From Hollywood, I jump to Holy Place. Yes, my wife and I visited Kancheepuram for a darshan of Goddess Kamakshi Amman.

Just before starting the radiation therapy for my prostate cancer, I wished to visit Kancheepuram to have darshan of Goddess Kamakshi Amman and Nimili Bala Tirupurasundari. Just one day before we had planned to go, I opted out. The treatment, though not painful, was to be a strenuous one. During the radiation, which overall, including preparation time, did not take more than fifteen minutes, I was not supposed to move even a bit. With this in mind, I was worried if I got out and caught cold or cough, it could upset the schedule. In total, to and fro, it would have been a five-hour drive. My wife and son were upset, but I stuck to my ground.

After that, our sons were sanguine about the two of us going alone. My elder son’s 50th birthday was approaching, and we knew he would have liked to visit these temples. So, I decided, my health being much better, that we would go. So, my wife and I took a taxi for drop-off at Kancheepuram.

We reached by about 4 p.m. I had already booked a room in a nearby hotel. The reviews had been good. Not a starred hotel, but I thought it sufficient for our purposes. The locality was very busy, the road full of autos and cars. No space between parked vehicles even to enter the hotel. One good thing was one side of the hotel ground floor was let out to a restaurant. Visitors could get into the restaurant without having to get out.

The room was cute but very small. As I had said earlier during our Bangalore visit, I need time in any new place to adjust and get to know the location of things, where the bed is, light switches are, and importantly, the location of the bathroom and how the washbasin, WC, and bath area are arranged. If I have to get up in the night, I cannot be waking up my wife often.

Here was the issue. There was a sofa very near to the bed with a center table adjacent with practically very little room to reach the sofa. Just before the bed, there was a stool made of some kind of stone. The gap was narrow between the stool and the bed. And to reach the bathroom, one had to pass through this narrow space. Every chance someone, especially one like me, would hit his knee against one of these gatekeepers. And after another narrow gap, there was another bed on the other side. The television was almost hanging from the ceiling on the wall opposite to the beds. One had to be a bat to hang from the ceiling and watch TV. One may wonder, after coming for a pilgrimage, what is the big deal about TVs. It was the eliminator match in the IPL which I wanted to ‘watch.’ The only other way to watch the TV was to lie down in the bed and stare upwards. Anyway, only on tablets can I see a tiny bit of movement, and on TV none, more so at that distance. I just closed my eyes and listened to the commentary. Be happy with what you get. Make the best use of available resources.

Was that all? Definitely not.

Continued in 260. Out In Inn - Part 2