Tenali - Andhra Paris

Hi everyone, I hope you had an eventful weekend. I am sorry I couldn't update the blog for two days for two reasons. One is I was travelling and secondly, I had no access to internet.

Before I write down about todays topic, the following is the link of a comment posted by my cousin Pavan about K.R.Narayanan.

http://yedavalliravi.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-first-day-of-blogging.html

Ok. Back to todays topic. I have always liked to live in small towns rather to living in metros. Small towns, especially the ones in coastal Andhra are so comfortable for multiple number of reasons. Even the place where I come from, Vijayawada is such a comfortable city to live. You get everything that you want, from education to medical facilities that too at a lower cost of living. The only thing that you would miss is the entertainment part, but I guess the weekend resorts culture is fast spreading there too.

Owing to my uncle's marriage last weekend, I happened to visit Tenali, a small town in costal Andhra in Guntur district. My journey to the place was an uneventful one, although my stay was delightful. I had to travel in a city bus to Vijayawada ( a veera city bus) paying a higher price than what I pay for a hitec bus, because it is a special bus. Owing to auspicious marriage muhurtams (excuse my transliteration), all the bus tickets have been sold out. However, my wife told me that, even in an uncomfortable chair that wouldn't recline, I slept like a log. We boarded an AC coach to go to Tenali from Vijayawada.

The memorable moments of the travel started when the bus came to the outskirts of Vijayawada. Beautiful sunrise, over lush green fields and river krishna with gushing water was picture perfect. The scenary on the way to Tenali was even more wonderful. The uniqueness of this place is that all through the way, you have two water canals on either side of the road,and beyond them, hectares of lush green paddy crop. Infact one of these canals is Buckingham canal, that gives water to Chennai. So, next time you want to travel to Chennai you could take the water route, all you need is a boat and you would end up in Chennai in a couple of days if you keep rowing in one of these canals.

Finally when we reached Tenali, we drove straight to the lodging in an autorickshaw. My wife insisted that we breakfast at a well known restaurant called "Hotel Samrat" in the town where she and her father used to breakfast, whenever she was travelling to Repalle, another small town on the banks of river Krishna. We finished ablutions and started for the restaurant in a rickshaw.

Tenali, is also called as Andhra Paris, because similar to Paris this town has two beautiful canals passing through the centre of the town and the residential blocks are built around it. You will find couple of rafts over the cannals transporting people around. Although a small place, it has every facility that you would want for a happy living. Educational facilities, medical facilities, market place, theatres, etc.

To my amazement, I didn't find a single mud road in the entire town of Tenali, every road in the town is a cement one, making travel such a pleasure. We swiftly glided through the roads to reach our destination. Excellent Sambar Idli coupled with Pesarattu (Dosa made with green gram, and garnished with ginger, peppers and some Jeera) and a cup of hot, strong south Indian coffee summed up my breakfast. The sambar was finger licking. Hot breakfast on a cold winter morning is an experience. The bill for three people for a sumptous breakfast along with mineral water is just 53 bucks which reminded me of the pocket burning bill that would be given to me in Chutneys at Hyderabad for a similar kind of culinary treat. Just one of the few advantages of a small town living.

The venue of the marriage is a vast and scerene temple complex with lots of greenery. The long process of an orthodox brahmin marriage was in progress. The event being performed was "Snathakam". Excuse my transliteration but I fail to get the english alternative for this. Simply said, it is the ritual where the groom, tries to adopt sanayasa ashram after his education as no father is offering his daughter for marriage. The event ends in a rather dramatic note where the would be brother in law, coaxes the groom to drop his idea of becoming a sanyasi and instead marry his sister. Our uneventful journey the previous night made me and my wife drift into a siesta after the fiesta(breakfast) in one of the rooms allotted to us only to wake up for lunch. After another culinary experience from a small town cook, we left for the lodging.

In the evening, I engaged myself in my all time favourite activity of rambling through the market place in the small town. Thanks to Chandrababu Naidu, it was during his tenure that all roads of Tenali were made into concrete ones. There was no dust neither on the road nor on the two sides of the road. I encountered numerous petty shops that sell from clothes to bekary items, bustling with people. I came across atleast four theatres in that road. Stopped at a restaurant to have a cup of coffee just for Rs.2.50, which again reminded me of what I pay in Chutneys or Barista. Finished my evening walk with a trip inside a park maintained by VGTMUDA (Vijayawada,Guntur, Tenali Municipal Urban Development Authority, Infact there is proposal to merge these three places into a single city) Lush green lawns with old trees on the banks of a lake. Wow! What a place.

The marriage at night was well attended. Before me and my wife retired to bed at around 12 midnight, we travelled in a rickshaw to the lodgings. The rickshaw puller was drunk. A slow conversation with him made me sum up the total amount this guy spent on booze till date (He has been drinking for the past ten years, everyday), which is a staggering 60000 bucks. When I told him this figure, he was taken back, repented(atleast he sounded so) saying that with that kind of money he could have got his daughter married. He finally said he would attempt to get rid of the habbit slowly. We got up in the morning and travelled back to Vijayawada.