" The Lady of the Lake "

Dear Friends,

" The Lady of the Lake " - the lady is " Michigan " and the four lakes around Michigan make the lady proud. Michigan has more shore line than any other State in the world, let alone U.S. " The Great Lake state " - this legend appears on the Michigan licensed plates. Out of the five great lakes in the world, four lakes namely Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie embraces the Lady, encompassing about 40,000 sq. miles of fresh surface water and run through Michigan State. Many big cities like Detroit, Ann Arbor, Mackinaw reap the benefit of economies of scale arising from great rivers.

A very old song of a river flows in my mind which also depicts human life in its essence, I can't help writing a few lines of the song :-

" Life, we feel, is born on the lofty heights and flows in a laughing Stream
As Snow melts on the mountain and Water runs down the Spring
And the Spring in a Turbulent Fountain to run down again to the riotous river
The River flows and joins the Sea which resemble a human cycle
So why prize Life or why fear Death or wonder about Mysteries
The moral the River Song depicts is Men may come and Men may go
The Rivers and the 'Lady of the Lake goes on for ever ...................:"

Michigan takes the name from an Indian word ' majigan ' which means ' clearing '.with abundance of fresh and copious surface water flow. Michigan is broadly of two peninsulas Upper and Lower and the Bridge which connects them (1957) is 5 miles long, 600 ft. tall and is categorised as the 8th wonder of the world. Mackinac Bridge guarantees to take your breath away.

The introduction or which rather runs as a preface is to inform you that we have now moved to Michigan from Denver. We arrived Detroit airport in the afternoon of 27th Saturday, July 2007. Ajay, my son and Ritu, my daughter in law were eagerly awaiting as it is now two years since he came to Bangalore last. My daughter Aparna, Sekhar and two children also have accompanied us to Michigan. all of us were accommodated in their two cars and reached Canton within 30 minutes. Canton is like Cantonment in Bangalore where they rent an apartment.

Their Apt. is nice to look at which gives us a feeling of an English Villa in an island like scenario without the water part but with plenty of greenery and a lot of ground space. We were hungry as we got up @ 4a.m. at Denver to leave home at 7 and reach Denver Airport at 8. By the time we got the boarding ticket it became almost 9 and the FLT. took off at 10 a.m. United Air Lines don't serve except some refreshments, you can well imagine that we were really hungry when we were transported to Ajay's place by about 2.30p.m. A sumptuous and delicious lunch appeased.our appetite. My son took us to the Heritage Park by 7.15 p.m. on the same day of arrival to enable Vignesh, and little Karthik to play in the park and to have fresh air. The elders took to walking and I went for a long walk as the Park is so vast and I am wondering where it begins or ends. There was a fountain site where buckets of water mounted in a circular fashion get filled up and automatically shower the water on persons who intend taking bath and standing below.

During the five days of stay in Michigan, we visited first a Rail Museum Exhibition where the history of Train Transportation was depicted in a lucid way up to the latest signalling marvels. The next agenda was trying some experiments with our hands in the " hands-on-scientific museum " which we visited the next day. Light, Sound, Magnetism, Electricity and Communication systems were in show with models performing activities in a simple way and we saw them as if we were in a class room.

We also worshipped at the Hindu Temple in Canton which looks quite big for a Hindu Temple in U.S. with deities of Ganesa, Siva, Parvathy, Seetha, Rama and Lakshmana, Anjaneya and Radha and Krishna.We performed Archana as it was Aparna's birth day. We also participated in the Bhajan and Aarti.

We had been to Canadian Consulate to get our Visa. It is housed in the building of General Motors in east front of Detroit International River. The consulate closes at 11a.m. and we were told at 10 a.m. that our documents needed some supporting papers to establish our strong link at the native place in India. We were literally foxed called Krittika that late hour. But in a miracle like manner, she scanned the maintenance Receipts, copies of Electricity and Telephone bills and faxed them c/o Ajay's office ID. We are very thankful to her for her timely help and initiatives taken." The lady at the counter wondered how it became possible and we left her at a state of surprise and proceeded further to remit the processing fees. in an hour's time, the Canada Visa was affixed in our respective Pass Ports.

We have plans to visit Canada by the week end.

So, this is the diary since our arrival in Michigan.