Hi everyone….after receiving the 1st feedback about this blog [a positive one i.e]..i was greatly inspired a write more…..and was just waiting for a good topic to come up….that came yesterday in the form of a cal from my friend Nihar…he invited me and another friend preetham on a trip to some place near k.r.nagar....as far as I knew and understood from his call was that place had a dam and was called as ********katte……*s indicate that I didn’t understand the word.
Anyways I was free as it was a Sunday[actually am free everyday]..i agreed and thus we went to his house from where we 3 and nihar’s parents were to go in his car.we started of at about 12:30pm.we were treated with an amazing road…….its just a pleasure to be driving on that road from mysore to k.r.nagar……but then may be I was too happy because we we soon found ourself driving on the most disgusting ,rotten[if those can be used to describe how bad that road was]road with all shapes of stones and rocks on it.
But the journey was still enjoyable as nihar started narrating the story of a recent kannada flick “jothe jotheyalli”[in English its called together together…..etc etc].anyways we drove on and on to a place now clearly sounding as ‘chun chun katte’….that place has a dam and the most important thing is…it has a beautiful temple of Lord Ram.
We reached that small village finally... and parked the car & got down only to be surprised and amazed by the amazing gushing sound of the river KAVERI near by”wow” it was truly amazing.But before running towards the river we went to the temple. The entrance was lined like in many other temples by beggars. But that’s not the only thing the moment we entered inside we were greeted by monkeys of all sizes…big,small,fat,young,small&old.there I came to know about the myth that Lord rama had visited the place and that the voice of the mighty gushing sound of the river can’t be heard inside the “garbha gudi”[that’s where the idol of the god is placed inside a temple].I had my doubts…..but was proved wrong and from then on I am thinking why the hell is it still called a myth …it’s a fact.
This temple is also special because the idol of sita devi is on the the right side of lord rama.
Even while being amazed by all the amazing ,unnatural, about that temple…I was quite let down by what I saw on the walls,above the door,etc. some read”shri rama photo studio koduge”[presented by shri rama photo studio] and the other read “marble decorations by mr.revanna&sons”……damn…..why do they want to advertise on temple walls too??? Some may argue that it was a charity …but I say it’s a namesake charity….literally.
On the way out we saw a overweight ,well fed monkey still prying for more food from other devotees.
The moment we stepped out we were again Enchanted by the River and directly headed towards it…..we crossed a bridge which had no support both below nor on the sides…and the climbed rocks boulders and made our was to a nice spot where in the water was flowing at high speed between the rocks…we rested and enjoyed feeling of the gushing water on our legs and watched some really brave men diving and swimming in that powerful current of water.
And not to miss was watching tiny black fishes trying to jump up and above the falls before us....and some jumping too high and getting caught by the snake birds waiting above with their wings spread wide ...From there on we went to a place called ramanathapura[its about 100kms from mysore]
Or should it have been devasthanapura……it had as many as 4 temples all around each other….1st we visited the farthest of the 4 temples which had a pushkarini[lake a big one] with big ,really big fishes of all kinds…..we started feeding those giants tiny round biscuits and watched how 4 or fve fishes battle for that tiny piece even though they may have been eating the same thing from morning. We did this for sometime until I had a faintest doubt on preetham [or more lovingly called mama] that he may be eating half the biscuits that we were giving him 2 feed the fishes[sorry mama…….if u r reading this..am just kidding] .from the pushkarini we went to the temple built by the “CHOLAS”…who had set out to make an impressive decorations on the walls surrounding the main temple...with elephants,parrots,men,women and all ... in a single night and had left it incomplete cause they were beaten by the sun in this race.It was just beautiful to look…..the elephants ..the parrots…and parrots and even more parrots…….it has to be seen to be belived and to be amazed at.then from there after loading ourselves with 3 or 4 packes of timepass kadlekai[groundnuts] we went to the other 3 temples and and to be amazed by them…..
By the time we left Ramanathapura it was 7 pm……It was dark already and hoping and praying that the road will be much better than the one we took in the morning ..we set of….
We passed dozens of bullock carts riding away into the darkness behind……the night turned in and it was pich dark……yeah we switched of the the headlights he he….
There were hardly any headlights all the way………we passed through several small villages with people on the road half drunk seemed as if we had disturbed them from our headlights……we drove on ….and were sometimes blocked by huge truckload of dry grass on tractors…..and sometimes we were met by 2 pairs of eyes and a glowing red beedi [yeah that’s the bullocks and the guy riding the bullock cart with a beedi dangling from his mouth]
I was also amazed by one more thing….in those tinly dark villages on the way…..one thing was evident……all had a glowing green thing in their hands[yeah a cell phone!!!!!!]and a beedi in between their lips…huh…THE GREAT INDIAN MOBILE REVOLUTION AND ALSO THE CIGGARETE [electricity needs to catch up though]with nothing else to do we started star gazing….wow..i could easily see a billion more stars than I could have back here in mysore…..after the star came the moon which strangely was changing colours according to mama 1st it was bright yellow the pale yellow …..and the white and then green[that’s the tinted glass].And continuing eating the kadlekais...and looking at the tiny bulbs hung on the electric poles which were supposed to be the 'tubelights'
In the mean time we had a song session as it was becoming increasingly unbearable to hear nari[yeah that is nihar] sing the only 2 words that he remembered of a song from the film jothe jotheyalli….the old..the new….the hindi..the English..the kannada…and last but not the least ….HIMESH RESHAMIYYA’S [was the spelling correct??] CHAKNA CHAKNA…….
And thus driving back on the thankfully superb road we arrived back to mysore which was surprisingly feeing a lot cozy, peaceful, enchanting, homely& beautiful than the places that we had just visited…..THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME.
I was back at 11pm i.e about 11 hours away from home…….and quickly jumped onto the bed cause I had college at 8 the next moring…damn….life continous…again………..
and so I slept of with the gushing sound of the river still resounding in my ears and the big fishes still swimming and eating before my eyes….and that unexplainable feeling of warmth…cold…..power…devotion……fear …and the cold running trough the my spine when one enters the temple still fresh in my heart and mind …I ..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
