song alternating every other minute.
The pushback
seats we were seated on, refused to push forward - the morning
found us
still travelling with no sign of our destination in sight. We
found
ourselves at Guntur at 10 AM, and in another hour, we navigated
the 30 km to
Vijayawada.
Our
classmate Siva was there to pick us up and we performed our ablutions
at his
place. We could hardly do justice to
the wonderful food made
by his
mom.
We set off
to Kanakadurga temple and had a good darshan of the presiding
diety (who
else, Devi Durga). A feature of the
temple was that the
proximity to
Goddess varied with the amount you paid for the darshan -
a free
darshan meant you were at 10 feet distance from the Goddess,
Rs.5/-
brought you closer by 5 feet, and Rs.25/- meant, touching distance
from the
Goddess.
From the
temple, which is situated atop a hill, there was a wonderful
view of the
town and the surroundings. Krishna
river ran past the temple,
which was
accessed through a large bridge.
Vijayawada
is a bustling town, with lots of shops, roads and gulleys
full of
traffic. Though it is hot during
summers, January is a pleasant
month to be
here.
We set off
to Guntur in the evening. Guntur and
Vijawada being neighbouring
towns, there
are frequent buses.
We were well
in time for Madhavi's marriage. We were
received by our
classmate,
SMA (Kodavattikandi Sivakumar Maruthi Aditya Kumar), who
took us to
the marriage hall.
We had a
nice time, enjoying the festivities, as also the food.
Though
Andhra marriages generally happen at midnight, or early morning,
Madhavi's
was around 9 PM - surprisingly early!
This meant,
we had the whole of the night and most of the next day
to see
places. We resolved to go to SMA's home
for the night.
SMA's home
is in Karumanchi village, about 60 km from Guntur. We
hired a taxi
to the place. It was an adventurous
trip late at night,
with the
roads to the destination getting narrower and rougher.
We managed
to reach our destination by midnight or soon after.
Since SMA's
family were the caretakers of a local temple, we could
sleep inside
the temple premises. I could say, for
the first time
in my life,
I slept in God's lap (figuratively speaking).
It was a
sound sleep, broken only by the early morning sounds of nature.
We had to
plan our return to Guntur and later to Bangalore. After
a bath (in
"Open air") and breakfast, it was time for the return ride.
We were in
Guntur by 10 AM, and decided to go to the famous
Amaravathi temple.
This is a
beautiful temple, located by a river-side, about 30 km
from Guntur.
We took a local bus to the destination.
Though the
temple was
on the verge of closing, we managed to have a darshan.
It is an
ancient temple, and is of historic interest.
The ambience
is terrific,
and also the view of the riverside.
We caught a
van and returned to Guntur, well in time to have lunch.
It was soon
time for our train to Bangalore. Siva
and SMA escorted
us to the
Station and bid us goodbye.
The return
trip wasn't as adventurous as the onward.
The
morning of
28th January, 2001, found us in Bangalore and back home.