We are family!
Well, it’s been a long time - but the whole family is back together today. Mom, dad and sis were all out of town. Mom and dad were busy with work for the last four weeks and my sis was out for her volunteer work all of last week.
Been driving quite a bit. Mom and dad came back last night at 1AM. Didn’t want them waiting around at that time of the night, so went and picked them up. Was 2:30 in the morning by the time we all slept.
This morning dad and I headed off to the temple. It’s the day of the year when we change the sacred thread. So, off we went bright and early. The ceremony as such is pretty short and then we went into the temple complex. It’s been quite some time since I was last at this temple, and the one thing that stood out today were the chains. Oh yeah - there were posts drilled in the temple floor and chains attached to them in order to restrict the movement of the devotees. I for one think that chains are one of the worst things that can be present in a temple. I mean it’s a place where a man goes to meet God and the thought that there are barriers seems sort of sacrilegious. I can understand restrictions and rules in a place which handles thousands of people a day - but this is a small temple and does not have teeming masses to deal with.
A temple is supposed to be a place of peace, a place where you can just forget the outside world and contemplate divinity. However, there are very, very few temples that give this sense of serenity. One thing is for certain though - when I go into the temple and look upon the face of god, the feeling is indescribable. You can literally feel the power that radiates from the idol. I’ll try to put up a photo later. It’s something that has to be experinced.
Well, came back and after lunch drove to the train station to pick up my sister. As luck would have it, on the way we realised the car had a puncture. So we drove carefully to a petrol pump and replaced it with the spare tire. By this time, my sis had disembarked and was waiting at the station for us. Hearing this, my dad decided that we needed to get to the station as soon as possible and I was demoted from driver to passenger and dad drove like the devil to reach the station as soon as possible. Thankfully, we got there in one piece.
Driving back home, my dad finally decided that I could drive again. I happily took over. Well, the happiness did not last very long - my dad can be a compulsive back-seat driver and it wasn’t long before he started giving directions. After a while I just didn’t bother - and as you can see I’m still alive and kicking.
So, here we are, all together again. It’s a nice feeling 
In other news, one more friend has been bitten by the blog bug. You can go see his ramblings here.
Well, I’m off to spend some time with my family. See ya all later
