Two Cups and a Butterfly

It is said that, the universe is so interconnected with cause and effect that a flap of the butterfly’s wings can cause an earthquake in San Francisco, or a Tsunami in the Indian Ocean, or a Tornado in Kansas, or probably unite two nations. I don’t know which butterfly’s flap was responsible for making me get into wordpress and blog about some random stuff, get people’s attention, and make them like my blog. But the result of the flap is I have been awarded Two Cups and a Butterfly by my blog friends.

Sometimes you don’t know if you were doing good or bad, when you do something. Only when you see the effect of it, you will truly understand the impact that you have created by doing it.

I have been awarded a butterfly by Reema for awesomeness in blogging. I definitely know that my blog is awesome, because sometimes Reema leaves a comment in my blog that goes like  “Aww…so cute” .

A butterfly is meant to fly, not because it has wings but because only then it will fulfill its true purpose. A Butterfly has wings because it is supposed to fly. So I am letting this butterfly fly off as an award to my fellow bloggers:

Usha at Agelessbonding

A-Kay at Lemon and Chillies

Rads at Tunneling Thru’

Sakhi at her Lagukatha

If you are health conscious, do not worry, this is a “94% Fat free Butter”fly or “I-can’t-believe-it-is-not-butter”fly.

I have also been awarded a Trophy by Reema and another Trophy by Apar. When you participate in a race, it is not possible for you to get both the first and second prize and come home with two cups. But that is a race, and to me Life is not a race. Life shouldn’t be considered a race against time, but it should be considered as something to spend your time. That is probably why I got two Trophies at the same time, which doesn’t say I am the first or second, but just says I am good.

A Cup can hold a drink and a drink makes you feel good, not when you have it alone, but when you share it with a friend across the table. It doesn’t matter if it is Pepsi or Vodka or Orange Juice or Pattai Sarayam (Arrack), what matters is the friend who shares the Joy with you.

So since I have two cups, I would like to share my special drink called the Essence of Life with all of my friends in the blogroll and those who read and comment on my blog and those who just read my blog but don’t comment. Because Life belongs to everyone and Life is one big drink that is shared by everyone.

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Mini Travelogue: Rend Lake

Not often when people are looking to take a break during a Road trip for lunch they end up in a Rest area adjacent to a Lake. We were fortunate that on our recent Road trip to Nashville, we decided to skip the current Rest area and go for the next one after 60 more miles on 57 South Freeway and ended up in a Rest area by a beautiful lake – Rend Lake.

Rend Lake is located in Southern Illinois, one of the five states we pierced through before reaching Tennessee. We started off from Kansas went through Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and reached Nashville, Tennessee. Rend Lake didn’t look like a place you would mark for a visit, unless you live in that area. That was why even though Rend Lake was just another Water body, we were able to enjoy it as we ended up there unexpectedly.

The breeze was warm and the sight of the lake was beautiful in the afternoon. There were people walking their dogs, dozing off under the tree. There were also folks riding on their boats in the lake and driving water scooters. It seemed like a fun place to be. We sat on a picnic table just by the lake with our home cooked Puliyotharai and some Chips, Chivda, Karasev. It was a heavenly experience for a lunch during a long Road Trip.

Rend Lake is a loveable place.

This ends the Travel experiences from my recent Road Trip.

Mini Travelogue: St. Louis Hindu Temple

Hindu Temples in US are more like community centers. They are usually just big hall buildings with dieties around the hall. The hall is also used for community activity and celebrations of occasions like Diwali, Ganesh Chathurthi, Sivarathiri, Durga Pooja etc. I haven’t visited a lot of temples here in the US, but the ones I have are like this. I have heard temples in Pittsburgh, Chicago are very good. I haven’t been there.

St. Louis Temple stood out in the way it is built. The Gopuram and the art work on the walls around it made it look very much like a temple in India, even though it is nothing compared to the stone made ancient temples in India. The Gopuram and walls are painted white which also makes it different from the stone Gopurams in India.

Even though the front has a nice big door like that in India, the access was through the side where you had to leave your shoes and coats, take a hand and feet wash and then climb up to the temple hall. The statues inside the temple were also very nice. The main diety is Lord Venkateswara and then you have other dieties like Ganesha, Durga, Navagraha and all those standard Hindu dieties.

Photography was not allowed inside the temple. The temple in Dallas did allow us to take photos though and also the temple here in Kansas. I guess rules are different in different places. Also, this temple had a dress code. We were not supposed to be wearing shorts, but since we drove down to the temple we were wearing trekking shorts due to the weather. The manager in charge was polite though and said it was ok for us to enter the temple in our shorts since we had come a long way. But we respected the temple rules and grabbed a Dhoti from the manager (No, not the one he was wearing). The temple was loaning dhotis to those like us, just the way they do in temples in Kerala.

The only thing was if we had to reach our wallet or the phone in our shorts we had to pull up the dhoti like Raj Kiran and reach for it like a village idiot.

As for women, they are not allowed to wear micro mini skirts, tube tops, tank tops. Alas, there is no saree available for loan if you end up in the temple this way.

PS: This is my 100th post and it seems I have crossed 10K hits on the stats. I would like to thank all of my readers who have been part of this. I really appreciate it.