Trip to Sabarimala - Day 1 (13/05/2006)

Chronologically, the day started at midnight, with a big bomb thrown on my PhD dreams. I was asked to sleep early the previous night, which I couldn't, being used to sleeping around 1:30 or 2 a.m. So I pretended to go to sleep, and when everyone else slept off, I sneaked into my room at 12, and switched on the comp. Of all the things I could have done that night, I chose to read through that big accumulation of mails coming from the PennState groups, which I didn't bother to open coz they were so many in number... Fate it would seem... This time, I skimmed throught the subjects and suddenly opened one mail regarding a technical problem with my higher studies... I got so scared and since Athya was online, told her all about it... She understood how tensed I was, and as luck would have it, one of her friends who was doing his PhD in Chemistry was online... He spoke to me calmly and allayed my fears... I was calmed down a bit by this... By the time it was 2 o'clock and I went to sleep, not before sending a mail to my senior Guru regarding this confusion. After a troubled sleep, I woke up at 7 and immediately checked my mail to see whether Guru had replied.. He had indeed, and also said the same thing as the Chemistry guy told me... So now I'm totally relieved..
With that problem off my chest, I went about with the poojai work. Had a bath, packed the clothes for the journey... After the poojai at my place, there was the poojai at my guruswami's place... following that, we went to the Pillayar temple near our house for Irumudi Kattu. That got over by 1:30.. and then we ate (breaking our fast from the morning)... After the 1:30 - 3:00 Ragukaalam, we started from the temple to the nearby Central Railway Station for our 5 pm train.
Unfortunately, ours was a summer special train to Trivandrum, and since these specials are given least priority compared to the regular trains, our train was delayed... by one hour and twenty minutes!!! Waiting in the crowded railway station with no place to sit, feeling extremely bored... finally the train came at 6:20 and started at 6:30...
On the train we had an early dinner at around 7:30, and I retired for the night in my upper berth...