Ikkeri

We started back from Jog in the afternoon of the 15th January, 2010. Of course, we couldn't see any crowd on the streets and told the driver to go to Ikkeri Agoreshwara temple.

The tourist cab drivers usually have a set path to show the people and this guy is no exception. He started moaning that Keladi is off the path and it would be better go to Shimoga after Ikkeri. I kept insisting on it. So as a compromise, he thought, I will be happy to go to another temple on the way to Ikkeri. So he stopped at Varadapur.

Now, here is a place where it seems like a local godman, Sridhara swamigal, attained samadhi and the temple and the samadhi are in on a hillock. I am a modest believer and think of temples as places where I usually achieve some amount of inner peace. But I do not like most of these godmen and definitely its not in my plan to go find places where they attained samadhi and visit. So gave an earful to the cabbie and started to Ikkeri.

Ikkeri was the capital of the Keladi Nayaks, who were subordinates of the Vijayanagara emperor. They are just like the Nayaks of Madurai, in terms of their temple building and Ikkeri has a beautiful temple which they've built around the 15 - 16 century.

Today, Ikkeri is a small village where the only reminder of the past glory is this temple. Again, no crowds. The temple itself is a national monument and is maintained well by ASI. It is a small temple but nonetheless is breathtaking. Its architecture is different from the Hoysala temples, and there is more symmetry in the pillars and the squareness of the temple was amazing. After a brief darshan, we went around taking pictures and trying to capture the beauty of the place and temple.

The Nandi is big and very much polished. The symmetry of the design can also be seen in the jewels worn by the various dancing figure, in the upper part of the temple and the various entrances which had big elephants. Sibi kept asking for the Yali's and I was having hard time explaining why we couldn't find one.

One of the interesting thing to note is that I was able to find some erotic panels in the temple Prahara. These were small, hardly 10-12 inches by 10-12 inches panels, at the eye level in the prahara and there are very few and many more look like they've been defaced. I took a few pictures and before Sibi could ask any questions, moved on.

One thing that I always find amusing is to see that our ancestors at least till 500-600 years back, had no problems with openly depicting erotica on the panels of no lesser places than temples. The society has grown so prudish that even buying erotica in Chennai is impossible before everyone gives you the look. While Britain has outgrown the Victorian morals, we have taken custody of it. But then, given our population, whether we do need to have open erotic panels is actually a very valid question.

Vellore - Kanchi trip - Day 1

After thinking for weeks for a place to visit during the Independence day weekend we decided to go to Vellore and Kanchi by a road trip and have some fun.
That was an easy decision and trying to find things to do in these two places was much more difficult. Here is a little travelogue on what we did.
Day 1
Started early in the morning towards Vellore. This is a deceptive little statement. 'Early' was 3AM for Jeysri who woke up to cook/pack the breakfast and lunch for the day 1. And for the rest of us it was about 6AM and we were on road by 7.30AM. As always, we started with lots of fun and being early had its advantages as we did not have much traffic on road and were able to hit NH4 without issues and by 9 we have crossed Kanchipuram and stopped on road for a quite breakfast alongside the fields.

After breakfast, NH4 turns into NH46 towards Vellore and it was a breeze driving with overcast skies and a surprisingly cool day. We reached Vellore by 10.30AM and checked into a hotel called Baby residency. Immediately after we started towards Amirthi forest.
After about 20-22 Kms (1 hour at least as the roads are not in good shape) in the road from Vellore(I mean, what is left of a road) you will reach Amirthi. The drive is very scenic with open spaces, corn fields, paddy fields and single lane driving with kids running behind cars (as seen in Tamil movies!).In between we crossed a river (shall I say ford it?). Actually we have to drive right on the river bed and drive across. There was no water and so no issues.

Anyways, at Amirthi entrance, there is a local food shop and a mini zoo (if you can call 4 porcupines, 10-15 pigeons, 4 peacocks, 1 crocodile a zoo at all!). But the fun lies in the trek to the Amirthi falls which is about 1.5Kms inside from the entry point. The trek is not difficult and the path is laid with red sand and slabs of stones and there is a view point to boost. The falls itself didn't had any water but through the trek it was drizzling and the forest views were fantastic.
After the trek we started back towards Vellore and had lunch in one of the vast open fields near road.

After taking some well deserved rest in the hotel room through the afternoon, we dressed up to visit the newest attraction in Vellore, the golden temple in Sripuram. The road gets congested as you near the place and parking is haphazard outside and inside as well. The crowds are unbelievable and true to being a temple for the god of wealth, a 250Rs ticket eliminates the hassle of standing in a long queue(day we visited waiting period was about 2 hrs) and puts you bang in the star shaped pathway to the temple itself. The temple itself is sort of a let down and we walked around and tried to look for people who have come actually to pray and found none. The place reminded me immediately of Akshardham temple in New Delhi which in turn reminded me of the amusement parks. The crowd start looking upwards as they near the golden part of the temple and with shops in every corner, the bhakthi aspect of the visit is nowhere to be seen.
We drove back to the hotel with mixed feelings towards the visit itself and took the much needed rest for the day