Mes Secrets Inconnus

My BIL finally found his match in Puttaparthi. Puttaparthi is a small town situated in Andhra Pradesh which is around 156 kms from bangalore and should typically take you 3hrs to reach the place by road. Puttaparthi is also the residence of the notable religious leader – Sathya Sai Baba.

The plan was to leave Bangalore on Saturday afternoon , just after lunch and reach Puttaparthi by evening. This would also give us time to visit some places in Puttaparthi. BIL had booked a 14 seater Tempo-Traveller. I knew the very instant, it would be tough journey with lil Niyanthri. And as usual, wifey forgot to pick up Niyanthri’s cushion pillow and so it was more tough for us to handle the lil one. The route to Puttaparthi was a pretty straight forward one with some road works in between. BIL wanted to avoid the tax that anyone should pay at the border while entering other states. So he did his home work and came out with a route plan which apparently did not have any checkpost and this involved passing through villages and kucha roads. Man the travel was getting longer and Niyanthri was getting irritable. Poor thing had to be content on either wifey’s or my lap as all others looked strangers to her. Finally we made it to Puttaparthi and my initial comment was – another half hour drive we would have been to Hyderabad :-) All the guys in the van, stared at me and the looks were enough for me to stay silent for the entire trip.

The engagement ceremony went well, except for the food. Everyone found it difficult to digest, thanks to Andhra’s summer.  Niyanthri looked her best with her traditional indian dress. Most of the time some one or the other would take her away and return her back coz she would break down crying among new faces. Midst of all these , we did not get any time for shopping or looking at places. Fortunately the place we stayed – APSRTC tourism hotel had Lepakshi in their campus. We wanted to check out some famous Kondapalli toys for Niyanthri. But there was nothing that caught our attention, except a bag which wifey liked and bought.

Finally there needs to be special mention of the driver who took us, without whom there would be no blog at all. He was a maniac who got us killed nearly 3 times. Would not accept orders nor would slow down during bad roads and road humps. Hat’s off to such guys!!! You really make us think life beyond driving ;-)