More from Dad's journal--visit to Echi's house

(This is January 1, 2009, and picks up after our visit to the Rock Temple.)
Then we went to Thulasi’s house. She packed a lunch to take to Palamarneri (where Echi lives). We had a travel companion, a cousin of Thulasi’s husband, who lives next door to her. Thulasi had asked him to accompany us so that there would be someone for Kalyani to talk to (while Thulasi and I carry on in Tamil). We had a car with a driver to go to Palamarneri.

Echi is now 86 years old. She was born in 1922. Her spirit and wit are as good as ever but, physically, she is in bad shape. Some years ago, she broke her hip and so walking is very difficult for her. Her eyesight is bad and she gets around the house by groping along the walls. Her hearing is bad as well and she does not hear what one says unless that person shouts. There is a man living in the house who makes sure she is safe and runs errands for her. There are some neighbors who bring her food. We spent a couple of hours with her. She spent a lot of time taking about our mother (not very favorably, of course) and was saying things that (I know) could not have been true. This was upsetting Thulasi a lot (she and our mother always got along well and were close) and she kept trying to stop Echi’s continual tirade with very little success.

After saying good-bye to Echi, we drove to Thanjavur. I had assumed (based on what Kalyanam had told me) that Thulasi was going to stay with us in Thanjavur and we were all going to Swami Malai where there is a temple of Swaminathan (Lord Subramanian, son of Shiva, who actually was able to reveal and explain some secrets to his father; hence “Swaminathan” which means more or less “the lord of lords”). But Thulasi did not plan to stay in Thanjavur and she and our fellow traveler were planning to return to Trichy that evening. Kalyani and I tried our best to make her change her mind but no luck. We all went to the temple in Thanjavur and then they left for Trichy. Kalyani and I decided that we should cut short our stay in Thanjavur, skip Swami Malai and go to Pondicheri. We arranged for a car for the next morning. The hotel in Thanjavur was quite a bit more expensive than the one in Trichy and not as nice. Also, there were mosquitoes in the lobby! At the restaurant where we dined, there was a musician (veena player) who was just a little bit off pitch! Almost all restaurants in the hotels in South India have what they call multicuisine menus – a mélange of South Indian and North Indian dishes as well as Chinese., Unfortunately, they are not particularly good.