Main menu alias links
Thank You Chris...the menu_load_links() was exactly what i was looking for. Here is my custom main menu array that i later parse in html teplates as needed:

$mainMenuArray = menu_load_links('main-menu');
$finalMainMenu = array();
foreach($mainMenuArray as $key=&gt;$menuItem){
    $finalMainMenu[$key]['active'] = false;
    $linkPath = $menuItem['link_path'];
    $linkPathAlias = drupal_get_path_alias($linkPath);
    $currentId = $vars['node']-&gt;nid;
    if(drupal_get_path_alias("node/$currentId") == $linkPathAlias)$finalMainMenu[$key]['active'] = true;
    $finalMainMenu[$key]['url'] = $linkPathAlias;
    $finalMainMenu[$key]['title'] = $menuItem['link_title'];
}
$vars['mainMenu'] = $finalMainMenu;


I have this in template.php hook 'theme_preprocess_page' where the $vars['node'] is used to determine what is the current node loaded. I hope it useful for someone. Thank you Chris for answering my question.