2023 New Year Celebrations , a big Change - 534

 2023 NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS 

A BIG CHANGE FROM THE PAST 

Coming as this does from a 72 year old , this may not surprise many . The New Year Celebrations for the last decade or so have always been a low key affair . Barring wishing your friends and relatives on the Social Media Platform or otherwise and to Visit  the Local Temple and offer Prayers for your loved ones , there was hardly anything else of note .

This was not always the case as the New Year Celebrations at our Madura Coats Campus at VK Puram  where I served was a big time affair with the Music , Dance , Dinner and Frolic extending well past in to the Midnight .

This Year 2023 was a Totally Different Experience with my Sambandhis joining us on for the Celebrations . 

The first sunrise on 1 st January is always special and to view it in its Fiery Red Glory  even as it made its first appearance as we were driving through Veeravanallur made it even more  spectacular. 

We had planned a visit to a Couple of Temples for the 1 st of January 2023 .

Our first visit planned was to the  Nanguneri VANAMAMALAI Temple. We left Agasthiarpatty at 6.30 AM and were at the Nanguneri VANAMAMALAI Temple at 7.45 AM and were just in time to witness the Nirmalaya Darshanam . This is a very old Temple which dates back a long way with some inscriptions even suggesting 600 CE . 

After Breakfast at Kavalkinaru Ariyas Hotel which is owned by Sounderajan who was a Weaver in the Shuttle Less Shed at Madura Coats in VK Puram , we visited the Nagaraja Temple at Nagercoil . 

Visit to the Nagaraja Temple followed this and this being my first visit to this place made it all the more interesting. 

The interesting part of the day was the Suchindram Thanumalayan Temple which has always been special to my Daughter .

Our next port of call was to the  Kanyakumari Bhagavati Amman Temple  .With the Temple opening time Scheduled  at 4pm we still had time on our hands even after an extended but sumptuous lunch at Hotel Saravanas .

With time at our disposal , we decided to visit the VIVEKANANDA Rock .

The outward journey to the Rock Memorial was almost incident free save for the Safety Jackets whose use and way of use was useless  as almost no one knew how to use it and make use of it as a life saving tool .

The return leg to the mainland had it's own share of excitement . The almost one hour wait in the queue to Board the ship had to be endured and to keep at bay the large number of people waiting in to barge in to the queue was a challenge .

The visit to the Kanyakumari Bhagavati Amman Temple and the Darshan went of really well except for the unusually long queue waiting to get a Darshan of the Deity on the First Day of the Year .

All in all a big change from the run of the mill New Year thus far Celebrated ,  to Ushering in of the New Year 2023  which started off in a religious fervor.