Swamy Narayan Temple & Sugar Land, Houston

My third day in Houston, was totally unplanned. Karthik mentioned that one of his friend s was visiting Houston and she was staying with her sister-in-law at Sugar land. They had invited us over for lunch. I thought that would be great and we decided to explore sugar land on our way. Our first stop was Swamy Narayana temple. I was shocked to see such a rich temple midst a beautiful scenic locale. The temple is entirely built in marble with some fine art work. 

The devotees there requested us to stay for the pooja that was to start shortly. There were only a handful of people and that made this experience more peaceful and divine.  After the pooja we were asked to go and do abhisheka (Consecrate) on the idol. A small store outside, sold pooja material and grocery together. That seemed a little odd in a temple premises. 

We then headed to sugar land to meet Karhtik's friends. Surprisingly, our hostess Vidya, (Karthik's friend's sister) was from the same batch as that of mine and she had studied in Mangalore too. We apparently went to the same pre-university tuition classes and had the same professors. When we got to explore more, we realised that we had several common friends. It was a lot of fun recollecting the good old days. We were served some really tasty food for lunch. 

We hurried back to our apartment by 4. I bid farewell to Karthik, Ganesh and Arun and left to the airport. I had truly enjoyed these three days. Though I had not planned anything for here, these three days surprised me with something exciting and interesting always. My cynical perspective on this crowded city had slowly begun to change and I was beginning to like it. The weather was beautiful, just like a cold winter morning in Bangalore. This place for several reasons felt like home. However, I was still annoyed with the airport. I had to take this confusing bus to the terminal from the car rentals. They are so far away from one another. My flight back to Indianapolis was uneventful.