Time out at Neyveli - part I

We are back from our 40 day vacation and since I visited a lot of places and people, I decided to note some important and interesting points which I came across as this would help me to blog. Every time I sat with a pen and paper, my thoughts were suspended. Looks like my thoughts flow only in front of the monitor and through the key board.

Well , now to the chronicles of my summer fun at Neyveli , Bangalore and Hosur. We boarded the Charminar Exp on April 27th and reached Chennai next morning. After a few hour stay at our uncle’s place in T. Nagar we left to Neyveli to attend a family function( Ayush homam of my husband’s cousin’s son).

Neyveli the beautiful township is where my husband’s uncle stays. This place on the midway between Trichy and Chennai , is totally owned by Neyveli Lignite corporation and hence only NLC employees are allowed to stay.

Neyveli is very special to us since this is also the place where my husband schooled from nursery to class XII and my Father –in- law was the chief engineer at NLC. This place is a far cry from the Tier I &II cities of our country. This township sees no powercuts and water shortage since they are the power generators.

The employees are blessed with a beautiful quarter depending on their rank in the company. The quarters generally are a duplex house with a servant quarter(rear end) and a beautiful garden consisting of mango, goosebeery, jackfruit,coconut and cashew trees. These trees fringe a beautifully landscaped garden . Depending on the house owner’s needs one can embellish the park with swing , bench and canopy. The broad tree lined roads have never seen traffic. NLC people perhaps might hear of the word ‘heavyTraffic’ , ‘ Traffic jam’ only outside Neyveli. For people like me, staying in a multistoreyed apartment facing another multi storey complex and having a traffic jam around the ben d of the road, these sights are pure visual luxury.

The ayush homam ( the first birthday of the child celebrated according to the Hindu calender) was attended only by close relatives numbering 30.

Since the lunch was cooked by the family elders, we cousins pitched in by helping make vadais and papads while discussing lives in our cities.

After the function we(B,shre and shar) drove out of neyveli to drop our oldest cousin (60+) who was staying some 20 kms away in Vadalur. Since I have visited her place before, I was looking for the huge mango orchard which was opposite her house. But I was in for a surprise when I was told by our cousin that the barren land which was staring in front of us was the place of the mango orchard. Land sharks have not spared the smaller towns . They have chopped the huge trees to make way for plots. There were small stone pillars to mark the measurement of sites and a sign board read ‘ Plots for sale ’with a mobile number beneath.

We spent some time in their house . Shre and shar had some fun times drawing water out of the well in their house, plucking huge golf ball sized juicy lemons and fleshy drumsticks from the trees. We beat the summer heat by sipping fresh tender coconut water which were specially axed for us by our cousin’s husband.
We drove back late in the evening to Neyveli. The next day was our annual visit to our family deity temple at Siruvacchur.