#749
I am back in Bangalore today after a week-long journey through Tamil Nadu, a trip that felt both familiar and newly invigorating. What began as a visit to Karaikudi, my hometown, expanded into Trichy (Lalitha’s hometown), Velankanni, Swamimalai, temples around Tanjore, and a stop in Madurai. It was a week of family, temples, memory, and quiet surprises.
We travelled with Lalitha’s siblings to the Basilica of Our Lady of Velankanni, that enduring place of faith by the sea. From there the road led us to Swamimalai, where we began arrangements for Samarth’s first birthday rituals according to Hindu tradition. The ceremonies are planned for the end of November, soon after we return from the United States on 22 November. A few temples near Tanjore rounded out the spiritual circuit. For someone who has been visiting these places for thirty years, the familiarity is comforting; the priests still recognise us, and the visits proceeded with the ease that only long acquaintance brings.
The emotional centre of the trip was Gayathri Niwas in Karaikudi. We had planned only a day, yet stayed three. The house has stood largely unoccupied since my father passed in 2017 and was locked after my mother’s departure in 2021. The top floor, once let out under a caretaker arrangement for Amma, is now vacant by choice. My children want to spend a few days there in November—after roughly twenty-five years—so we set about cleaning and sprucing the place. Dust, locked rooms, and the quiet of long absence gave way to the practical work of making a home ready again. Standing outside the gate one afternoon, I bumped into a few of Appa’s old colleagues. They stopped, recollected, and smiled. One sentiment repeated itself: Dad was like a jackfruit—rough, prickly, and thorny on the outside, yet all sweetness within. The same recollection surfaced at Shankar Mutt, where he had once served as treasurer. Memory, it seems, softens the edges.
In Madurai we called on my cousin, the accidental “sick guy” / Dog bite guy of the family. This time his wife of forty-five years was the person we had to call for her health. Expect the unexpected, as the saying goes; the visit was warmer and more complete with a 5 course lunch she cooked (Friday Speical) than the usual courtesy call.
What surprised me most were the roads. Across roughly 1,400 kilometres of state highways the surface felt like a carpet ride: almost no digs, no diversions, tolls that worked smoothly. The stretch from Madurai outskirts toward Trichy was especially striking—a new dedicated highway of about fifty kilometres, opened earlier this year, including an elevated section of roughly fifteen kilometres. We sailed through it like a whistle. For someone who has lost too many friends and colleagues to road accidents, and who carries the professional burden of road-safety awareness, the improvement is both welcome and sobering. I still hesitate to trust Indian roads for journeys much beyond a hundred kilometres; the Vande Bharat experience (even in executive class) only reinforced the preference for controlled travel—screaming mobile phones and restless children remain part of the Indian rail soundtrack. Wonder what my options are??
Other quiet improvements registered. Home-cooked food is available almost everywhere, including in Karaikudi—a small shock that made me think how much Amma would have savoured it. Temples appeared cleaner; conversations with priests suggested less of the old friction and more positive notes about the present administration with less Anti Brahmin feeling and hate. The heat was relentless, a surprise for July, yet power cuts were absent, so we managed the stay without the old summer ordeal.
Catching up with classmates, neighbours and friends at various stops was pure pleasure. Lalitha, meanwhile, had long conversations with her sisters and brother, updating the family ledger of Trichy life. The week closed with the quiet knowledge that the calendar has already started ticking toward the next departure: Father’s ninth-anniversary rituals on 7 August, then packing for San Francisco a few days later.
Tamil Nadu this time felt both changed and unchanged—better roads, cleaner temples, the same enduring pull of home and memory. Gayathri Niwas waits, cleaned and ready for the children’s return in November. And somewhere between the elevated highway and the jackfruit recollection, the week settled into something simple and lasting: a homecoming that still feels like one.
Karthik.
2/8/26 1715 Hrs. Amritkala, Bangalore.
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