Ajit got married to davinia on the 23rd at Mumbai, his marriage reception was held in tuticorin on the 26th.
Lakshmanan, Mahesh and I went to attend his marriage reception. On 25th we left for tuticorin from Chennai aboard the Pearl City. The bride and groom were also travelling in the same train, so met Ajit in the train itself.
The train was awfully slow, it reached tuticorin in the morning at around 9, went straight to Ajit's home; had breakfast (without brushing ;-)). His dad had arranged a cab and a hotel room for us, so went to the hotel; freshened up. Then took the cab and went to panjalankurichi to see the Veerapandiya Kattabomman's Palace. Then went to VOC's house (has been converted to library and a museum). The climate was cool and was drizzling often.
We then went to kayathar to the place where kattabomman was hanged. From there thirunelveli was near; went there. The temple there was closed due to the solar eclipse that day. So we went and got ourselves 2kg of tirunelveli halva from vasanthi sweets.
It was already 3pm by then and Lakshmanan was grumping for food. We stopped to eat at aryas and as we were searching for a place to sit, Mahesh noticed the all the people eating there were all having vegetarian food :-| we quickly went out to check the name board of the hotel and it didn’t mention that it was non-veg ;-) so we took the car and searched for another NON-VEG hotel :-D. We found one aachis just around the corner opposite to RMKV. The hotel was packed with people, had to wait a few minutes to get a seat.
Once we were seated; Lakshmanan ordered full meals with chicken, while Mahesh, driver and myself ordered the full meals with mutton. The food was real good. After the late-lunch we took off back to tuticorin, went to the beach there. The beach was a still beach, No waves; it was like as if the water was still. It looked beautiful. We took a few snaps and went back to the hotel, on the way we picked up Pandiyaraj as well.
We then got ready and started for the marriage hall were the reception was being held, one of the cab tires got punctured and had to take an auto to the marriage hall. When we reached the marriage hall, the ceremony was well underway. This was the first time we were witnessing a Christian marriage reception. It was different and interesting to watch. We congratulated the couple and rushed to the dinner hall :-D the mutton briyani was amazing.
The return to Chennai was through a a/c sleeper bus. With little time left for the bus to depart we rushed back to the bus stand and caught the bus. The bus ride was better than the train ride the day before. The bus reached kyambedu by 8 in the morning, Mahesh and myself took the local bus and by the time i got home it was 9:30.
The whole trip was very good, A chance to meet a bunch of old friends and travel places.
Ajit and Davinia have a wonderful and happy married life.
