Sight-Seeing - Chennai

On Sunday, we went to Chennai and did some sight-seeing finally, after three weeks of home-arrest. Gosh, that was such a relief and a welcome change. We enjoyed loads. We first had sandwich and black-forest in the Chennai station, and then we climbed a dirty Chevrolet and drove to some museum. When we reached there, we found it closed since it was a Sunday. From there we went to the San Thome church. Along the way, we also got a glimpse of the Reserve Bank of India. Then we had a tough time deciding where to go (there were so many places to visit), so we finally decided to have lunch (at Spencer Plaza) and then head to Mahabalipuram. It was a beautiful place with monoliths, truly I enjoyed the visit to that place. I'm glad we didn't go to the boat club and crocodile park etc.. I'm sure we wouldn't have enjoyed as much as we enjoyed in Mahabalipuram. We saw a LOT of foreigners there, which was cool because it made me proud that they feel the need to come and visit India. The driver of the cab entertained us with long-forgotten melodius songs.. like Bol Sajni Mori Sajni from Doli Sajake Rakhna, A R Rahman's patriotic songs and the like. We reached back at the station at around 7.15 p.m. We had supper there, and then headed home. Oh well, the journey was fine, but once we got down the train (after travelling illegally in the AC coach when we had an unreserved ticket. I feel ashamed to write that dad had to bribe the TTE) the ticket-checking inspector caught us for defaulting telling that we had a ticket for an express/mail train, but we came in a super-fast express train. We didn't know about this difference, and were caught. Dad could've bribed him again, and escape. But to save that money and get off, he argued with the inspector. . as if the inspector would simply let him off. The inpector then took him to his office and wrote a fine-slip. Dad got wild and he yelled too, and the situation had become tense. We went to the inspector's office and mum controlled the situation, payed the fine, and we walked off highly embarrassed and insulted. At home too, the discussion continued (dad was in a rage) and (mad me) I was going to get into a tiny feud with him (mum stopped us again, thankfully). But I couldn't help him too, because dad was taking sides of the militants explaining that he understands why they become so. Finally, Mahi went off to sleep, and looking at her I went off to sleep too.

The next day (that is, on Monday) evening we visited the Vellore fort/temple. It's actually a fort which has a beautiful huge temple inside it. I was initially not interested in visiting it, but when I actually saw the temple, I was awed. I loved it, and didn't feel like leaving the place. It was getting darker and was impossible to see anything, so we came back home. On the way, Mahi and me were discussing about how if people from ancient times came, their reactions would be. It was funny actually thinking about it, putting yourself in their shoes and look in wonder if you're in the same place that you once lived in. :D We reached home, had supper and (after spending time downloading stuff from the internet) and slept to wake up today.