The Śūnyatā (Openness) Blog

We are back. So, the autos sped through some fairly narrow lanes of Varanasi and deposited us in front of a street with a door at its entrance (yes, a door !). The board read 'Sri Rama Taraka Andhra Ashram'. The place where we had accommodation (Karivena Brahmana Satram) was supposed to be in the vicinity. I called the Karivena Satram manager on the cell and he gave me directions. Apparently, the Satram (travelers lodge) is some 150 m from where we were. The autos wouldn't /couldn't go beyond the spot where we got down. So, I went first through the street-door and after a couple of turns, found my self in an area full of pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh, and a few restaurants doing brisk business in Idli, Dosa, Vada, Coffee and Tea. (Great ! Food won't be an issue in this area, I thought). I found the Andhra Ashram too, and a shop keeper there guided me towards the Karivena Satram. Thirty minutes later, we were all checked in at Karivena Satram. We took four rooms and e...

So, we finally started the 2100-km long train journey to Varanasi. Fifteen minutes after the train left Tirupati, it stopped for 20 minutes at Renigunta Junction. We tucked into our lunch and dozed off while reading the magazines bought at Tirupati railway station. We reached Vijayawada around 9.30 PM. Our relatives in Vijayawada came to the station with what else...but lots of food for our dinner :-) There seem to be some restaurants in Vijayawada that specialize in packing railway dinners. Very neatly done! The long train journey was a good time to catch up with the rest of the family- dig out childhood memories, discuss the Indian IT and business scenario, and of course debate about films, politics and so on. The presence of some Kerala Catholic nuns in our compartment, made us talk about the convent schools we attended during the 1980's. The kids - Anagha (8) and Lasya (2.5) had a whale of a time too. My brother Ramana (who had 'miraculously' recovered fully from the th...

I wanted to write about my Kasi (Varanasi/Benares) trip as soon as we returned to Bangalore on Jan 27. But some how I just couldn't sit at the computer and start the typing.Every time I tried, I ended up reading some blogs or visiting new sites on the Internet. May be one should coin a term for procrastinating a blog post. How about blognertia ? Hmm..doesn't sound right. Please let me know if you can think of any better terms. Now, before the blognertia bug bites me again, let me get into the details of the Kasi trip we did in January 2008. This is going to be a long post, so may be I will split it into a few posts of manageable size. This trip to Kasi has been in our plans for a long time now. Almost a decade, really. We wanted it to be a family trip.But every year, one of us three brothers had some urgent issues to tackle, and when all of us were ready, it was either my mom or dad, who were busy with something else. Finally, my younger brother just went ahead and started the ...