A visit to meet the charioteer,Guruvayoor

Arjun at West Nada ,Guruvayur

On February 2nd 2013 I headed towards Guruvayur from Mangalore as I had to attend my friends wedding there. Once I got down at Kuttipuram curious as always managed to go to Mukuthala Bhagavati Temple ,Kaavu (sacred groves)and premises and that was unfruitful as it was closed during 11AM.
From there I boarded a wrong bus from Changaramkulam and got down at Kunnamkulam.Yes,even if you know malayalam properly,sometimes shit happens.Finally reached Guruvayoour by noon.The most interesting part of this visit was that I met my neighbours in Dubai with whom I bid bye 12 years ago. Spent some joyful moments there . Sethu uncle & Radhamani aunty did not forget any of my pranks. They sighed and said,'How fast kids grow up!'.
With a cup of tea from there,I moved towards PunnathurKotta aka AnaKotta aka AnaThavalam..Approx 5 kms from the temple ,This is a must see place for all those who love pachyderms.Err.. I meant elephants.
70+ elephants in an area of 22acres. Apparently all of them are the ones which are gifted to Lord Guruvayurappan.This place was once occupied by the Punnathur Rulers .After the demise of the last King Godavarma Valia Raja ,the temple took over the premises in 1976.Punathur Kotta is also a mahout training centre..

I could not stop smiling after leaving from that place.  Some beautiful baby elephants made me go weak in my knees .They were God damned cute. Then after 6PM to 9.30PM went inside to meet my charioteer.Those were our private moments.Carefully listened to whatever he had to say . Nodded to him and reminded him of my November exams .I knew that it was impossible to get in on a Sunday morning inside,hence I spend some more time inside.
Later Anup Chacko joined me .He came from Kochi.Anup Chacko is an ace photographer who just finished his work for ABCD, malayalam movie.The next morning we both  started experimenting a lot with aperture , shutter speeds,whitebalances . GPS also arrived for the event. GPS has always been a mentor rather than a friend to me. He just finished the shooting for his new movie 72Model,malayalam, and there he is.We guys had a good time together.GPS had to leave early.Even after the event Anup & myself did not stop experimenting

f/1.8,1/250sec, at a bronze lamp shop

Anup Chacko at East Nada ,Guruvayur

At AnaKotta

I bath ,myself

                                      and thats how you squeeze a lemon at1/4000 of second

Cant imagine staying infront of this car for close to 30 minutes for getting this above 2 shots.The pujari complained about the first coconut as it was a fake one.Apparently it indeed was a fake one.When he broke it found out that it was a decayed one.The owner of this Hyundai Elantra had to rush to each and every shop there asking "Chetta Thenga undo?" Do you have coconuts here.. finally he managed to get one .The pujari was excited with his new found coconut tand readily did with the vahana puja rituals .I was on the floor with Anup to get this last shot for the day.

With this I left to Kuttipuram to catch the train towards Mangalore and Anup left towards Ernakulam as he was a having a shoot the same night.
Once again that was bliss visiting Guruvayurappan this time..