Kudli

The last part of our trip was to visit Kudli, a small village about 12KMs from Shimoga, where Rivers Tunga and Bhadra meet and start flowing as River Tungabhadra. It was about noon when we started to Kudli.
The road to Kudli was a national highway and can be appropriately called a national disgrace. The 10 kilometers took about 30 minutes to cross and we were told that the road is under construction and thats why it is in shambles.
Kudli is no different from the numerous villages dotting in our rural sides and the poverty is very much on display all around. The only big building seem to be the Shringeri mutt there. We went straight to the steps of the river.
I have seen some of the greatest rivers of the world flowing. I remember watching the Mississippi with awe from a cliff in North Dakota a few years back. The aarti in the dusky evening in Haridwar with Ganges flowing to the brim was a sight to behold. Back in my school days, I remember bathing in Kaveri near the Kadambeswarar temple in Trichy when it was in full flow. I also remember thinking of the description of Kaveri in 'Silapathikaram' while doing so.
While the rivers looked huge there was only a small amount of water flowing in both Tunga and Bhadra. One can clearly see the point where they were merging to become Tungabhadra. The awesomeness of a river in flow is either in the actual size of it (like Missisippi) or the spiritual tales associated with it. The first thing that cropped into my mind is that the Tungabhadra has seen some of the finest parts of Indian history and is still flowing as a mute witness to all that is happening around it.
The numerous temples on the banks, the kings who worshipped it, the lives of so many people living on and of the river. Tungabhadra should be having a thousand tales to tell.

We saw the river and the kids just jumped into the water. There was very little water flowing over pebbles and there are only a few buffaloes crossing the river and it was like heaven just sitting over the pebbles and playing with the kids. The entire trip was worth that one afternoon when we spent about an hour in the water with the kids. So many sights around and explaining to Sibi a bit of Vijayanagara history is what makes these trips worthy of taking the trouble to plan and do.
So after so much fun during the noon, we came out and what do we find next to a small lakshmi Narasimha temple is a small Hoysala temple.

I've never seen a Hoysala temple so far and I was able to recognize the Royal emblem of the Hoysalas on top of the temple and was happier to know that I am going to see one. It was a small temple with the Hoysala style pillars (which I recognize from the pictures I've seen) and only a very few sculptures left.

We returned to the Hotel after that and spent the afternoon dozing. Evening was spent in a modest Gandhi park in Shimoga and Jeysri went on a modest shopping spree in the much more modest bazaar area of Shimoga (saris, sandals etc). It was late evening and time to leave.

Shivappa Nayak palace

The 16th of January was like any other day and we had the car waiting for us at 9AM. The first stop was the Sakrebayalu elephant camp. It is very near to Shimoga and is open only till 11AM.

The entire route is full of betal plantations with Cocoa, Vanilla and pepper as climbers on the betal trees. That explained the richness of the villages around. Cadburys also has a cocoa plantation here.

So the kids were all excited to see the elephants and we reached there by 9.30AM. There are a total of 16 elephants in the camp and there was a small excited crowd watching the elephants bathing. I guess, they must've been used to this except that they are wild ones and are being trained in the camp.

The place is situated on the banks of River Tunga above the upper Tunga dam and there is a one-boat boat service available.

After spending some fun-filled moments, we took a 10 minute ride on the Tunga which was exciting.
The next stop on our way was the Shivappa Nayak palace in Shimoga itself. This is a small palace used by the Keladi nayaks as their summer sojourn.
Just before the palace, we stopped at a local Marama temple aka Mariamman temple out of curiosity and found that there is nothing different from our Mariamman temples in our towns.
The palace has good landscaped gardens filled with sculptures brought in from all around Shimoga. In a way, the palace is the local museum as well. We spent some time there looking at the sculptures. Sibi and Vanathy played a game with the cannon while we went around.
There were lot of kannada manuscripts on palm leaves from that period is on display and Sibi had fun looking at the weapons used and reading through the names on each of the sculptures.

When I saw a 'Ananthasayana' sculpture, asked Vanathy to strike the Ananthasayana pose and she did it extremely well.

There are no entrance tickets and apparently, the palace acts as a local meeting point for those who cut schools and wait for their mates. We saw quite a number of these people and not too many tourists as well.

Keladi

Next stop was the Keladi Rameshwara temple. The Nayaks of this area were named after this tiny village but ruled the area from Ikkeri. Again the only remnant of their rule is the Rameshwara temple here. The actual temple by the nayaks has been renovated and the core temple has been left as is and the entire praharam has been rebuilt in a modern way. No gopurams and as has been the case all along no crowds whatsoever.

This is a very small temple but is well maintained with a small praharam. May be, because the temple prahara has been re-built, the charm that Ikkeri has is missing here. Nevertheless there are some interesting sculptures that can be seen still. The Dwajastamba is an interesting piece which has small cultures of a rani and her consorts praying. Intriguing as no I checked with could find a rani who can be linked. Akkamma devi ruled a bit far it seems.

There were some snake carvings in the outer walls and I dont know what it means. But the empty praharams means the kids can play hide and seek and we relaxed a bit and after some time, J joined the kids in the play. It was fun.

We met a guy who came to the temple and a local resident. He took us to a small room in the praharam to show a couple of wooden men about 10 feet in height and told us that they will be taken out only during the 'rathothsava'. It seems when the temple was consecrated in the 16th century, two men were killed per some ritual and were granted this status to go in front of the 'ratha' during the festival times. I am thinking why I never thought to take a picture of the two and I do not have an answer. May be the details of the killings made me forget the camera, after all.

We spent some more time in the temple, while the kids were playing and it was time to leave. The eclipse ended by around 3.30PM that day and there was slow trickle of people coming to the temple. No tourists though.

We started our journey back to Shimoga and though I wanted to go to the Hosgonda Umamaheshwara temple, I was told the roads were bad and the temple itself is undergoing renovations.

While returning, Sibi started wondering why appa is taking him only to temples. J joined the conversation and both were discussing my grand father who used to take us on 10 day trips to Kerala, Karnataka only to see temples and probably some part of that bug is within me. Sibi was not very convinced and I have to tell him that the next day we will try to avoid temples.

So reached Shimoga by 6.30PM and all of us crashed for the day.

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.

Shimoga - Jog falls

Bangalore - Shimoga
Since, by some quirkiness, the southern railway forgot to have any train passing through Shimoga directly from Chennai, we were left with making a connection in Bangalore. Mercifully, the evening Shatabdi connected with the Shimoga express well and so tickets were booked accordingly a couple of days before the travel. We packed up and started the journey in Shatabdi. Reached Bangalore by 10.30PM for the Shimoga express to start at 11.15PM. The train was waiting in the same platform but as we found out, the AC coaches were missing. Sibi flew into panic and started pestering on how to go to Shimoga. Of course, the coaches were connected separately along with the engine and our journey to Shimoga began.

Back in December, when I was planning to go, I was thinking of going to Hassan and onwards to Shimoga after visiting the Hoysala temples. The new 2 day short trip during Pongal was finalized only 2 days before we were to start and luckily we could find accommodation and train tickets within the short time.

I was sleeping deeply when I realized that the train has stopped. I looked outside and it looked like an one platform small town. So I just stepped out and was face-to-face with the board 'Shimoga Town'. Hurried inside and woke up the kids and wife and came out and checked into 'Hotel JewelRock'. The rooms were good but I have to book the return tickets for the Sunday to Chennai first and so I quickly managed to get to the reservation counter only to find that there are about 35 persons in front of me. So called up my brother and through Ananth, he managed to book the tickets online by the time I reached the counter myself.

Back at the hotel, everyone was ready to go and the cab guy was waiting. So we started our journey to Jog. The cabbie was a very informative guy and was chatting non-stop about the roads, rains and pretty much everything along the way. The kids went to sleep faster and I was struggling to keep myself awake as we drove through small villages and fields which have completed harvest and little temples along the way.

The first stop was in the ghat section of the highway where we stopped to have a look at the Linganamakki dam across the river Shravati which eventually falls into the Shravati valley as Jog. After the mandatory photo session, the next stop was a small hanging bridge and then onto the MG power station. Here we get to see the Shravati valley and saw a couple of guys watching the Solar eclipse that started a couple of hours back. On talking to them, I found that one was a school teacher in the nearby village and the other is a BMTC driver from Bengaluru. All of us had a glimpse of the eclipse through the 'welding glass + x-ray' contraption they had.

Then onto Jog itself. Being the day of solar eclipse, there was no crowd, no traffic in the highways, and almost every shop was closed. The cab driver attributed this to the high number of brahmins and lingayats in the area. I am not sure how much of it is true, but it was good to be in Jog without the crowd. Jog itself was falling with less water and more awesomeness. The beauty of water falling over a gorge is beautiful, it becomes more when the entire river is full of black rocks and projections and the valley beyond is still lush with vegetation. It was magnificent. Kids had fun running around and we also drove to the other side of Jog to have a look from the PWD guest house built very near to the falls.

After a short and good lunch in the KSTDC Mayura restaurant in Jog itself, we started for our next destination.

Chennai Sangamam

Chennai sangamam got inaugurated 3 days back. After some deliberations on the best day to visit, we decided to go to Venkat Narayana road for the 'White' night celebrations today. So went to Natesan park around 6.45PM and Vanathy wanted to have the Mehandi done and Sibi wanted a tatoo. There was crowd everywhere and the programs were running in parallel.


After getting that done, we decided to have the dinner in the park and chose the Burmabai Stall for parathas. The parathas with chicken were fantastic and with Mrs. Gayathri Venkatraghavan singing some good Bharathy songs in the background, there was a show by the the Mallar school from Villupuram. 'Pulendran koothu' started right after that on the stage.


After dinner, we noticed that the road was now closed for traffic and all the action was happening in the road. So walked down the road watching the koothu, thappattam, paraiattam, oyilattam, poikal kuthirai, karagam and so many other activities were going on and after walking around having fun, we also saw Kanimozhi MP coming for a visit. It was a night well spent.

More than the koothu and aatams, what I think the annual 'Chennai Sangamam' has helped is to show that our folk culture is worth looking after and for me it is a way to connect with my childhood when I used to watch all these in our thiruvizhas in Sivakasi and Madurai. For my kids, its a learning experience to know the different facets of our folk culture.

Chennai book fair and a few random thoughts..

When my mom was in school, she used to come to Chennai for visits. We did not have any relatives at that time (1960s) and I should think of these visits as purely for seeing the sights as my grandfather had the travel bug all the time. They used to stay in the Nadar Mansion in the Poonamalle High road (even today, this is our family's choice of stay) and go around. One of the things she used to tell us is the grand dinners they used to have in the Hotel Dasaprakash in PH road.

Last saturday, I went to the Chennai book fair. Since I was going alone, wife and kids were in in-laws, I preferred to take my favorite means of transport, the suburban train and bus. So got down at Egmore and had a look at the spire of the St. Andrews church and started walking. I was not really in a mood to wait for a bus and so thought, if I start walking, I might reach the fair quickly and also can walk along the quiet railways quarters area in the PH road. Thats when I saw the Dasaprakash. I've seen it before but this time, it looked derelict and kind of a sad reminder of the days it had seen. There was a old watchman at the post and a few old cars and carriages in the front yard. I couldn't figure whether it is still functioning and was busy contrasting with the newest 'Influence' in the next block which has a fashion store, spa and a stylish restaurant. Somehow, I felt like taking a picture and took one of Dasaprakash. Got a bus near the Dr. Nair road and reached the book fair.
It is kind of irrational for me to see so much crowd in the book fair and there was no parking inside and so it spilled into the road with cars and bikes parking all along with impatient MTC drivers honking their way through. The stalls were as usual too many and the crowd was heavy at the entrance and gets thin as you walk through the stalls. The books that seem to sell are the 'தன்னம்பிக்கை' books and children books. In fact, when I was standing in the Kizhakku stall, there was guy who wanted from me a quick review on the five parts of the 'அள்ள அள்ள பணம்' and I have to tell him I didn't even know such a book exists. Not sure whether he thought I was working in the stall or just looked like a book who needed to read that book.

Doordarshan has reduced the price of the 'Bharat - Ek Khoj' series from an idiotic initial price of 18000Rs (for 18 DVDs) to a nominally irrational 5000Rs. I am still wondering who sets these prices here and whether the aim is to make sure only a few people see such series.

For once, I was able to find what I was searching for in Sahitya Akademi(thats how they spell it) and was happy find the new edition of 'Parva'. CBT and NBT had some good children books and the rest of the stalls were busily selling Dora, dictionaries at a faster rate than any time.

Outside, everything from a blood donation camp to a 'புதுமை கவியரங்கம்' with Mehta as lead was going on and I made it out before it started.

Overall, when I came back and checked the books I've bought, three books on Mahabharata (Parva, உப பாண்டவம், கிருஷ்ணா கிருஷ்ணா). But what I am looking forward to is the writings of E.V. Periyar.