A GOOD COMFORTABLE DARSHAN AT PALANI

Marudamalai is not too high, but there is a certain steepness to the steps and anyway climbing of any sort is painful for me and I do not like it, but with athletic friends like Akhila and Ravi, you kind of trudge along, hanging on to all the help you can get en route. Once you reach the top it always feels nice and of course we got a good darshan. Lord Muruga here was bathed in Vibhuthi or sacred ash. 

Luckily for us there was not much of a crowd because everybody was busy with the local body elections. Many got Rs.1000 from the DMK and Rs. 2,000 and a pair of silver anklets nestled in a box from the AIADMK. Mr Kamalahassan came and gave his speech on behalf of his party MNM (Makkal Needi Maiam) and no money exchanged hands. 

Walking down was that much easier with the breeze blowing gently. The weather in Coimbatore was very conducive for travels, but the roads and traffic not so much. We came down and there were some carts selling sliced cucumbers, served whole with sprinkled chilly powder and there were little donnais (leaf cups) with cut mangoes, almost looking like a pickle.

We had an early morning call for Palani and Arul was waiting for us. We wanted to be there on time for our online booking timing was between 10 and 11 am. We reached Pollachi, which I must have visited when I was very young for my uncle was working here. Had a lovely, hot breakfast and then drove through Udumalpetai where wind mills stand as sentinels for quite some distance.

Reached Palani and parked near the rope way entrance. Though there was not much of a crowd, the little that was there was also extremely well behaved and there were a total of 8 bucket chairs which came at a gap of two minutes and so 16 could go in a batch and we all followed the rules. You can fly in a jet, cross international waters, but going by these ropeways is still exciting and the heart does skip a beat when the bucket sways a little. We reached the temple port too soon and after a few steps reached the temple.

There was no security check of any sort. A couple of guys checked our online ticket and told us to go into a separate line. Before it hit us we were in a very small queue and a young and healthy priest came to us asked us for our gothrams and then said that we should pay him for some tickets. Once the payment was done, we were told to get off the line and then we were standing just outside the sanctum sanctorum looking at Lord Subramanya in Raja Alankaram. 

We stood there for some time enjoying the peace and quiet and then the priest came again and took us outside to give us the prasadam of some flowers and said we should now pay him some more. We gave him some money and headed for buying the prasadam of the very famous panjamrudam. Available in plastic bottles and cans, we opted for the latter and laden with it we came out to see guavas. Bought a few, ate a few and now the car was redolent with the smell of this ripe fruit which can give you a headache.

There was one more task and that was to buy A-1 chips. These are the crisp chips made of the Nendram plaintain and fried in coconut oil. Deliciousness itself, though you want to buy a lot, it all occupies a lot of space. Anyway laden with all the goodies and blessings of the Lord, we returned to Coimbatore and then further on to Hyderabad without any issue of weight or smell of onions at the airport.

It was blissful to return to Hyderabad.