tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75228414529450281162024-02-18T19:16:12.858-08:00Just What were u thinking...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-52685645011263933512013-05-05T12:11:00.000-07:002013-05-06T06:17:31.068-07:00The Tragic Fort of Gingee<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Sometimes, ruins of a long gone era tell us the most interesting tales - the story of kings and their battles, grand temples and mosques built on their annihilated ruins, a patronage for art and a macabre hunger for war and plunder. And one such place is Gingee Fort or <i>Senji Kotai</i> which is around 150 km South of Chennai and 25 km from Thindivanam in Tamil Nadu. The fort looks exactly like the destroyed forts and palaces of fantasy fiction that authors like Tolkien describe for pages and pages and never get right.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCt1-zI8CS1zLXHywCBhJCOaLtrwWOsDRzmooFKKXewhJZ-PmdvGlXT3ZSf-OuUV2YHxfXjoEdapwHPVJosloIRQf7mkI5Xtf0NStUKwe7Da1_GFa6GzAHWucVzjUYSflF-CHQmXu7Jvo/s1600/1.+From+the+durbar+hall+of+Krishnagiri+Hill%252C+the+Rajagiri+hill+in+the+background.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCt1-zI8CS1zLXHywCBhJCOaLtrwWOsDRzmooFKKXewhJZ-PmdvGlXT3ZSf-OuUV2YHxfXjoEdapwHPVJosloIRQf7mkI5Xtf0NStUKwe7Da1_GFa6GzAHWucVzjUYSflF-CHQmXu7Jvo/s640/1.+From+the+durbar+hall+of+Krishnagiri+Hill%252C+the+Rajagiri+hill+in+the+background.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the top of Krishnagiri Hill - Ranganatha Temple, with the Rajagiri Hill in the background</td></tr>
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<b>History:</b><br />
The first fortification of Gingee was done in 1200 AD by the Konar community. Since then, this place has been conquered and reconquered countless times by the dynasties that came later- Vijayanagara, Nayaka, Maratha, Mughal, Carnatic, Nawab, French and British. The Hindu rulers added on to the temples and fortifications built by their predecessors, the Muslim rulers razed the temples and built mosques and the French and British soldiers cared zilch about temples and mosques or their history and used the fort for lodgings.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The top of Rajagiri Hill, with the Kalyana mantap and palace at foot hill and Krishnagiri Hill in the background</td></tr>
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The fort was named after Senji Amman, the virgin goddess among the pantheon of Hindu goddesses. Gingee was a minor town for many centuries. In the 16th century, the Vijayanagara emperor Krishnadeva Raya who ruled from Hampi posted Krishnappa Nayaka as his viceroy of Gingee. Krishnappa Nayaka later became the founder of the Nayaka line of Gingee and ruler of the sprawling capital city of Gingee. More than a century later in 1674, Gingee was plundered and looted by the Muslims of Bijapur. Three years later, the Maratha leader Chatrapati Shivaji captured Gingee. The Marathas strengthened the fortress at the expense of the neighboring villages and retained control until 1691, after which the tyrant Mughal emperor Aurangzeb captured the famous Nayaka capital.<br />
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As the Nawabs of Arcot grew more powerful in the beginning of the 18th century, Gingee lost its strategic value. By 1718, the destroyed fort no longer attracted economic activities. It was captured by the British from the French in 1780, Hyder Ali from the British in 1780 and was later regained by the British in 1823. Almost two hundred years later in present day, the only residents of the fort are a few ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) guards and notoriously aggressive monkeys.<br />
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Senji fort is actually a combination of three fortified precipitous hills of Krishnagiri, Rajagiri and Chandragiri.<br />
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<b>Krishnagiri Hills:</b><br />
The Krishnagiri hill is an easier climb than the Rajagiri hill. There are plenty of hidden caves on the way up. Delve too deep into these harmless looking caves and you will find either snakes or embarrassed lovers cursing you.<br />
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At the summit that took us around an hour to climb, there are granaries and oil tankers, temples and mosques, hidden vantage points and durbar halls with ornate swings. The fort is in a rather arid region and water was stored in caved granite structures to prevent evaporation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVnr5HMd7rMc4lzH7tSStVSEgSpEpdx1WNz8sKz12APnZ2BrOaMRJiLfiXrZA1YaRPN06pQ9I2h5W0RZgdynqvYXGDnPb6WZTIww9aob4CRrxRwjVRBeJkOQU4apUmmyY7qdU_nDNGEg/s1600/2.+Paintings+in+Laxmi+Temple.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVnr5HMd7rMc4lzH7tSStVSEgSpEpdx1WNz8sKz12APnZ2BrOaMRJiLfiXrZA1YaRPN06pQ9I2h5W0RZgdynqvYXGDnPb6WZTIww9aob4CRrxRwjVRBeJkOQU4apUmmyY7qdU_nDNGEg/s400/2.+Paintings+in+Laxmi+Temple.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paintings in Laxmi Temple</td></tr>
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A Laxmi temple bereft of statues stands alone amidst the heat and dust, with a few pillars and paintings made from plant and animal extracts. The paintings were probably done long after the temple was built. The Ranganatha temple can be found above the Laxmi Temple and belongs to the Vijayanagara period. There is a sculpture of a snake charmer holding a cobra, something every foreign tourist in India seems to be enamoured with.<br />
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There is an ornate Kalyana mantapa (marriage hall) outside the Ranganatha temple. A bit further, there are also remnants of a temple now converted into a mosque and tell-tales of treasure hunters who have dug up the walls and floors in search of gold. There is also a non-decrepit Krishna temple and a watch tower nearby. The durbar hall where the king collected taxes is at the top of the hill. The queen and her maids played on long swings in the chamber below. The view from the durbar hall is great and you can see for miles in all directions.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOJpwboLoCIxPj9zsEzpDxRWal8yaqaIR-_JOhMYdYUA-EEDXEkZPc8C3vPTCcHkAc23zj-bfBEpIPHrRcX_zDaUKosLLWK5MvM8TvEQzCSwRR_w-OrjibS7Yo_2i-zf1w8VW95ld6Ivo/s1600/3.+The+Krishnagiri+Kalyana+Mantapa+beside+the+Ranganatha+Temple.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOJpwboLoCIxPj9zsEzpDxRWal8yaqaIR-_JOhMYdYUA-EEDXEkZPc8C3vPTCcHkAc23zj-bfBEpIPHrRcX_zDaUKosLLWK5MvM8TvEQzCSwRR_w-OrjibS7Yo_2i-zf1w8VW95ld6Ivo/s400/3.+The+Krishnagiri+Kalyana+Mantapa+beside+the+Ranganatha+Temple.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Krishnagiri Kalyana Mantapa beside the Ranganatha Temple</td></tr>
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Unfortunately, not a single statue remains in the temples of Krishnagiri Hills. There are only ruins and half broken statues. An ASI employee guided us around; I got the feeling that the ASI has given up on this fort due to considerable amount of restoration work required.<br />
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<b>Rajagiri Hills:</b><br />
The Rajagiri hill was of more strategic importance compared to Krishnagiri Hills. At the foot hills, there are two granaries with vaulted chambers, the royal living quarters, a magazine storage facility, the audience hall and chamber in Indo-Islamic style. There is a canon like structure in front of the palace called the King’s “<i>ammi</i>” (a small stone used to grind herbs in households) by the locals. The <i>Kalyana Mahal</i> (Marriage Place) of Rajagiri hill is a pyramidal dome on a four storied rectangular open air structure and grander than the pillared Kalyana Mantapa of the Krishnagiri Hill. There are terracotta pipes to keep the place cool even during the peak of summer. This <i>Kalyana Mahal</i> looks similar to the Queen Mahal in Hampi.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaXEmYghkuQLCsYN61felpZK_CTBU0dYwYuWiIqXl0ixn6xLib_Qt4kSTVDaTnvflfkRSoRyLb4aXEslqe4XvlAGQu8_p9aRBft2ANP6dQEyWFGzFKak_NdNK_Rdrauu0uWvRPW1kISX8/s1600/5.+Another+relic+of+the+many+wars+fought+on+the+footsteps+of+Rajagiri+Hill.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaXEmYghkuQLCsYN61felpZK_CTBU0dYwYuWiIqXl0ixn6xLib_Qt4kSTVDaTnvflfkRSoRyLb4aXEslqe4XvlAGQu8_p9aRBft2ANP6dQEyWFGzFKak_NdNK_Rdrauu0uWvRPW1kISX8/s400/5.+Another+relic+of+the+many+wars+fought+on+the+footsteps+of+Rajagiri+Hill.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another relic of the many wars fought on the footsteps of Rajagiri Hill</td></tr>
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The remaining landmarks of palace include a gymnasium, granary, barracks, the mosque of Mahabut Khan and royal harem for all the wives and concubines of the ruler. The Sadat Ullah khan mosque with Persian inscriptions record that the mosque was built in 1717-1718.<br />
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The journey to the top in summer isn't exactly a jolly trip. Midway on the long journey to the top, there is a rather unremarkable shrine of Kamalakanni Amman and some interesting paintings behind it. There are also plenty of langurs and rhesus monkeys here and the latter can get quite aggressive and persistent if they see plastic bags!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52FLoeUm-p42BRwaPQ84OpR04DV63jZ8Vkfc8yAFbvjOVlAI5B0EXOz7LcyFv9ovUW5Lpb-as6b6hvlKRszYorQCEwBFoliRr17UFawtGc5gwMcQQsK9OPr-EYwx255D3MErCybMrw4g/s1600/6.+Paintings+on+the+Rock+structure+behind+the+Kamalakanni+Amman+Temple..JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52FLoeUm-p42BRwaPQ84OpR04DV63jZ8Vkfc8yAFbvjOVlAI5B0EXOz7LcyFv9ovUW5Lpb-as6b6hvlKRszYorQCEwBFoliRr17UFawtGc5gwMcQQsK9OPr-EYwx255D3MErCybMrw4g/s400/6.+Paintings+on+the+Rock+structure+behind+the+Kamalakanni+Amman+Temple..JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paintings on the Rock structure behind the Kamalakanni Amman Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw7nnFGpRBqMeydg2XmjNZaENWO6El2neM_tGzJjNr4aee1sasTbf-y-JLTm2bsVhN471oK7hIwaR88y62AhMaKXMmM2vz5qrT0UFFBKiFa2tp2yIVAxNEmd-rDgiPRnkStHXYKoE9H2s/s1600/7.+A+granary+on+top+of+the+Rajagiri+Hills.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw7nnFGpRBqMeydg2XmjNZaENWO6El2neM_tGzJjNr4aee1sasTbf-y-JLTm2bsVhN471oK7hIwaR88y62AhMaKXMmM2vz5qrT0UFFBKiFa2tp2yIVAxNEmd-rDgiPRnkStHXYKoE9H2s/s400/7.+A+granary+on+top+of+the+Rajagiri+Hills.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A granary on top of the Rajagiri Hills</td></tr>
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The fort snakes along at many places and has cannons at a few strategic locations. The defense system of the fort was adapted to the requirements of time based on the advances in weaponry over four centuries. But overall there is nothing enlightening once you reach the top after a two hour long trek. Just a few granaries, mosques and more monkeys. Remember the entrance gates to the Rajagiri Hill close by 4 PM; so avoid the long trek up the hill unless you are into such things!<br />
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<b>The Venkataramana Temple:</b><br />
The Venkataramana temple is truly a broken masterpiece. Built by Muthyalu Nayaka (1540-1550), it contains many Tamil inscriptions and is also known as the 1000 pillared temple. Sadly, not many of those pillars remain today due to marauding Muslim rulers bent on destroying art and the religious symbols of the <i>kafirs</i>. The British and the French attitude towards preservation were just as cavalier. During the French occupation in 1761, many pillars were carted away to Pondicherry to set up the statue of the French Governor Dupleix. The temple would have been a glowing tribute to Nayaka architecture but has been reduced to dust and ashes and consigned to oblivion.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXVfZ1hjF6I-cDTjBLSvS42N5ppKsZG2JOOKWicFhQuheytbHyN_ioOxdxhVVA-wKjZTrR3Vor5BFRppMfEMIr62qjHxpE0LkI0zmUyixKcxPBZ57NixqLJnupm1ysf_l1I-emMquzAY/s1600/8.+The+Entrance+Gopuram+of+the+Venkataramana+Temple+of+Gingee.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXVfZ1hjF6I-cDTjBLSvS42N5ppKsZG2JOOKWicFhQuheytbHyN_ioOxdxhVVA-wKjZTrR3Vor5BFRppMfEMIr62qjHxpE0LkI0zmUyixKcxPBZ57NixqLJnupm1ysf_l1I-emMquzAY/s640/8.+The+Entrance+Gopuram+of+the+Venkataramana+Temple+of+Gingee.JPG" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Entrance Gopuram of the Venkataramana Temple of Gingee</td></tr>
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In the 16th century, the Nayakas ruled over much of present day Tamil Nadu and were great patrons of temple building. They restored the Chola Temples of Gangaikondacholapuram to their ancient splendor and inherited and improved the Chola style of architecture that was prevalent more than 600 years earlier. The <i>Dwara Palakas</i> (door keepers) of the main sanctum of the Venkataramana temple are similar to those in the great Chola temples of Thanjavur, Gangaikondacholapuram and Darasuram.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKzBTH6pwuW2PePzOKSd_RR-oNPS6Dj-HMsycG5y9U2huG-pWr9wWYefFsCcr1HNfeIReHblf8qxk7zaJ84h8rqieFNdGxYBzwb8nw4GyLBl7qYT-M6DTcn4wcVTEfZdm_1Av-p6KSBg/s1600/9.+The+entrance+of+the+Venkataramana+Temple.+The+scene+depicts+the+churning+of+the+ocean+in+Hindu+Mythology.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKzBTH6pwuW2PePzOKSd_RR-oNPS6Dj-HMsycG5y9U2huG-pWr9wWYefFsCcr1HNfeIReHblf8qxk7zaJ84h8rqieFNdGxYBzwb8nw4GyLBl7qYT-M6DTcn4wcVTEfZdm_1Av-p6KSBg/s400/9.+The+entrance+of+the+Venkataramana+Temple.+The+scene+depicts+the+churning+of+the+ocean+in+Hindu+Mythology.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The entrance of the Venkataramana Temple. The scene depicts the churning of the ocean in Hindu Mythology</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIw0ExMBhRkrcsQbxcDME1AWjtxP9-7tJ3OT4CTQ7-sV137mqodtaV9U7rZ4fOFmWaMNVxAjsExkFAdxqMNxPyl49sBmbHSOI1WFvGn6XN-m5Y9WkzqDHwkItYJRGyDbwSO0TqG9u6Dpc/s1600/10.+The+Venkataramana+Temple+of+Gingee+was+also+called+the+1000+pillar+temple.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIw0ExMBhRkrcsQbxcDME1AWjtxP9-7tJ3OT4CTQ7-sV137mqodtaV9U7rZ4fOFmWaMNVxAjsExkFAdxqMNxPyl49sBmbHSOI1WFvGn6XN-m5Y9WkzqDHwkItYJRGyDbwSO0TqG9u6Dpc/s640/10.+The+Venkataramana+Temple+of+Gingee+was+also+called+the+1000+pillar+temple.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Venkataramana Temple of Gingee was also called the 1000 pillar temple</td></tr>
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There are statues from the Narasimha avatar, Brahma and others Gods from Hindu mythology. And almost all of them look like they could fall off any moment. The entrance to the temple has scenes from the churning of the ocean or <i>Samudra manthan</i>, where the <i>Devas</i> and <i>Asuras</i>, in a moment of rare cooperation between sworn foes, churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality. The tricky Gods later drink the nectar themselves and refuse to share it with the Demons. Oh the betrayal! I still remember how bad I felt for the <i>Asuras</i> the first time I heard the story.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi20beDZalnHzdb7hr9ijbq83vPTcbhP3emuwtcUdOhvawLdL0i_gR7vn9qHiMpHhifXmbI5M1h8uyCSybYFaCwiDsPSfn2PfIz_Tl8RzF8vRk4lDN_PnTmgYrIxbuhMgpAociYnJAWO_g/s1600/11.+Chola+Style+Dwarapakas+built+by+the+Nayakas.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi20beDZalnHzdb7hr9ijbq83vPTcbhP3emuwtcUdOhvawLdL0i_gR7vn9qHiMpHhifXmbI5M1h8uyCSybYFaCwiDsPSfn2PfIz_Tl8RzF8vRk4lDN_PnTmgYrIxbuhMgpAociYnJAWO_g/s400/11.+Chola+Style+Dwarapakas+built+by+the+Nayakas.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chola Style Dwarapakas built by the Nayakas</td></tr>
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If you are a student of archaeology and history, this fort is a treasure trove. Recently the Chennai circle of the ASI unearthed a ruined palace with audience hall and a polished royal throne. No doubt, there are plenty more treasures and their stories hidden under these ruins. But unlike the Taj Mahal, these are not stories of love. History is generally written and romanticised by victors but here in the arid abandoned Gingee fort, there were no victors. Only cruel and dark stories of plunder, death, ruin and neglect. And a glorious past long gone by...<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-35217902463207409152013-02-18T05:59:00.000-08:002013-02-21T02:48:22.990-08:00Notes from New York<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A colourful message outside a restaurant in New York reads “Life is too short to drink bad wine”. It's the last day of my trip to the US and I reckon this short sentence perfectly describes this amazing city and its people. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The City of New York from Empire State</td></tr>
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I reach New York just when winter seemed ready to settle in and stay at the famous Broadway Millennium Hotel, a stone’s throw away from Times Square. That very evening, a few of my relatives join me at the hotel and we set out to explore the bright neon lights of Times Square. The first thing I notice, apart from the blinding lights, is folks wearing costumes of every major Hollywood comic movie posing with tourists for a dollar or two. Batman's main gadget seems to be his red adidas bag to carry dollar bills. Woody is a big hit with tourists and Lady Liberty looks smug with a strained expression on her face. Surprisingly there is a guy in his underwear carrying an old stereo and braving the chilly winds; not sure which character he is though!<br />
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Every time I visit Times Square, there is a token guy with the sign - “Need money for weed”. I imagine serious men working in shifts carrying the same withered board around and secretly winking at each other during the change-over. I wonder if the Mayor is responsible; somehow conspiring to show tourists how “free” the country really is. In India, such a person would have been hounded by the local cops and branded a drug addict. The irony is that there are plenty of beggars in India streets who are drug addicts but never come out openly and ask for “Money for Ganja” to avoid hurting sentiments of the conservative middle class that coughs up their moolah.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Times Square</td></tr>
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The area beside the statue of Father Duffy in Times Square doubles up as “Protester’s square”. Palestinians holding placards against atrocities in Gaza rub shoulders with Israelis protesting against them. If the statue were to magically come alive, it would know what to do for world peace. Tourists willing to shell out five dollars to street artists and sit still for a long time are rewarded with a caricature that looks remarkably close to their long dead grandfather. At times, there are mob dances that give the entire street the look of a never ending Roman carnival. A few street food vendors greet me with a “salam alaikum” as I pass by. Thanks to countless “Alif Laila” shows I watched in my childhood, I promptly respond with a “wa-alaikum-salaam”. They immediately smile and respond with a long sentence in Arabic that I don’t even pretend to understand!<br />
<br />
Times Square is chaotic but expect to be pleasantly surprised once in a while. But the charm of Times Square wears off pretty quickly, especially when you have to wade through the traffic there on a daily basis. After a few days, like the average New Yorker, I avoid it as much as possible.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
The Museums of the city are on top of my to-see list and thanks to my employer, I get a free entrance pass to all of them. The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) or ‘The Modern’ is nearest to office and the first place I visit. Whether it is Van Gogh’s “Scream”, Edvard Munch’s “Melancholy” or Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon”, the collection of the works of modern greats is unmatched. Thanks to the audio guide, I learn about cubism and abstraction allowing me to understand and appreciate the paintings better. The Friday evening crowd is such that it's easier to get a lunch token at Saravana Bhavan than take a decent picture of the Van Gogh's paintings.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MOMA: Edvard Munch's Melancholy" </td></tr>
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<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MOMA: Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon"</td></tr>
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<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MOMA: Van Gogh's "Scream"</td></tr>
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The metropolitan museum is the undoubtedly the best museum I have ever visited. The sheer weight of history in that place is overwhelming and unfortunately I rush through with only an hour to spend there. The museum is a treasure trove of relics from different eras of China, Egypt, Persia, India, Rome and Mayan civilizations. Visiting this museum definitely stoked my perpetual desire to travel around the world more to understand ancient cultures and their history.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Metropolitan Museum</td></tr>
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The Natural History museum boasts of an amazing collection of fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals and a four story tall planetarium sphere! Visitors are transformed to a time when terrifying lizards and giant sharks ruled the world and our ancestors were just tea time snacks. I jostle for space with loud kids and their tired looking parents at the best exhibits. As someone very interested in evolution, I find the fossil of the pterodactyl( the flying reptile which is the missing link in the evolution of the flying dinosaurs) fascinating.<br />
<br />
The folks at work arrange a live tour of the Universe at the Hayden Planetarium of the Natural History museum. The tour starts humbly from the blue planet to the edge of the known Universe where even light has not travelled to in all these billion years. No better way to understand the pointless lives of a hominid ape species in an insignificant planet with a dying sun at the edge of a rather unimportant galaxy is to the grand universe where millions of stars are born and die daily.<br />
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Whether it is the museums or the planetariums, importance is given to the young in this country. America has an amazing public educational system (compared to India) and some say that the quality of the public school indirectly determines the real estate price in a locality. At the museums, I notice mothers explaining the works of greats to their children and the first question at the planetarium is from a five year old. An appreciation of fine arts, history and science is drilled into them at an early age and I find this heartening because my exploration of India’s rich history and cultural heritage started only after I moved out of the formal educational system!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tyrannosaurus at National History Museum</td></tr>
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Like most Indians, my first visit to America is on work. Working with people of a country gives more perspective and understanding than visiting all their tourist sites. If there's one thing that my co-workers were better at than us, it is at asking the question "why?" It doesn’t matter who it is addressed to or how many times they ask it; but they ask it until their curiosity is sated and concerns addressed. The educational institutions in America encourage questions and students carry forward this curiosity for the rest of their lives. In India, speaking up against elders openly, be it managers or professors or elders is discouraged. And this attitude, I believe, is the bane of our educational system – not substandard teachers and professors or the lack of quality research in our country. Perhaps I am being didactic, but in my opinion, we will never become a world power until we allow our students to ask stupid questions.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
One thing I absolutely love about New York is the food. My trip is three weeks long and I decide to eat anything but Indian food for that duration. The food in New York is probably the freshest I have ever eaten – clearly the benefit of local produce and cold storage. The taste of the soft Pizzas, the extra cheesy cheesecakes, the Mexican burritos and croissants that serve as breakfast are hard to describe for someone who has been smothered with spices since childhood. The competition among restaurants is fierce and every restaurant tries to outdo the other with better quality and service. The worst thing I ate at New York - the one dollar-per-slice pizza, is still better than the ones I buy in India.<br />
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A lot of New Yorkers eat food from carts on the street, right from the investment banker to the homeless guy on the street. The street food in New York is mostly safe due to regulation and frequent checks; back home after eating in the wrong street or at the wrong cart, food poisoning and typhoid are the least of consequences one would have to worry about.<br />
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New Yorkers as a group of people hate to wait and are generally impatient, especially when forced to wait for food. One gentleman stormed out of a restaurant, after a refund of course, when the food did not arrive in the promised time. “I don’t like being lied to”, he thundered and probably headed to his favorite street cart! Everybody wants to eat at once, pay at once and get out at once.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
Even though many friends recommend watching a Broadway show, I am not sure considering the prohibitive cost of tickets. For the same money, I could watch 30 movies in IMAX or 50 plays in Hyderabad. So when one of my aunts suggested Broadway show as weekend activity, I immediately acquiesce knowing that she would never ask her young nephew to cough up!<br />
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Two of my aunts and I watch ‘Dead Accounts’, a dark comedy that is not the typical “dance and song” Broadway show. Katie Holmes, the star attraction, can act well unlike her performances in Batman would have you believe. The protagonist, brilliantly portrayed by Norbert Leo Butz, is a new age bank robber returning to hide in his conservative house from New York after stealing loads of money from dead peoples' accounts. He is quickly followed home by his ‘almost divorced’ wife who wants a share of the booty. His loser sister (played by Katie Holmes) and mother are shocked to learn about him and the family tries to come to terms with this ‘surprise’ reunion. Overall it is a great show and I love the sudden silences, the passionate monologues and Leo’s portrayal of a man who is more interested in his wife’s love than the money he stole. <br />
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There are plenty of fashion wear stores around Broadway. New Yorkers are definitely the most fashionable people I have ever seen. When you roam around a city with observant aunts, you overhear enough conversation about fashionable boots and handbags that you eventually observe things you'd otherwise miss!<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
When I was around 13, my 10 year old cousin from America visited
Coimbatore and I think absolutely loathed the country of her
forefathers. She asked me “Why do people in India spit so much?” Having
grown up in a city where chewing beetal leaves after lunch, sucking out
the juices and spitting the reminder on the street was more like a
fundamental right, I responded naively “Doesn’t anybody spit in
America?”<br />
<br />
So imagine my surprise when I come over
to the promised phlegm-less land and find folks spitting on the roads
and throwing plastic and paper bags just like the good folks back home! The New Yorkers, of course, blame tourists for this and vice versa.
But New York is a city that works. The garbage is cleaned up in time and
the cigars that folks throw vanish by the next day.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
In New York, travel is mostly by the metro or by walk. The metro is a New Yorker’s favorite whipping boy. Often you hear statements like “Oh it’s too crowded”, “There’s no connectivity between avenues and I have to walk” or “When Sandy struck, the trains didn’t run for two full weeks!” Clearly such complaints can only come from somebody who has never traveled in the crowded buses of Chennai or local trains of Mumbai. And all this in spite of ferrying about a million people from the suburbs to the city on a daily basis. Whatever the complaints, I think many New Yorkers fail to appreciate the vision of people who built the most extensive public transportation system in the world more than 100 years ago.<br />
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For my weekend shopping at New Jersey, my aunt drives me around. I want to get my hands around the wheels of my aunt’s BMW and give her not-so-subtle hints which she catches on early and flatly refuses. Apparently the traffic violation fines are prohibitive, especially for those without driver’s license. During my stay at their house in New Jersey, I am surprised to note that there are no walls or boundaries between houses. The suburbs are pretty sedate and boring and I get the impression that nothing ever happens there.<br />
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There are a lot of rules when it comes to driving in America and what surprises me, pleasantly of course, is that people see benefit in and follow them! In the suburbs, the middle lane is reserved for essential services like ambulances and fire trucks. I am sure such a thing will never happen in India and definitely not in Hyderabad! <br />
<br />
On the roads, most cars are huge and probably voracious fuel guzzlers; only one in a hundred cars I see is a hatchback. The limousines are monstrously long; roughly enough to fit in four Maruti altos and carry the same number of people as one Maruti alto.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
The first time I switch on cable TV, it takes 15 minutes just to browse through all the channels. There are plenty of “lose 20 pounds in 20 days” and “special tea” ads. Just like in TV back home, smartly dressed actors tell you what to do with your life and how to feel good about yourself by buying their product. Nevertheless the overdose of “Call Lawyers if you fall in the mall” and “home foreclosure schemes” tells an interesting tale about American society – the story of corporate greed and easy loans that cannot be repaid.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rockefeller Center</td></tr>
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The craze for American Football or rugby mirrors our country’s love for cricket and Sunday mornings are inevitably spent in front of television. In American Football, organization of offense and defense lines takes long, timeouts are longer and 'advertisements' is the name of the game. Actual action, if at all it happens, occurs in short bursts and the players get back to forming a huddle and wasting time allowing more ads. The game is tailor-made for television and long advertisements! I learn never to expect the last five minutes of a typical football game to get over in five minutes.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
Perhaps I am romanticizing a bit but people here smile more and seem happier than most other places I have visited. This begs the question – “Does money equal happiness?” Frankly, if there’s one lesson in my New York trip, it is that even though money doesn't buy happiness, the experiences that money can pay for can definitely lead to happiness. A few Americans warn me about the pitfalls of chasing money and unbridled ambition, otherwise known as the American dream.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
There are a few parks in this concrete jungle called New York City. At Central Park, the fattest squirrels I have ever seen prepare for winter, runners go about their weekend long runs and anachronistic horse carriages and rickshaws give the impression of a bygone Victorian age. At Bryant Park, I learn ice skating; perhaps ‘learn’ is too strong a word. I mostly fall on my rear with kids zipping past and impersonating my falls like I were an over-sized egg with small feet. Nevertheless, it is the best fun I had for a while. On the last day of my trip, I visit the observatory at the Empire State building and get to see the city in its entire splendor from the top of the world.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skating at Central Park</td></tr>
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A friend of mine once said that a great city encourages you to get out of your home and explore. As soon as I finished my work at office every evening, I got out walking around avenues and shops, discovering new places to eat and gawk at. Though I didn’t buy any “I love New York” mementos, I can declare that the three most interesting weeks of my life were spent in the greatest city of the world.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-78469808365986668202013-02-16T10:55:00.000-08:002013-02-17T23:17:42.117-08:00Loans, Banks and Damn Lies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">I recently attended a talk on “Financial Planning”,
mostly about loans, insurance and retirement plans. Prior to this session, I believed
I knew enough about managing my own money. Ah the folly!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">For the benefit of those who did not or cannot
attend the session, here are a few notes. Hopefully you will learn a thing or
two. And to all those with an MBA degree – Please go easy if you don’t find the
blog technical enough and resist the urge to throw jargon and formulae at
laymen. Comments and corrections are of course welcome.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">LOANS:</span></u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">After months of research, you have finally decided
to go with that shiny black beauty and turn up at your bank to process the loan
for your new car. The bank claims to have a lesser interest rate than its
peers and once the necessary processing is done, you sign on the dotted line
convinced that you walked away with a great deal. But did you? The primary components
of a loan are Principal and EMI (Equated Monthly Installment). Let’s forget these
two (as most will already know) and discuss something a bit more complicated that
bankers generally don’t talk about – “Reducing Balance”.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Reducing Balance:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">During loan processing, the agent requests you for the monthly EMI payment date. Assuming, or rather hoping, that your salary gets credited on the
first of every month, you agree to pay the bank the monthly EMI on the second
of every month. Here’s where things get interesting. Even though the EMI is
promptly credited on the second, some banks will reduce principal amount only
on the 30th of every month. Meaning for around 28 days, the bank gets an
interest free loan on your EMI amount. The extra money is called “float” and
the golden rule is “DO NOT give float to the bank”.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Some banks used to have half yearly reducing balance tenure-
the new age daylight robbery. Ah those evil bankers intent of seven figure
bonuses… Thankfully those days are gone and most banks have a monthly
reducing balance nowadays. Some banks like SBI have a daily reducing balance, so it
does not matter which date you pay your EMI. But if your bank has a monthly
reducing balance, ask for the reducing balance cycle period and pay one day
before the balance is reduced.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Pages 3-5 of any loan document generally have
important details like reducing balance etc. And of course nobody ever reads them.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Negotiations:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">There is nothing standard in the world of loans. So
always negotiate, whether it is processing cost or prepayment terms.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Flexi Accounts:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">A "flexi" account is a savings account linked to your
home loan. When you transfer money to it, your principal is reduced by the
transferred amount. When money is withdrawn from the flexi account, the interest is now calculated on the original principal. When taking a loan, always
enquire if your bank has a flexi account. And remember that as per SEBI, banks
cannot charge prepayment amount for closure of housing loan.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Flat Rate:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">A sweet sounding female tele-agent calls up and offers a 10% personal loan. You’d immediately jump for it right, knowing that many banks
charge as much as 15% for a personal loan? Wrong... Your first question should
be whether the interest is a flat rate or not? If yes, your 10% rate is
interest is actually around 20% in reality.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Simply put, flat interest rate is based on simple
interest rate (calculation based on PNR/100) for the entire amount and a
general thumb rule is <i>flat rate * 2 = reducing rate</i>. So when an agent
uses the word “flat rate”’, run like your life depends on it; at least you‘ll
lose weight.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">RETIREMENT SCHEMES:</span></u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The best retirement scheme in the market currently
is - NPS or New Pension Scheme. Nobody wants to sell an NPS because the margins
are very low. If you go to banks and enquire about NPS, they try to sell their
own ULIPs to which you should respond with a resounding “No”. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">In NPS, the choice of Pension Fund Manager and the
investment option rests with the subscriber. In plain English, it means the subscriber can
choose who manages the money(LIC, SBI, UTI etc.) among seven competitors and also
whether the money goes into equity, debt or balanced. Younger people should have
a better appetite for risk, invest more in equity initially and move the yearly
interest earned to ‘debt’ section. This way, if the stock markets are down
during retirement, a substantial portion of the money remains in ‘debt’
funds which is not subject to market fluctuations. This sort of planning
is called STP or Systematic Transfer Plan. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"> </span>Start your retirement plan before you hit thirty.
But remember that it’s never too late. Read more about and invest in NPS here: <a href="http://pfrda.org.in/"><span style="color: blue;">http://pfrda.org.in/</span></a></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">We all know the joke about equity. We invest in the
stock market with gusto and when the markets go down – we call it a technical
correction. When it falls further, we call it a deeper correction. And when the
shares hit rock bottom, we are resigned to calling those shares family property
and praying that the market would rise again... So be very careful when investing a lot of money in equity markets. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">INSURANCE:</span></u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Life Insurance is term insurance. PERIOD. With insurance, never talk returns, instead talk risk
cover. A thumb rule is that your insured amount should be 7 to 10 times your
annual pay.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"> When buying term insurance from any company check the CSR (claim
settlement record) for that scheme. A CSR of 40% means only 40 people out of 100
who claim insurance are actually handed over the money. LIC of course has 100% but you will end up paying a
lot more premium because of this. There are some schemes with around 99% CSR
and cost a lot less. But if your term insurance scheme has a CSR of 40%,
chances are your dependents will never get the money after you die.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">There is an innocuous option in term insurance called MWP or Married Woman Protection. If the MWP option is chosen, the insurer's wife is guaranteed to get that money even if debtors attach all his remaining property or assets. The biggest beneficiary of “MWP” option is scamster Harshad Mehta’s
wife. Even though Mehta lost all his property and assets after his infamous
fraud, his wife got 5 crores after he died due to “MWP” protection and the
debtors could never claim that money. Sadly, there's no MMP.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Use <a href="http://policybazaar.com/">policybazaar.com</a> to compare insurance prices.
Always go online for most investments since it cuts out the middle
agents.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">THE WILL:</span></u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">You’d assume that after you pass away, your </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">insurance</span> nominee would get the money, Right? Wrong. A nominee is not the beneficiary
of insurance. He or she is just a trustee in charge of distribution of the
insurance amount.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The legal will determines who will get your
insurance amount. A Will is an absolute must because if you die without leaving
a will and have a house in Raisina Hills beside Lutyens, chances are some evil insurance
agency guy is going to file a claim to your property claiming to be a long lost
relative. The insurance amount will not be disbursed until this claim is
settled in the civil court. In India, that can easily take more than a couple
of decades and chances are all your descendants will be dead by the time the
verdict arrives...</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">BANKS:</span></u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">If you have a lot of money in the bank savings
account, you are doing it wrong. DON'T LET money rot in the banks; rather invest in
liquid mutual funds. Money invested can be withdrawn with just a day’s notice
and investments are safe as they invest in govt. treasury. More importantly
they give 8 % interest, better than any savings account returns out there. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Also some banks like Yes and Kotak give around 7-6%
returns on their savings account, a lot more than the usual 3-4% of other
banks. So yes; open a “Yes” Bank account. Remember that Savings account
interest up to 10000 Rs is not taxable (thanks to Pranab da).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">To conclude, I would once like to thank the trainer
for an enlightening lecture about things I should have known a decade ago.
Please be advised that very little of the above financial advice is actually
coming from me; so you should be safe!! And finally the usual disclaimer – “If
you use the above and screw up, you can’t sue me. Promise…"</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-73844987798166831842013-01-01T19:37:00.001-08:002013-01-16T21:41:28.955-08:00Mahabalipuram - The Pride of the Pallavas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.7550182405284149" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The 6th to 9th century AD was supposedly the dark ages in South India,
the Pallavas from Kanchipuram were constantly at war for their survival;
against the Chalukyas of Badami in the West and the Pandyas of Madurai
in the South. In between their wars, they built magnificent temples,
expanded the horizons of art and architecture and experimented with
monolithic and rock cut temples before mastering the Dravidian style of
temple building.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
In Badami, the Chalukyas were excavating temples from red sandstone
that is easier to sculpt. Down South in Mahabalipuram, the Pallavas had
only granite hills. Granite is a difficult stone to sculpt and
consequently the temples here do not possess the level of intricacy or
detail that you will find in a sculpture of any sandstone based temple.
The objective of the kings of South India turned to building grander and
loftier temples. After three centuries of war, the Chalukyas finally
overran the Pallavas’ capital in the beginning of the 9th century; but
the granite stones of Mahabalipuram still tell us tales of a lost era of
flourishing art and architecture and their terminal decline.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI3KYSr3060lv-vyjj1DYVdd_e-6GgfXgBsZu3fT_Eru9V7rzJohy49oC0YQPnnVQpPCazkaN2S3yXDOvel6gUvfJbHNBkLi4twykqt1-t9CkLwMzO0xJFZqMS9ZFhtCsGBVRmwmZJXjU/s1600/1.+Shore+Temple.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI3KYSr3060lv-vyjj1DYVdd_e-6GgfXgBsZu3fT_Eru9V7rzJohy49oC0YQPnnVQpPCazkaN2S3yXDOvel6gUvfJbHNBkLi4twykqt1-t9CkLwMzO0xJFZqMS9ZFhtCsGBVRmwmZJXjU/s400/1.+Shore+Temple.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shore Temple</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In a land like India where civilization stretches to at least a few
thousand years, it’s difficult to unravel fact from fable and history
from mythology. For instance, there are many explanations as to why the
city is named Mahabalipuram (place of great sacrifice). The town was
supposedly named after asura (demon) king Mahabali who ruled these
shores before being vanquished by the Vamana avatar of Lord Vishnu. It
was also called Mamallapuram after the Pallava King Narasimhavarman took
the epithet Maha-malla (great wrestler).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Structural Erections – Shore Temple:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Shore Temple was built by Narasimha Varman II in early 8th century;
the last substantial work of the Pallavas and one of the oldest
structural (versus rock-cut) stone temples of South India. The temple
was designed to look like a monolith but a major portion of the temple
has actually been reconstructed after the tsunamis and cyclones. A paste
made of shells, honeys, eggs, lemons and sand was used in place of
cement as the binding agent giving the walls a distinct look.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJB-cwdNNWtND9crV6FQGqXaS8Ynbd3ZeZyeprJzt_iTRlEziuhe-PP-iUksxleMgwaYUIWy7AoSamKc1S1F66uSm0gmBpriBLbM5cMCyzrcRuNovpmnZdaNPRGbEeLSgRx3ywiJtk4I/s1600/2.+Dragon+Statue.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJB-cwdNNWtND9crV6FQGqXaS8Ynbd3ZeZyeprJzt_iTRlEziuhe-PP-iUksxleMgwaYUIWy7AoSamKc1S1F66uSm0gmBpriBLbM5cMCyzrcRuNovpmnZdaNPRGbEeLSgRx3ywiJtk4I/s400/2.+Dragon+Statue.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Durga on a lion with small carved shrine</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The temple is built right on the shore such that the first rays of the
rising Sun falls on the Shiva lingam located on the eastern side of the
temple. Around a hundred grand Nandis (sacred bull who is the gatekeeper
of Shiva's realm) surround the sanctum of the temple from all sides.
There is a lion statue with a small carved shrine of Durga in the middle
and a water tank beside that which could have been used for ritualistic
sacrifice of animals. The statue bears a striking resemblance to the
national symbol of Singapore!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Shore Temple, though dedicated to Lord Shiva, has a reclining
Vishnu on the Western side of the temple. You will find a lot of coins
and the odd ten rupee note on this statue; a shameful desecration of a
monument of great historical value. There are also sculptures of
Parvathi (Shiva’s consort), Murugan and Ganesha (Shiva’s children).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The effects of erosion due to years of being submerged in water and
centuries of facing the rough seas and the salty winds are clearly
visible in this temple. Once in awhile, the ASI covers the temple with
paper pulp and casuarinas to protect the sculptures by adding an
additional coating to the surface.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Shore temple, as per folklore, is the last of the seven pagodas
(temples) of Mahabalipuram. When the 2004 tsunami lashed across the
eastern coast of India, the water initially receded around half a
kilometre before rushing back landward. If you had been standing at the
shore temple at Mahabalipuram at that point in time, apart from staring
at your own death, you would have been one of the fortunate few to see
remnants of the lost temple city. After the tsunami, the ASI
(Archaeological Survey of India) undertook underwater excavations to
confirm the carvings and sculptures. In the aftermath of the tsunami, an
auditorium like structure was discovered just beside the temple and a
huge Shiva lingam was found washed ashore that is now safely ensconced
in a New Delhi museum.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Govardhana Dhari – Krishna’s Mantap:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Many rock hewn caves and structural temples can be found in a black
hillock at the centre of village. The Govardhana Giri mantapa is a rock
cut monolith that was built by Krishnadevaraja and the elegantly
sculpted scene shows Krishna lifting the Govardhana Mountain to protect
the villagers from heavy rains that lashed Mathura. Various scenes from
the daily life of villagers can also be found in the tableau.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhajHmrEkhcJxVaArvQD8Cz9pmQQGh-CMjPSysNLMaxCXi_frVAjsr_5mi9rAnPX9KEWqbmpz4iBv0SWEE7HcJ5cjyHXsAZy-8QUwPZtzkVcYd66UrQUW5NhoLRqQ4uMjvfITb7sqJ59Ew/s1600/3.+Govardhana+Dhari.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhajHmrEkhcJxVaArvQD8Cz9pmQQGh-CMjPSysNLMaxCXi_frVAjsr_5mi9rAnPX9KEWqbmpz4iBv0SWEE7HcJ5cjyHXsAZy-8QUwPZtzkVcYd66UrQUW5NhoLRqQ4uMjvfITb7sqJ59Ew/s400/3.+Govardhana+Dhari.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Govardhana Dhari - Krishna's Mantap</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mahishasuramardini cave temple:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The sculptures depict the story of goddess Durga killing the dreaded asura Mahishasura.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1PSWehu8mbhcjekeTPp4-0hz14hxz-cNyHrTPp88otZFDpYZMsRWGxxS8EFuqwg15G02_ASOKumxm_CWsLrY8bCsW62BWDtqyNIItG7GtXl_LuwP99LI5KZJ4GaYKKXSuVtF4YzB-r14/s1600/11.+Mahishasura+Mardhini.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1PSWehu8mbhcjekeTPp4-0hz14hxz-cNyHrTPp88otZFDpYZMsRWGxxS8EFuqwg15G02_ASOKumxm_CWsLrY8bCsW62BWDtqyNIItG7GtXl_LuwP99LI5KZJ4GaYKKXSuVtF4YzB-r14/s400/11.+Mahishasura+Mardhini.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mahishasura Mardhini</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Varaha Cave temple:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The rock-cut temple of Varaha, one of the avatars of Lord Vishnu, dates
back to the 7th century. There scene shows Varaha holding a Devi after
rescuing her from an asura. Another scene shows Goddess Durga and her
devotees reverently sacrificing their eyes and hands at her feet. Durga
is a hard God to please and gory ritualistic self-sacrifice was
necessary to gain her divine blessings. The dark ages indeed;
unfortunately such masochistic sacrificial practices are still followed
in the present age.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-325wNOt79qw7QwIaw7y0oM52OuRlrqnP60cTCVA0tkkiXzWjVifRq7ufaUq9kZhw08SMwovVT25ekZ431Lx9i2lbfnUStsgF7iSEKfbDpQgCClzBsb4U328iKa1YKyysFyL0bq5WeCc/s1600/10.+Durga+and+devotees.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-325wNOt79qw7QwIaw7y0oM52OuRlrqnP60cTCVA0tkkiXzWjVifRq7ufaUq9kZhw08SMwovVT25ekZ431Lx9i2lbfnUStsgF7iSEKfbDpQgCClzBsb4U328iKa1YKyysFyL0bq5WeCc/s400/10.+Durga+and+devotees.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goddess Durga and her devotees. Notice the devotee on the left sacrificing his eyes. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Ganesha ratha beside the Varaha temple boasts of an interesting
architecture – a stupa like structure on top, the traditional Dravidian
style in the middle and also arches with Roman architecture. The
pillars for many of the structural temples come in many shapes - simple
square, octagonal shaft type pillars and ornate fluted lion based forms.
This temple is a definitive indicator that the Pallavas were
experimenting with design and architecture of temples.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOZGp7WNk5LmxRmGp_BHBYHDJx9JAI96pGMRP54x28nP4snk7Hb5oY1E0BemDDlgqllbYRmAHBVEZwkNVZYCuTxVA2ZeYrXUQlUNGjaNmbQ6midOETkaUcr_cSIpWsPIgdr4wrapoDNF8/s1600/8.+Ganesha+Ratha.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOZGp7WNk5LmxRmGp_BHBYHDJx9JAI96pGMRP54x28nP4snk7Hb5oY1E0BemDDlgqllbYRmAHBVEZwkNVZYCuTxVA2ZeYrXUQlUNGjaNmbQ6midOETkaUcr_cSIpWsPIgdr4wrapoDNF8/s400/8.+Ganesha+Ratha.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ganesha Ratha - dravidian temple with stupa like top </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Arjuna’s Penance:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The monolithic Arjuna’s penance is one of the largest open air-rock
sculptures in the world. The tableau is called Arjuna's Penance and
depicts Arjuna, one of the five Pandavas of the epic Mahabharata,
praying to Lord Shiva in the jungle for the powerful pashupathi astra
(weapon) to defeat the evil Kauravas. Arjuna is shown as a gaunt bearded
man standing on one leg with his arms upraised, in a yoga posture. Lord
Shiva stands to the left with the pashupathi astra. Various demigods
are showing watching over the warrior prince with interest. Many animals
like deer, lions and two huge elephants indicate that the penance is
happening in a forest.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQY0N0kVPDN9EiI7x_dnWziS8A9LACK3zzNOM6l-bIe6RXFWGkyy0Y-crKw8-2AT8odEEdSktnFp5su22cNCSTsSlAM_XkSdEvrvjLNNhJIgORC-v5nm8LiJHFzUk5lpnOtRua75_Gvso/s1600/4.+Arjuna%2527s+penance.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQY0N0kVPDN9EiI7x_dnWziS8A9LACK3zzNOM6l-bIe6RXFWGkyy0Y-crKw8-2AT8odEEdSktnFp5su22cNCSTsSlAM_XkSdEvrvjLNNhJIgORC-v5nm8LiJHFzUk5lpnOtRua75_Gvso/s400/4.+Arjuna%2527s+penance.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arjuna's penance. - Arjuna is the bearded man in yoga posture. Lord Shiva is to his left</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The entire scene is carved on Granite, a hard rock that’s not very
malleable, so using the soft iron tools of the 8th century to create
this masterpiece must have required a lot of skill and patience.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
A Tapasya or penance, in the context of Hinduism, is where a devotee
prays seeking a boon or a powerful weapon from his favourite God,
forsaking food and water until he grows a long beard which is later
covered by forest creepers. Once in awhile the Lord of heavens, Indra,
jealous and fearful that the devotee seeks to supplant him, sends one of
his beautiful apsaras (heavenly damsel) to entice the devotee and
disrupt the penance. Hindi movies add a customary raunchy song at this
point! Arjuna, however, manages to please Lord Shiva and obtain the
dreaded weapon to use in the coming war.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The sculptors also throw in a warning about charlatans and false
prophets. A cat is shown meditating with the same pose as Arjuna while a
few mice are praying to the cat. The cat obviously finishes his prayer
and devours the devout mice. How much ever the devoutness, the laws of
nature always takes precedence.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwZ0aifCTE5cWQtvDl3tRQ2beJYwYKZGXtM_CDqKzvZc6x2EGcmeGWYI2ipWABjv9V9EbpNILLCdXAZlEQOblqG1kHwmOqhING3W99P_Ee1lYpSaabhTKHz2M-EntiZsn_TQTEnzZnRO4/s1600/5.+Arjuna%2527s+penance+-+Full+View.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwZ0aifCTE5cWQtvDl3tRQ2beJYwYKZGXtM_CDqKzvZc6x2EGcmeGWYI2ipWABjv9V9EbpNILLCdXAZlEQOblqG1kHwmOqhING3W99P_Ee1lYpSaabhTKHz2M-EntiZsn_TQTEnzZnRO4/s640/5.+Arjuna%2527s+penance+-+Full+View.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Full panel view of Arjuna's Penance</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The deers shown in the panel have found their way into the Indian ten
rupee note. Though the tableau is called Arjuna’s penance, the Hindu
epics have plenty of penances and the scene is also interpreted as the
story of Bhagiratha, a king from the epic Ramayana, who brought the
sacred river Ganges to earth through his devoted tapasya. Whoever it
portrays, the work is a great display of vivacity and joyousness coupled
with austerity and devotion.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXOMHjtw9FDOeYaECflSegfaP_Xf_xbPFZ-8kr1go9Qh50B4K2PN-ZDGR_wRFknAQKgyKNkqPIWhW_Yx7Ax9vKYuoCHYmzb1hJROQOypagLfs_ZNU8PHNrc7UY1pcaRUY-Y-Yirela0NI/s1600/6.+Krishna%2527s+butter+ball.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXOMHjtw9FDOeYaECflSegfaP_Xf_xbPFZ-8kr1go9Qh50B4K2PN-ZDGR_wRFknAQKgyKNkqPIWhW_Yx7Ax9vKYuoCHYmzb1hJROQOypagLfs_ZNU8PHNrc7UY1pcaRUY-Y-Yirela0NI/s400/6.+Krishna%2527s+butter+ball.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lord Krishna's butter cup.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rest of the hillock:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> There are plenty of other monuments on this hillock that are worth visiting.</span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Lord Shiva’s Cave temple (contains the sculpture of Andhakasur Vadh) and the Trimurti Cave temple.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Rayar Gopuram – A gateway built by Krishna Deva Raja.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Tiger caves and Ramanuja Caves – Popular tourist destinations.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- A large spherical rock that has been christened “Lord Krishna’s butter ball”</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizHu7b5ne7mfsi1haHSrbNpkbvRcQyV2AxLc_8-j5tBCDhtFj-aH2WLzrYR9LKqmaqE-0wSmZFOpxeKmRWDHnKyExBaoc2_yKr8nOFWhaZMYim7JUE1WzTFg041lnf521I3nGqo8zWh6Y/s1600/9.+Rayar+Gopuram.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizHu7b5ne7mfsi1haHSrbNpkbvRcQyV2AxLc_8-j5tBCDhtFj-aH2WLzrYR9LKqmaqE-0wSmZFOpxeKmRWDHnKyExBaoc2_yKr8nOFWhaZMYim7JUE1WzTFg041lnf521I3nGqo8zWh6Y/s400/9.+Rayar+Gopuram.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rayar Mantap</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> There are also clues to how an ingenuous solution was adopted to quarry
stones in those times. Blocks of wood were placed into in a row of
pocket sized holes created on the rock. During the course of the day,
the wood expands due to the Sun’s heat and the fissures in the rock open
up a bit more. The Pallavas repeated the process until the rock split
into required dimensions.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCKiYpLCiPgAs5lKOTpja6cA18Axc-j0ywulQrobFLGYwAWN_UaEW3AF1mqGk6Mx4T4h4ePhDB2pdGdq6HZMa4amqxkUiaF30EVC3auQN7RjxS1N9kgLQYwC7aFufMYb9DBxbrx1Lcvto/s1600/7.+Rock+Quarrying.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCKiYpLCiPgAs5lKOTpja6cA18Axc-j0ywulQrobFLGYwAWN_UaEW3AF1mqGk6Mx4T4h4ePhDB2pdGdq6HZMa4amqxkUiaF30EVC3auQN7RjxS1N9kgLQYwC7aFufMYb9DBxbrx1Lcvto/s400/7.+Rock+Quarrying.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stone quarrying - Wooden blocks were placed in these holes and which expanded due to the Sun's heat.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Gateway of Mahabalipuram:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
This is a series of monolithic temples or rathas (chariots) built in
honours of the Pandavas from Mahabharata. You will find rathas for
Draupadi, Arjuna, Bhima, Dharmaraja and one for Nakula and Sahadeva. The
five temples show many varieties both in ground plan, elevation and
architecture. There are square (Dharmaraja, Arjuna and Draupadi) as well
as rectangular (Bhima ratha) structures that range from single to
triple storeys. These rathas represent the oldest and most well
preserved Vimana models of Tamil Nadu.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFYdnLNH4yoJFVeMkxv7jHp4-FaTEpisA65YFV4ZTDXV1CAHI-yYg1z1Ya2J63vVpvBqzmEmHQraop7TyHQPsNiQhJ5Mi3xrRDp5CsmNUX3Fk9eBzq2VWc-bkWm-covMUZzAXUbCZdOSc/s1600/13.+Gateway+of+Mahabalipuram.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFYdnLNH4yoJFVeMkxv7jHp4-FaTEpisA65YFV4ZTDXV1CAHI-yYg1z1Ya2J63vVpvBqzmEmHQraop7TyHQPsNiQhJ5Mi3xrRDp5CsmNUX3Fk9eBzq2VWc-bkWm-covMUZzAXUbCZdOSc/s400/13.+Gateway+of+Mahabalipuram.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Gateway of Mahabalipuram - Rathas for the Pandavas</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Each ratha has been built in a different style:</span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Durga/Draupadi North Eastern</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Shiva/Arjuna Dravidian</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Vishnu/Bheema Stupa/Buddhist</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Brahma/Dharmaraja Temple Arch</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Airavatha/Nakula-Sahadeva Gajapasta</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
An interesting fact about such monolithic temples is that the top
portion is built first instead of being fitted in last. There are also
sculptures of Hariharan (Shiva-Vishnu) and
Ardhanarishwara(Shiva-Parvathi) on the Dharmaraja ratha. You will also
find the sculpture of a huge elephant and lion both of which are a hit
with tourists. It's interesting that the Draupadi’s ratha is placed
beside Arjuna’s ratha. Of her five husbands, Draupadi liked Arjuna best;
so the Pallavas definitely had a good grasp of the Mahabharata.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFYdnLNH4yoJFVeMkxv7jHp4-FaTEpisA65YFV4ZTDXV1CAHI-yYg1z1Ya2J63vVpvBqzmEmHQraop7TyHQPsNiQhJ5Mi3xrRDp5CsmNUX3Fk9eBzq2VWc-bkWm-covMUZzAXUbCZdOSc/s1600/13.+Gateway+of+Mahabalipuram.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzUlHmgM2V-rrVrj19bTvoobWAidyJdXolOl1eimgzwyiSv-VSJLvDJ4Njs3nwm2Ri0Jst7WcIsXyeaQZbi1VAV4cl13FrArQmhycUOaNAh_o1YjDnExojB2JOy_T8NeF4_gFDT44Slo/s1600/12.+Mahabalipuram+present+day.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzUlHmgM2V-rrVrj19bTvoobWAidyJdXolOl1eimgzwyiSv-VSJLvDJ4Njs3nwm2Ri0Jst7WcIsXyeaQZbi1VAV4cl13FrArQmhycUOaNAh_o1YjDnExojB2JOy_T8NeF4_gFDT44Slo/s400/12.+Mahabalipuram+present+day.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The streets of Mahabalipuram</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In India, even after thousands of years, some things never truly die.
Tradition lives on for generations; art is passed on from father to son
for countless ages. The sculptors of Mahabalipuram still possess the
skills and the passion of their forefathers along with sophisticated
power tools and lathes. They can do in months what their forefathers
took years. Even today the town is an open museum for a student of art
and the roads are dotted with amazing sculptures. The rest of the world
looks up to this historical temple town for granite sculptures, so don’t
be surprised to see masterpieces when walking around the town.
Historians might call the time of the Pallavas the dark ages due to the
multitude of wars, but for Indian art and architecture the period was
just the beginning of a golden era.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-71286643632222613312012-12-21T01:23:00.000-08:002012-12-23T06:27:43.393-08:00The Majestic Konark Sun Temple<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.8587608653520837" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In the middle of the 13th century A.D. Narasimhadeva-I, the king of the
Ganga dynasty laid the foundation for one of the greatest architectural
marvels of ancient India - the Sun Temple of Konark. The temple honours the Sun God, a relatively minor entity in the Hindu pantheon, and is a notable exception to the general rule of the main deity being either Lord Shiva or Vishnu or their kin. The entire
temple is in the form of the huge chariot drawn by seven
spirited horses on twelve pairs of exquisitely decorated wheels or
chakras at its base. Though the temple </span><span id="internal-source-marker_0.8587608653520837" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">provides a rare and detailed insight into the lives of people in ancient
India, </span> sadly it's mostly in ruins now.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tagore wrote of Konark - "</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here the language of stone surpasses the language of man.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”
These particular stones give us a remarkable rendition about the lives
of people in those times. The sculptures include deities,
musicians, apsaras (celestial beings), dancers, lovers, and myriad
scenes of courtly life, ranging from hunts, boxing matches and military battles to the royal meetings in <i>durbars</i>. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Intricate botanical scenes describe the rich natural
heritage at those times and geometrical decorative designs like the decorated chakras show the engineering ingenuity of those times. Konark is not as much a temple as it is a celebration of life.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9jcSAA61OzBOwOP3SQetYUjk8WI1_2AgUduCBPUTGG7vwwUuej5ylby23dM-SV0ur6-fpDFU8cvwgkeiTPn9Eqk8TGcsAgY7oy7c300vjDOp4X0SFi1F8Fp9bT8rlCUUL4cymYcgpYU/s1600/1.+Natya+Mantapa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9jcSAA61OzBOwOP3SQetYUjk8WI1_2AgUduCBPUTGG7vwwUuej5ylby23dM-SV0ur6-fpDFU8cvwgkeiTPn9Eqk8TGcsAgY7oy7c300vjDOp4X0SFi1F8Fp9bT8rlCUUL4cymYcgpYU/s640/1.+Natya+Mantapa.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajay and I in front of the Natya Mantapa with the Temple behind it. The two gaja-simhas are just behind us.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The temple is held together by iron rods attached to blocks of stone and a few iron bars provide earthing and structural support. Like most other temples of those times, it is built out of weathered sandstone which lends itself to creating intricate sculptures. It has three distinct structures – The outer Natya mantapa with
intricate dance poses, the pyramid-shaped audience hall (128 ft.) and
the partially destroyed main sanctum (229 ft.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Natya Mantapa:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An appreciation of music and dance is essential to understanding ancient Indian temple architecture. The Natya mantapa of
the temple is filled with 128 sculptures of artists dancing and playing various musical
instruments. Two gaja-simhas
(elephant-lions - mythical creatures) at the eastern entrance welcome visitors to the temple. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The temple was not just a place of worship, it provided a platform for art and culture to flourish.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvOABomjOuGca-tBqPm1ze5KKGbzYl0V2nnSdjyRqQoF-aWmBGuX6yhfG54OCLWdrtDBoRLANcUALeONahn5xPS8mpsfg49O54Bcc7DbhoyJpf7u1N5QnHgLTasgf-gZ9ZJr7sSAYDxk/s1600/2.+Natya+Mantapa.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvOABomjOuGca-tBqPm1ze5KKGbzYl0V2nnSdjyRqQoF-aWmBGuX6yhfG54OCLWdrtDBoRLANcUALeONahn5xPS8mpsfg49O54Bcc7DbhoyJpf7u1N5QnHgLTasgf-gZ9ZJr7sSAYDxk/s640/2.+Natya+Mantapa.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The various poses in the Natya Mantapa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Audience Hall:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
temple displays a fusion of South and North Indian
architecture and also imbibes distinct designs never seen before in
Indian temples. The audience hall is surprisingly pyramidal in shape, generally not a shape associated with Indian temples, and
the main sanctum is the typical Aryan shape. Orissa in those times was
known to export hemp and there is a scene where Raja Narasimha Deva meets
emissaries from Africa; so it is entirely possible that the
pyramid-shaped audience hall temple was influenced by the pyramids of
Giza. To answer the obvious question of how the people in that sculpture
were identified as African - there’s a huge giraffe in the frame and the men are wearing skirts!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Only one of the seven proud horses that carried the chariot shaped temple remain today, bravely leading alone what he once led with his brothers. </span>The
entrance to the sanctum
of the main temple through the audience hall has been walled off by the British in 1905,
ostensibly to preserve the 'super specimen of old Indian architecture'.</span> </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP3LyBrpqAsHbuaqKfYKo9UbTFfwlVYlDijxQVQOAC0td19aqlzsF8oKr7p756Ul8-bsRdr5kHuuzRoGiDag2Klika_HR7cUfcXRlO8ez5JkuAq_9zbdFcoIp8KtGg3K_V0LjN0SKQruY/s1600/3.+Audience+Hall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP3LyBrpqAsHbuaqKfYKo9UbTFfwlVYlDijxQVQOAC0td19aqlzsF8oKr7p756Ul8-bsRdr5kHuuzRoGiDag2Klika_HR7cUfcXRlO8ez5JkuAq_9zbdFcoIp8KtGg3K_V0LjN0SKQruY/s640/3.+Audience+Hall.JPG" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The pyramidal audience Hall behind the last of the seven horses.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Main Sanctum:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Though the main sanctum was partially destroyed, three granite statues of the Sun God survived and adorn the main sanctum on all sides but the
Eastern one. These statues are made of granite, unlike the rest of the
temple which is made of soapstone. The statues convey the mood of the
Sun God at various stage of the day – the Southern statue is childlike
and eager, the Western is manly and solemn and the Northern one looks
tired, probably due a hard day's work! These statues are perhaps a
reference to the various stages of life as described in the Hindu
scriptures.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVvC1gSuEIaMH8RBuxpY3fKGmbPhVp29q-n0TahujcjUOlC2bH8ZNiC-3YNHxeDu2XaOm8rXFLvLgVEh0bNq4NZpUxRn013ub_ZpC-ftrrddXXecTBPZuL07ce5r-NI0IP08rmDCZFYGQ/s1600/4.+Main+Sanctum.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVvC1gSuEIaMH8RBuxpY3fKGmbPhVp29q-n0TahujcjUOlC2bH8ZNiC-3YNHxeDu2XaOm8rXFLvLgVEh0bNq4NZpUxRn013ub_ZpC-ftrrddXXecTBPZuL07ce5r-NI0IP08rmDCZFYGQ/s640/4.+Main+Sanctum.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The now destroyed main sanctum of Konark(Southern Side). Notice the statue of Sun God on the top.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rest of the Temple:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The name Konark is derived from the Sanskrit word Kona (meaning angle)
and Arka (meaning sun). The sun temple, no surprises here, faces the
East and has 12 chakras that can be used to tell the time of the day
based on the angle of the shadow they case. The bottom layer of the temple has
sculptures of thousands of elephants, used either in battle or in
construction of the temple. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Elephants were used to haul stones using a specially built ramp. Some
are of the opinion that these elephants were given drugs to enhance their
strength and forced into </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">musth</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to enable them to carry the huge rocks they would have otherwise been unable to. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A few of the scenes even describe
the gruesome execution of prisoners by these elephants.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The temple has two beautiful statues of war elephants on the northern side and two intricately carved war stallions on the southern side crushing enemies. Surely a trophy of a king who loved war too much... There is a well nearby
that probably served as the water source for visitors. Behind the main
temple, there is a temple for the main deity’s wife - The Chhayadevi
temple and another </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">brick temple from the 10th century</span>.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_yv1nBvpZKE-76b6xw2zi9SD_D7yLiAUuqC0w_xp9mj6JWkjxx1VdLP5kQLkNXtfzj7cQ4AezQ9ywmSTY0FIPe4bJtBRq808qKD-sZyhaLOfyH57XjkVy4E9xrnBhADaZOzaPvS7rQ8/s1600/5.+Horse+in+Southern+side.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_yv1nBvpZKE-76b6xw2zi9SD_D7yLiAUuqC0w_xp9mj6JWkjxx1VdLP5kQLkNXtfzj7cQ4AezQ9ywmSTY0FIPe4bJtBRq808qKD-sZyhaLOfyH57XjkVy4E9xrnBhADaZOzaPvS7rQ8/s640/5.+Horse+in+Southern+side.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the two impressive war stallions on the Southern side of the temple</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9iU7xldLXyRKdGAZVGnwcvzQd7DZtno4UZgmNJ165XiE7sGQPwdXhqr0UX1hg1AU0Mv9m7g7x2zSsM4q2v6dupHlUUo7zYDT0GrDEg18hyh45AjmQgoXbFzKxx8u_3YfvVqYB9L5L8E0/s1600/6.+Elephant+in+Northern+side.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9iU7xldLXyRKdGAZVGnwcvzQd7DZtno4UZgmNJ165XiE7sGQPwdXhqr0UX1hg1AU0Mv9m7g7x2zSsM4q2v6dupHlUUo7zYDT0GrDEg18hyh45AjmQgoXbFzKxx8u_3YfvVqYB9L5L8E0/s400/6.+Elephant+in+Northern+side.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the two elephants on the Northern side of the temple</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Konark Museum and ASI Restoration work:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Konark museum nearby has quite a few of
the relics that had fallen off from the main temple. There are even pictures of how the temple would have looked if the main sanctum had not been destroyed. There is also an interesting
frieze with the five main Indian Gods - Indra, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and
Surya. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> This temple is unfortunately not as well preserved as Khajuraho
or other South Indian temples. After enduring centuries of sea breeze eroding the walls
of the temple, wars with zealous Muslim rulers intent on wiping out
Hindu artifacts and British treasure hunters interested more in loot
than conservation, the temple is a pale shadow of
what it was. The ASI (Archaeological
Survey of India) has done quite a bit of conservation work to ensure
structural integrity at Konark; but just about managed to make the temple unsightly in the process. Many broken statues have been shoddily fixed using
cement and and reeks of underpaid plumbery instead of stellar work by the
nation’s premier conservation society.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZnw2MDcTHmoEkitL-3ZNjSRiVafhIZrwkgJzfmpxx0maUkj5BAUMEqN-FNFxux_whuiD4PeWBL6DqWVivyirnHypXeB0j1gm0jpIFyOd_ByY6sWVrXzJsJ-5FdGEaC0ljq2deOgW0vY/s1600/11.+The+five+Indian+Gods.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZnw2MDcTHmoEkitL-3ZNjSRiVafhIZrwkgJzfmpxx0maUkj5BAUMEqN-FNFxux_whuiD4PeWBL6DqWVivyirnHypXeB0j1gm0jpIFyOd_ByY6sWVrXzJsJ-5FdGEaC0ljq2deOgW0vY/s400/11.+The+five+Indian+Gods.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The five main Hindu deities - Indra,Brahma,Vishnu,Shiva and Surya</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sexual Symbolism at Konark:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Konark was built when Buddhism was on its last legs in India. In a way,
its ostentatious sexual symbolism was a statement of triumph over a
rival religion that promoted asceticism as a way of life. Sensuously
modeled figures in various poses are placed prominently in upper levels of the temple (perhaps to avoid those
pesky little kids from getting too curious at an early age). The sculptures of the male
and female naga (snake) Gods coiled together symbolize fertility. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The temple also served as a place to educate
people about the arcane secrets of Kamasutra. A few of the sculptures
depict various intercourse positions and orgies, bestiality, lesbianism,
childbirth and age old mechanisms to treat venereal diseases like
gonorrhea. In a land where the men died early in the multitude of wars their kings waged, widow remarriage was openly encouraged and polygamy was subtly encouraged through these erotic sculptures. In modern day Victorian India, quite a few of these topics
are taboo; clearly ancient Indian society was more open, puns intended.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdzBSU6e5MNoo5ENcAZsuNfGVTc18qgkAIVyDDHE9vli18fMvv0oMGedmP2ZjPf6UwmkdRKnIL6bs3hmLsN6215Cqy4KCbSSWrGH6qbVzQ5JWnlxbbLU3EL-UG5ft1_zM0cXafVD-jb8/s1600/8.+Sensuous+sculptures.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdzBSU6e5MNoo5ENcAZsuNfGVTc18qgkAIVyDDHE9vli18fMvv0oMGedmP2ZjPf6UwmkdRKnIL6bs3hmLsN6215Cqy4KCbSSWrGH6qbVzQ5JWnlxbbLU3EL-UG5ft1_zM0cXafVD-jb8/s640/8.+Sensuous+sculptures.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">one of the many sensuous sculptures of Konark</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The story behind the construction:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There
is a sad and probably apocryphal story about the construction of the
temple that the local guides love
to tell with embellishments. In the last stages of building the
temple, the architects face trouble fixing the huge magnet on top of the
second (now destroyed) tower. The king threatens to behead everyone
involved in the construction if the work is not completed in time. A
young boy, who is not associated with the workers, figures the way out
and fixes the magnet during the
night when the rest of the workers are asleep. The workers wake up,
realize that they might still be put to death for their failure to get
the job done and demand that the boy kill himself in ritualistic
self-sacrifice to save them. The young boy surprisingly obliges by
jumping into the sea. The temple gets off to an ignominious start and is
deemed unfit for prayer and worship. Not sure how pleased the king was
with that, if at all this story were true!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtLt-2W9cy0p70WlUFUiqUIDfZi86J_zAz8eNVL4Mmji6BUY0bvjlEbHSn42MAsckdVvApsjXpwOFUE1qPWpevqfDqmtIhaSIm7NVdfY8SaQLwbnWedA8kuy-uEi3mees15PZ3bmfaSc/s1600/9.+Leogryph.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtLt-2W9cy0p70WlUFUiqUIDfZi86J_zAz8eNVL4Mmji6BUY0bvjlEbHSn42MAsckdVvApsjXpwOFUE1qPWpevqfDqmtIhaSIm7NVdfY8SaQLwbnWedA8kuy-uEi3mees15PZ3bmfaSc/s400/9.+Leogryph.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Leogryph - A mythical creature</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Destruction of the Temple:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The guides blame the British for the destruction of the temple and
claim quite a few artifacts are in the Britain. Hmm, something to look out
for when I visit London museum! History however tells a different story
and blames Kalapahad, the general of Bengal Sultan Sulaiman Khan Karrani. In 1568 AD, his men hacked through the stone arches and displaced the
Dadhinauti (Arch stone), leading to the collapse of the tower. It is
said that the presiding deity of Konark Temple was secreted away during
that phase for safeguarding and never found again. The Natya mantapa
survived longer and was partially destroyed by Marathas. By the end of
the 18th century Konark was abandoned and turned into a dense forest and
the abode of pirates.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAhOaZ3i1N0KvyzbLMe9xeaCYi5vf6kRORKMF4yS4ksJkLBK0hPK8z_LdCSr_klmgAjnCgYEJQ5zS6EP-qL0HDKpZzK3D1dXiz8ZvuMfdJ53nJ_5EW5wE15sM_FT-f8yUnxNldQK_1O4A/s1600/7.+Narasimha+Deva+meeting+africans.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAhOaZ3i1N0KvyzbLMe9xeaCYi5vf6kRORKMF4yS4ksJkLBK0hPK8z_LdCSr_klmgAjnCgYEJQ5zS6EP-qL0HDKpZzK3D1dXiz8ZvuMfdJ53nJ_5EW5wE15sM_FT-f8yUnxNldQK_1O4A/s640/7.+Narasimha+Deva+meeting+africans.JPG" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Raja Narasimha Deva meeting emissaries from Africa - Noticed the Giraffe and the long skirts? </span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The kings of the old envisioned and built these magnificent
temples for posterity, structures that tell the story of art, life and
the Gods themselves. I</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">f
you ever have a chance to get there early in the morning, stand atop the
platform of the natya mantapa; imagine the sound of the waves
washing ashore while the crimson sun lights up the beautiful temple, imagine the singers and the dancers lost in their morning performance for the king and finally imagine the sculptors focused on building the next master piece. This my friend, is Konark, the place where the Sun God begins his journey.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-33164000676211984122012-11-29T05:32:00.000-08:002013-01-16T21:40:44.488-08:00Passing through The Temples of Odisha<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.29161254689097404" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Every last minute adventure trip in India begins with an online adventure, where one generally ends up in the losing side. Four people armed with two or more accounts each failed to book a tatkal ticket for two in IRCTC for the Diwali weekend. Ajay and I were nevertheless determined to travel to Odisha and visit Konark. Come Friday, we reached the railway station, bought unreserved tickets and paid a fine to upgrade to sleeper class. We slept on the floor, in the space between beds of a compartment in our carriage, blanketing ourselves from head to toe in our sleeping bags to avoid squeaky little rats. Surprisingly I slept well that night!</span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.29161254689097404" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The next morning, we got down at Balugaon and caught sight of the first destination of our trip - the Chilika Lake. There were plenty of average looking to run-down restaurants on the main road and we chose the one that looked least decrepit for breakfast. Odisha is sandwiched between North and South India, the ideal melting pot for culinary delicacies. If you live in a major metro, chances are your favorite hotel has a cook from Odisha. Perhaps, all these good folks have migrated to other states for employment, leaving the kitchens of their native land in the hands of stable boys and fishermen. Breakfast was insipid and the idlies tasted like they were prepared a week ago. For the first time in my life, I wished that I had had breakfast in the train.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqPfpQaF45z8kwCa-X62wsXw9qqWkAwscHiNsW60Vv9XROKlao5l0-IZZlosPFQygQ5OQcupvm_DDixIc4Tc_F7S-TJbILNLDtMLHheoB-aOaJmv_lIT7DTL8eI6Z6dXOZHLUFyT0v8JQ/s1600/1.+Chilika+Lake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqPfpQaF45z8kwCa-X62wsXw9qqWkAwscHiNsW60Vv9XROKlao5l0-IZZlosPFQygQ5OQcupvm_DDixIc4Tc_F7S-TJbILNLDtMLHheoB-aOaJmv_lIT7DTL8eI6Z6dXOZHLUFyT0v8JQ/s640/1.+Chilika+Lake.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chilika Lake</td></tr>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.29161254689097404" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.29161254689097404" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.29161254689097404" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Chilika Lake is the second largest lagoon in the world and known for Irrawaddy dolphins. We missed the morning ferry and ended up hiring a boat to travel from Balugaon to Satpada across the Chilika Lake. For three excruciating hours, we listened to the constant whirr of the diesel motor and even managed to sleep for a while, just to shut out the deafening roar. Unsurprisingly, no dolphin ventured near our noisy tub, though we saw many storks and geese before we finally reached our destination. Lunch at Satpada was worse than breakfast, with most dishes filled to the brim with potatoes and a gooey gel that could only have come from a failed high school chemistry experiment. At that point in the trip, both of us were tired and a bit disappointed that the trip wasn’t half as exciting as we thought it would be.</span></b></b><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> After lunch, things started looking up. Satpada is surrounded by lagoons from the three sides. The three hour long 55 km journey from Satpada to Puri in a local bus goes through a very picturesque route filled with small lagoons and wetlands growing rice and paddy. The day ended early; it was around 5:30 p.m. when we reached Puri and dusk had settled in. Puri initially seemed like an overgrown village until we had to face the traffic in the main road. I came across a few locals and foreigners smoking marijuana and in this temple town; it seemed like a way of life. These drugs have been in use in such places for generations and they were not going to let a small thing like a government ban get in their way. Though there is a pervasive poverty in the state that even a casual visitor will notice, the people here seem healthier and fitter than those in neighboring states down south where most villagers look like overweight cops.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Ajay and I prefer generally travel without a concrete plan on where to stay and what to visit. This gives us flexibility to visit and stay at places we want, but can get confusing at times as we end up travelling for days without seeing the back of a hotel! After a quick picture in front of the Puri Jagannath temple, we headed to the Ranger’s guest house; 20 kms ride from Puri that took about an hour. After travelling for more than 24 hours, we reached the “Rangers”, an adrenaline-pumping oasis that offers surfing lessons, forest treks and ATV training in the midst of a forest. The place is truly hippie and the main caretaker, Sachin, believes in mastering the power of the Kundalini through an indulgent lifestyle and spends his time playing a long winded bamboo shoot named Didgeridoo that produces a shrill bagpiper like music. </span> </b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiPpLDTUrg8wAalADg-qMLeuESHIDrwOdRbKn743HLo08WVrEUvCTchjM7dJXXBKuqX2vv01WXwCYYdYIrDiuudjWuAeUt4qRVDES2LOw1YqskQbxI-B2mI7i1wVkxEmHOU3LHeQ6apY/s1600/2.+Trek+at+Rangers.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiPpLDTUrg8wAalADg-qMLeuESHIDrwOdRbKn743HLo08WVrEUvCTchjM7dJXXBKuqX2vv01WXwCYYdYIrDiuudjWuAeUt4qRVDES2LOw1YqskQbxI-B2mI7i1wVkxEmHOU3LHeQ6apY/s640/2.+Trek+at+Rangers.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trekking near the beaches of Puri</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.29161254689097404" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I didn’t know to swim, but there I was, ready to surf in the pristine blue beaches of Puri. </span></b>We met our surfing instructor, Jessie, the next morning. An Aussie with dreadlocks and penetrating eyes, he travels around the world seeking the best waves to surf because he thinks that the Australian surfing scene was too crowded or localized. Jessie was hardly surprised when we informed him that we were not swimmers and strongly suggested that we try Stand-Up- Paddling (SUP) at the lagoon instead of venturing out the ocean. The suggestion was more of a directive and we had no option but to agree. </span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Jessie started our lessons with an easy looking exercise - standing on and balancing a plank of wood on circular tube with a diameter of around 20 cm. Jessie has this amazing Zen-like knack for teaching and explained that balance and breathing are at the core of any sport when he found us struggling to balance the plank. When I tensed up at times, he came over and asked me to loosen up the muscle in question. After half an hour of balancing on the plank, we moved onto a mechanical surfboard simulator that was closer to an actual surfboard and easier to balance than the plank. Once the training lessons were over, we went to a lagoon nearby for the real deal. Paddling in the surfboard was the best fun I had had in a while. I think I need to learn swimming just to surf in the ocean someday.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b> </b></span><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though the Rangers is an amazing place, it might not be a place for the standard Indian temple tourist or people who are not used to the local E. coli bacterium. The place does not have bottled water. Sachin explained that the groundwater there was very pure and provided a simplistic reason like ‘I drink it and am fine’. Of course human physiology is never really that simple - don’t play Rambo; just take bottled water if you plan to head over to the Rangers.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> That evening, we left for Konark after our surfing lessons. Konark is a hustling village that houses one of the greatest architectural masterpieces of ancient India - the 13th century Sun Temple. A detailed blog on this monument is coming soon, so I will not write more about the temple here. We settled into a good hotel that was way cheaper than what we would have paid for in other states. There is tremendous potential for tourism in Odisha with its pristine beaches and numerous historical temples. But somehow in Konark, the tourist crowd was missing in spite of Nov-Dec being peak tourist season.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRkGxJa6isC9buVYqI5UBvJuLQ7w0qGjWGYWLvKMrJZWu7pRNN63sfK1JBDVREfxWHiSZHt1cY_tLwfxsxpyiZOsBGUUp-OWR888YRgJ9bwyWxNFEz_eUpVN9OwIFQkKH_Y_1Ji7wafg/s1600/3.+Konark+Temple.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRkGxJa6isC9buVYqI5UBvJuLQ7w0qGjWGYWLvKMrJZWu7pRNN63sfK1JBDVREfxWHiSZHt1cY_tLwfxsxpyiZOsBGUUp-OWR888YRgJ9bwyWxNFEz_eUpVN9OwIFQkKH_Y_1Ji7wafg/s640/3.+Konark+Temple.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajay and me at Konark Temple</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Before leaving Konark for </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bhubaneswar</span></b>, Ajay and I took stock of how much we had spent for the trip. On most of our previous trips, we never had time for lodging as we spent our nights travelling by train. This time though, we had stayed in a hotel every night. This coupled with the boat ride and surfing lessons proved to be quite the recipe for an expensive trip. We decided to couchsurf, a trend that’s catching up in India and involves requesting folks to provide lodging for free in their home for a short duration. Sanjay, the founder of Rangers, was kind enough to host us for the night in spite of the next day being Diwali. Couch-surfing gives you a chance to meet interesting people. Sanjay was a great conversationalist and we spent hours talking with him on a wide range of interesting topics like “Why surfing is such a great sport and what it can do for tourism in Odisha” and “Was the Konark temple the last nail on the coffin for Buddhism in India”. He also seemed excited about the surfing festival that the Rangers were planning in January and helped draw up our itinerary for the next day in Bhubaneswar.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU2LbvE_0i5DSkjxMLtQUls78HhmBSzlxhP8tqOFOwSpD4ksbK2cP1bKjI2rZ1lGNq5X9qByit6QnFTO_fz1H3NXKlnc67OfLVcnaFInERABpkvsbp5NXpN6x6qH-hva2Wiotcrv9VckM/s1600/4.+Udayagiri+Temple+-+Bhubaneswar.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU2LbvE_0i5DSkjxMLtQUls78HhmBSzlxhP8tqOFOwSpD4ksbK2cP1bKjI2rZ1lGNq5X9qByit6QnFTO_fz1H3NXKlnc67OfLVcnaFInERABpkvsbp5NXpN6x6qH-hva2Wiotcrv9VckM/s640/4.+Udayagiri+Temple+-+Bhubaneswar.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Udayagiri Caves - Bhubaneswar</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The next morning we headed to the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves which are partly natural and partly hewn from rock in early 2nd century BC. These 33 caves were once the abode of Jain monks. The caves are famous for the Hathigumpha inscriptions in Devanagiri script, written by Raja Karavel, the king of Kalinga (modern Odisha) in India during the 2nd century BC. The inscriptions record the royal edicts during the rule of Raja Karavel. There is even a double storied monastery similar built in the style of the one in Ellora. Though the place has a historical importance and was excavated at around the same time as the Ajanta caves, the lack of paintings in these caves doomed these caves to remain a lovers’ hangout while the Ajanta caves are known world over for its murals and beautiful paintings!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We later visited the splendid<b> </b></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lingaraj temple that was crowded on account of being a temple where prayers are still offered. </span></b></b>There are quite a few<b> </b></span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">deserted </span></span><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">temples around the Lingaraj temple that are built like miniature Konark temples and giving Bhubaneswar the title of ‘city of temples’. Certainly quite an achievement in India where there is a temple in every other street in most cities. The temples unfortunately are very poorly maintained. Due to lack of space, kids play cricket in these temples. I am sure priceless monuments fall prey to bad batting in these temples on a daily basis. At certain locations, temples are less than a meter away from houses and some of these temple complexes also double up as parking lots. Though one would tend to blame the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) for this mess, I know that they simply are not equipped to fight such battles. The apathy towards these age old temples is the shame of a nation that doesn’t bother preserving its archaeological treasures.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwuiWDrgTNOaPO2L26-eC74Yk0i_Zq_U59CEaejJT6MDtVZzgqMQiFSiG229w4JyKECHDfVSAdvkXI-SaE7onZL194vW5B-OZwitiRfGFBwnvYmpLok4I7d7doPZa6gX5UZiXllNmn-s/s1600/5.+Smaller+temples+near+Lingaraj+-+Bhubaneswar.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwuiWDrgTNOaPO2L26-eC74Yk0i_Zq_U59CEaejJT6MDtVZzgqMQiFSiG229w4JyKECHDfVSAdvkXI-SaE7onZL194vW5B-OZwitiRfGFBwnvYmpLok4I7d7doPZa6gX5UZiXllNmn-s/s640/5.+Smaller+temples+near+Lingaraj+-+Bhubaneswar.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just another neglected beautiful temple in Bhubaneswar</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> After spending the morning visiting temples, we left for the state museum and found it closed due to Diwali. Settled for lunch in Pizza Hut in a mall nearby as both of us had had enough of the local fare by then. </span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We thankfully had a ticket for the journey back home. I loved every moment of the four days spent traveling and meeting amazing people in Odisha. Well, perhaps not every moment; there was suffering, especially with regard to food and travel<b>. </b>After<b> </b>all, no journey is without pain but at the end of it,<b> </b>as we were boarding the train back home, I was glad I came.</span></b></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-89339797351553040192012-10-12T00:43:00.003-07:002012-10-14T23:43:16.410-07:00Few good men of Agumbe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I started this blog as a tourist guide to the beautiful mountain
village of Agumbe. As I kept writing more, it turned into a tirade against the <span style="font-size: small;">politica<span style="font-size: small;">l </span></span>apathy towards survival of such pristine rainforests that are of utmost importance to earth's delicate natural balance. Soon I went back and deleted most of the touristy information as adding google geo-tags no longer seemed important. Now the blog is just a long rant which starts off a bit slowly.<br />
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My cousin's wedding in Udipi gave me a chance to sneak in a one day visit to the rain forests of Agumbe, in the western ghats of Karnataka. I reached Agumbe after a 16 hour journey from Hyderabad and headed to the house of Kasturi akka ( 'akka' means 'Elder Sister' in Karnataka) - the proprietor of a home stay in Agumbe. The 120 year old house has a huge veranda in the front, huge black pillars made of teak for support and a square-shaped area that opens to the sky in the middle of the house, like the ‘Nadumuttom’ of a traditional kerala house. The famous TV serial of the 90s - Malgudi days was filmed in this very house. Kasturi akka uses a walking stick and is slow in her moments but that does not stop her from fussing over visitors and cooking them delicious north Karnataka fare.<br />
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Agumbe is a quaint little village that retains enough charm and rusticity to provide a refreshing vacation. It receives the second highest annual rainfall in India and there are quite a few water falls, sunset and sunrise points nearby that should keep a casual tourist occupied for a couple of days.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTX2tVEzUnhDWOkE7fVl4UFa4iBD29wwDADxfRPZB7p5md8QwQVe9FVC2XgI2pn92Jehd0kDoToqUoy3ben-AuDzRWPSaSCPcWOdsUqN7LskoocQk-MFGdIxEb3RVUrtF2IzVserJC5I/s1600/Agumbe+Kasturi+akka+house.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTX2tVEzUnhDWOkE7fVl4UFa4iBD29wwDADxfRPZB7p5md8QwQVe9FVC2XgI2pn92Jehd0kDoToqUoy3ben-AuDzRWPSaSCPcWOdsUqN7LskoocQk-MFGdIxEb3RVUrtF2IzVserJC5I/s400/Agumbe+Kasturi+akka+house.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kasturi akka's house in Agumbe. Malgudi days was filmed here.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCtwWjvxrlaV0MDX_IhuoiYQrMQ5sJknvckA2pRy2NmvjtcI-JbDsTA1x58z2MlA8ppAE40oy8ZlWZki660L6h5a5elAJpK-KQu2MzvV-3HSB-QQNBAycsFQ2wVymJeXChNuCd5XoaA3s/s1600/Agumbe+Kasturi+Akka.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCtwWjvxrlaV0MDX_IhuoiYQrMQ5sJknvckA2pRy2NmvjtcI-JbDsTA1x58z2MlA8ppAE40oy8ZlWZki660L6h5a5elAJpK-KQu2MzvV-3HSB-QQNBAycsFQ2wVymJeXChNuCd5XoaA3s/s400/Agumbe+Kasturi+Akka.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kasturi akka preparing one more delicious lunch</td></tr>
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After breakfast, Kasturi akka and I talked about the village and during our conversation she spoke of their fight against indiscriminate industrialization of the village. Apparently a few industrialists had turned up in the village promising jobs and established a ceramic factory. Apart from damaging the ecologically sensitive balance, exhaust from the factory also posed a real danger to the quality of life and health of local residents. They also brought in cheap labour from other states and conned the villagers on the employment front as well. The villagers took legal recourse and years later, after plenty of visits to local as well as the higher courts, they won and the factory was shut down. This struggle strongly argues the case for industrial development that benefits local residents and does not obliterate natural habitats. After all, <span style="font-size: small;">almost half of all the world's rain
falls on rain forests <span style="font-size: small;">that</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> are essential to recycling wate<span style="font-size: small;">r.</span></span></span><br />
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Later that morning, I walked to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station(ARRS) to learn more about the research of king cobras and conservation effort undertaken there. On reaching the station, I noticed that the Research Director, Siddharth was being interviewed by two youngsters writing an article for their college and joined them with a few questions of my own. Siddharth’s replies were surprisingly straightforward and mostly <span style="font-size: small;">sarcastic</span>. I
guess cynicism becomes second skin when fighting to save the last
stretch of rainforests in a country that does not want it saved.<br />
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With his wavy hair and muscled arms, Siddharth could pass off as a rock-star but settled for studying snakes and lizards in the wild. His replies at times cut too close to heart, especially when he looks into your eyes and talks about city people who <i>love </i>snakes turning up at the station expecting to find king cobras at a research center when in reality all their ground-breaking research on king cobras happens in their natural habitat.<br />
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“What are forest officials doing to prevent the rain forests from vanishing”, asked the girl interviewing him. Siddharth answered that question indirectly by talking about the difficulties faced by the forest department in enforcing their archaic and rigid laws like “Ensure that not a single tree is felled in the protected zone”. This law if implemented would ensure that most rangers are killed in their sleep by communities that dependent on the forest for sustenance. A sure cure for constipation that, but most forest rangers choose survival over duty and quietly ignore such on-paper laws. <br />
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Siddharth also mentioned that the forest dept was woefully understaffed to do anything of significance to safeguard the forest. “So what do the forest officials really do?”, the girl hurriedly asked, as though her article depended on this single question. Siddharth is scathing in most of his replies but this brings out his best, “They put barbed wires in places where they should not, plant exotic trees like guava in the plains where they don't grow and do all sorts of stuff, but what do they really do, I have no clue...”. I entered the station to learn about king cobras, but left with burning desire to let people know that if we manage to destroy the rain forests through our greed, future generations are doomed to a life of struggle and failure.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2GxnThOgV_7TMNxRkS1MD6X3W51bx7sO5TCZmzaLAja898H6kRPSWvola1aNLDTyl_bwohNd2hW_mX50rxHu6B3sED6LgNhC4IjWg2i-pbP0KxAOsNn5MrplNg1lOs4ueOax4wPDJvg/s1600/Agumbe+Near+Barkhan+falls.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2GxnThOgV_7TMNxRkS1MD6X3W51bx7sO5TCZmzaLAja898H6kRPSWvola1aNLDTyl_bwohNd2hW_mX50rxHu6B3sED6LgNhC4IjWg2i-pbP0KxAOsNn5MrplNg1lOs4ueOax4wPDJvg/s400/Agumbe+Near+Barkhan+falls.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agumbe - Near Barkhan Falls</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtSFtXCFNmZ1wZ6bV7ndfcM6hOd4WXqg0pWfghVpZqCk4kAzkxtj_oYyQ17qTHCLMqvXjP1-BCyq3d-WaU2Q0MpJxrmV2-L8EsIPtGE7FNbKCMeGzzvoDad0W4FfH1hOAS5LIoyvjD8Q/s1600/Agumbe+Jogigundi+falls.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtSFtXCFNmZ1wZ6bV7ndfcM6hOd4WXqg0pWfghVpZqCk4kAzkxtj_oYyQ17qTHCLMqvXjP1-BCyq3d-WaU2Q0MpJxrmV2-L8EsIPtGE7FNbKCMeGzzvoDad0W4FfH1hOAS5LIoyvjD8Q/s400/Agumbe+Jogigundi+falls.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agumbe - Jogiguda falls</td></tr>
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The Western Ghats has an exceptionally high level of biological diversity and was recently awarded the World Heritage Site tag. But all parties of the Karnataka Assembly, who fight each other over every other issue, cut across party lines and <i>unanimously</i> passed a resolution requesting the UNESCO to withdraw the world heritage tag given to 10 spots in the Western Ghats. This rare consensus was punctuated with emotional arguments like “We don’t need UNESCO to tell us about conservation of forests", "We don’t need more tiger reserves" etc. Like any convincing lie, there is a smidgen of truth in an argument like "it will create problems for the locals and forest dwellers". But that is not why our politicians are rushing in to reject the 'world heritage site' moniker and accuse the UNESCO of trying to rule the state by proxy. If the UNESCO ruling is implemented, lucrative mining rights would become worthless and that hits our politicians where it hurts most - funding.<br />
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Kasturi akka and Siddharth are among the dedicated few fighting the same battle for the rain forests using whatever means at their disposal. Legal action, as employed by Kasturi akka and the villagers against indiscriminate industrialization takes years of effort. Meanwhile one determined lumberjack can wipe out a forest by the time the verdict arrives. Siddharth, on the other hand, was of the opinion that perhaps colleges should teach anarchy instead language and science. He talked about Greenpeace activists blowing up oil rigs to protect the environment and said that one such act did more for conservation than years of litigation in the courts.<br />
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It is said that the fear of forest brigand Veerappan did more for the survival of the Sathyamangalam forests in Tamil Nadu than any govt could hope to achieve. Now that the brigand is dead, the lumberjacks are back with their axes. Like the Mayor of Gotham calling in the Joker to save the city instead of Batman; our nation has to turn to agents of chaos and anarchy to preserve its forests. Definitely something is wrong somewhere.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-81414245111185485252012-09-01T05:41:00.000-07:002012-10-12T12:25:40.705-07:00The Girl on the Train<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The girl was fair, good-looking and wearing a casual blue tee shirt and green three fourths, same as everyone who called themselves cool in metros these days. She unrolled a newspaper as soon as got into the compartment. 'Interesting', I thought. Any girl who whips out a newspaper to read, notwithstanding that it is Times of India, in a train is one who's gotten her priorities right (or woefully wrong depending on how you look at it).<br />
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Unfortunately this one had something else in mind. She spread out the newspaper below the seat and pushed a sleek yellow coloured travel bag on it after removing her iPad and a small napkin. I avoided looking at the dirty 30-litre sack I had thrown below my seat, something that had served me well in hikes across the country but had not been washed for around a year. She delicately placed the napkin on her lap and the iPad on the napkin and proceeded to play a brick game, making clucks, wringing her hands and muttering 'gone' in disappointment when she lost, with a look as though she had just lost her first born.<br />
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A <i>germophobic </i>or a “clean freak” on an Indian train!? What irony. Such folks are understandably rare in India, especially on Indian trains where "Swalpa adjust maadi" (<i>Please adjust)</i> is the usual refrain when it comes to hygiene. Soon a stream of railway caterers overran the coach with screams of biryani and chapatti. The girl of course did not bother with such hawkers, even though they were approved by the Indian Railways. I half-expected her to dig into her bag for her curd rice but that did not happen either. A woman managing her brawling kid noticed this and offered her a pack of chips but the girl waved it away. Apparently she never eats chips for dinner.<br />
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Clearly she had rules set in stone and not eating chips for dinner was among the unbreakable ones. She probably had rules for her boyfriend as well and would give him an earful for slurping coffee on a date. I imagined her repeating her edicts regarding hygiene and life aloud every night, just like princess Arya from game of thrones reciting the names of enemies she wanted dead before hitting the bed. I laughed aloud at the thought, noticed folks in my compartment staring at me and unsuccessfully tried to convert it into a cough. Needless to say that never works like in the movies. The girl looked at me and through some feminine appendage that science is yet to discover, understood that it was a private joke about her and gave me a look that would have curdled milk.<br />
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And as it inevitably happens in Indian trains, an old couple in the compartment started quizzing the girl - what's her Father's name? Which city is she from? Where is she working and for how long? Is she married? Does she have any siblings and are they married? The girl responded to the inquisition patiently. By the time the couple was done, they had uncovered that the old man knew the girl's grandfather though he did not delve into details. I, on the other hand, was convinced that the couple had an unmarried son and were throwing a net wide and far to find him a bride.<br />
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The couple backed off having sated their curiosity. I tentatively asked her a question regarding the turmoil in her company (having overheard the company name). She admitted that she was looking for greener pastures because that. Hmm! My shot in the dark seemed to have touched a rather sore nerve. Admittedly misery loves company. We ended up chatting for the next half an hour regarding the gloomy situation in Information Technology sector in general. That night I was under the impression that perhaps I could take this forward the next morning and ask for her phone number.<br />
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Come morning, the train reached its destination on time and I was yet to make my move. A tall burly guy in jeans, too well dressed to be a porter, stepped into the compartment to carry the girl's luggage. He saw me talking to the girl and gave me a look that I recognize from one of the many National Geographic animal specials - "Back off. This one's mine". *sigh* Another battle lost to another over-attached boyfriend. Anyways the odds were too high and involved 'hygiene'.<br />
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P.S: c'est une œuvre de fiction. Vérité...</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-64065914929087777652012-03-28T12:56:00.000-07:002012-03-28T20:43:37.633-07:00Into The Wild<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-size: large;">Y</span>ou are no lone wolf. Stop telling yourself that you are different. You might claim that words will never hurt you; you might as well claim to be living in Mars and hosting Zeus and his pantheon of Gods for tea everyday. Admit it. You crave for acceptance. Those likes on facebook and those retweets on twitter light up your face. All those times your manager truly praised your work or some colleague nominated you for a spot award, there was a tinge of pure joy and excitement flowing through your veins.<br /><br /> At the end of the day, whatever way you look at it, we are all apes. We learn by imitating. If you have ever seen a child pick up language, you know what I am talking about. If it is society that shapes us, are we just pawns hoping that one day we might reach the end and become queens and bishops? Unfortunately no; Cinderella’s dreams generally do not come true in real life and the one of the evil twin sisters always gets the prince. Sooner or later, the masks we wear to perform the pantomime that society demands of us comes back to define us and our perception about ourselves.<br /><br /> What does it feel to wake up and head to work knowing that you will end up doing the same thing tomorrow, the next week and the week after, the next year and perhaps years to come until you retire to take up gardening or writing letters to newspaper editors? Have you ever woken up and told yourself that today you will tell your boss to go f**k himself, quit your job and just travel around the world until the end of days. What am I raving about? Everyone has those days…<br /><br /> I just came to know about a guy who plays around a dozen sports and is very good at most, is a top notch sniper and a Beretta pistol shooter, digs wells for villages without access to clean water, builds classrooms in villages and whose dream is to visit more countries than his age. Also before I forget, he once drove an auto from Chennai to Mumbai and is currently teaching in a school in Ladakh. Talk about developing a multifaceted personality... When I came to know about this, something inside me stirred, the wanderlust that society and I had managed to talk into submission would not remain silent anymore. It screamed out that I should go out, live a life of adventure and explore the world with the same curiosity that drove our ancestors out of Africa. Alas, the moment passes and I always wake up. Not literally because I am already wide awake, but because I am getting late for office.<br /><br /> So what about my free will? Was my destiny pre-determined based on the alignment of stars and planets the moment I was born? When was the last time I did something just to prove to myself that I am not living in a Matrix-like-world? When was the last time I forgot about society, its rigid rules and firm machinations and did something for pure thrill? The question I ask myself and you is this - when was the last time you did something crazy?</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-33414730072592088312012-03-24T11:34:00.000-07:002012-03-26T01:30:58.957-07:00Bhimbetka - The very beginning<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Let’s rewind about 200,000 years ago, to the very beginning of mankind. In Africa, there emerged a group of apes with a large brain capable of better reasoning and problem-solving than the other apes. These apes were curious beings, interested in exploring their world and developed higher level thought processes like self-awareness and rationality. Between 75,000 and 50,000 years ago, as the world was entering its last ice age, the Neanderthals were on their way out and settings were ideal for the Homo sapiens or the modern humans to take over the planet. A long time after the last Tyrannosaurus roared and crushed its opponents to pulp, earth had a dominant species once again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Nestled in the hinterlands of India in the midst of a rocky terrain of dense forest on the northern fringe of the Vindhyan ranges, is a uniquely preserved prehistoric site at Bhimbetka, around 45 kms from Bhopal. These rock shelters tell us the story of homo sapien migration from Africa and exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India. These quartzite rock formations have 754 rock shelters with over 500 with rock paintings. The paintings are one of the few existing legacies of a lost time, stretching from the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) era to the Historical period. The quality and quantity of the rock art shows the long lasting interaction between hunter-gatherers and the landscape and also the gradual development of the socio-cultural life of mankind.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggc7dR7ai8vWG8o3di-NP3AEajxIp89pdb66MLchGOpOh9ETSRJF_lVYTwfUUW9dIq5KGTyUvL8OZaAv05n1Me3lhvT_CZqubPWp1TtQ1DwdGkMSU_Mqpi2-lsv-LqSDgquWtTQQUciyE/s1600/1.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+1.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggc7dR7ai8vWG8o3di-NP3AEajxIp89pdb66MLchGOpOh9ETSRJF_lVYTwfUUW9dIq5KGTyUvL8OZaAv05n1Me3lhvT_CZqubPWp1TtQ1DwdGkMSU_Mqpi2-lsv-LqSDgquWtTQQUciyE/s400/1.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+1.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 1</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Ajay and I took an early morning bus from Bhopal and reached Bhimbetka at 8 a.m. The bus dropped us at a railway cross three kilometres from the rock shelters. We found a MP tourism hotel named Highway Retreat where the cook kindly prepared us sandwich and tea after the guard has turned us away saying we had come too early. After breakfast we walked to the rock shelters. A few months ago we would have run those 3 kms, but niggles and injuries from the previous running season ensured that running was out of question. I would suggest hiring a taxi at Bhopal for travelers looking for comfort.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> One of the oldest known prehistoric art in Asia is a series of Stone Age cupules or cup-marks-in-the-rock discovered in Bhimbetka. Geological investigations by renowned archaeologists Bednarik, Kumar and others have established that these cupules are more than 100,000 years old. In other words these were not the work of our ancestors (homo-sapiens) since they left Africa only 75,000 years ago, but of homo-erectus who roamed these plains long before the first Homo sapiens set foot in South Asia.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSTefN-zNlMpUlzuiYH07jdkG9VhHWad2h-5-u8HNFnrzkT7rJcKzNCTrIzDwDcJLa5Nu8ACurPtFYMMysLwDmVXldY_KJFfpW_JymewhPsj3SYBUdEOqjGxdUqHMGm1AfIGPRmiJSJ0/s1600/16.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSTefN-zNlMpUlzuiYH07jdkG9VhHWad2h-5-u8HNFnrzkT7rJcKzNCTrIzDwDcJLa5Nu8ACurPtFYMMysLwDmVXldY_KJFfpW_JymewhPsj3SYBUdEOqjGxdUqHMGm1AfIGPRmiJSJ0/s400/16.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+13.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter No. 15 - Boar Rock/Mushroom rock</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Colours used in the paintings were derived from locally available minerals - ochre from haematite and white from lime. The binding medium used was water and fixatives like animal fat and plant extract like gum. The solvent minerals get oxidised so as to leave their colour on the rock surface. Sometimes the paintings were used several times by artists of later periods without obliterating the older figures. The superimposition of paintings of different styles and periods can be seen in many of the rock shelters in Bhimbetka. Certain images have 15 layers of super imposition. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Here’s a snapshot of paintings at the Bhimbetka site in different
periods:</span></div>
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<td style="border: solid #AAAAAA 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid #AAAAAA .75pt; padding: 5.55pt 5.55pt 5.55pt 5.55pt; width: 89.4pt;" valign="top" width="119"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Period</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Time Duration</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Features</span></div>
</td>
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<td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 5.55pt; width: 89.4pt;" valign="top" width="119"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Palaeolithic( Old stone age)</span></div>
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<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 146.9pt;" valign="top" width="196"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Since our ancestors started using stone tools to around 10000 BC</span></div>
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<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 237.1pt;" valign="top" width="316"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">These are linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge
figures of animals such as bison, tigers and rhinoceroses.</span></div>
</td>
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<td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 5.55pt; width: 89.4pt;" valign="top" width="119"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Mesolithic( Middle stone age)</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 146.9pt;" valign="top" width="196"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">around 10000 BC</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 237.1pt;" valign="top" width="316"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Mainly images of the natural world and life of the hunter gatherers
including scenes like hunting.</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 5.55pt; width: 89.4pt;" valign="top" width="119"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Neolithic( New stone age)</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 146.9pt;" valign="top" width="196"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">around 8000/7000 BC</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 237.1pt;" valign="top" width="316"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td>
</tr>
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<td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 5.55pt; width: 89.4pt;" valign="top" width="119"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Chalcolithic</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 146.9pt;" valign="top" width="196"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">around 3000 BC</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 237.1pt;" valign="top" width="316"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Quite a few of the images in the site are from this period.</span></div>
</td>
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<td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 5.55pt; width: 89.4pt;" valign="top" width="119"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Early historical</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 146.9pt;" valign="top" width="196"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">3300 BC to 1300 BC</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(170, 170, 170) rgb(170, 170, 170) -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 5.55pt; width: 237.1pt;" valign="top" width="316"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Most of the images are from this period. Red, white and yellow were
the colours used. The paintings in this period are more refined and comprises
of more elaborate scenes like royal processions, horse riding and battle
scenes. This period represents the beginnings of known religion (Image of <span class="SpellE">Natya</span> Shiva).</span></div>
</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">More detailed information about the rock shelters:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 1:</span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Major excavation work was carried out in this cave between 1973 and 1976 and has paintings from historical period. On the upper ceiling, there are silhouetted paintings of two elephants. The smaller elephant is driven by a man holding a goad in one hand, a spear in the other and sword in his waist. And both elephants are shown with long uplifted tusks. Drawings of a horseman and a soldier are seen below. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5UgRe1JuxgP5DBIOMNdmgBZZdQFWJBwTGzFXdDX89aez383HD-vlQwHi1EgbsQ3TAmjJA4fYFuK41obFEoM7YVSwGZR-VJlKDYQiLhha13KfGiMAfhx6jkI4rT8w9p5NEmk84o_sDEXM/s1600/2.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+1+close+up.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5UgRe1JuxgP5DBIOMNdmgBZZdQFWJBwTGzFXdDX89aez383HD-vlQwHi1EgbsQ3TAmjJA4fYFuK41obFEoM7YVSwGZR-VJlKDYQiLhha13KfGiMAfhx6jkI4rT8w9p5NEmk84o_sDEXM/s400/2.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+1+close+up.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 1 - Notice the two elephants on top and below the horseman and a soldier.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 3 – Auditorium cave:</span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This shelter is called the auditorium cave due to its shape. The paintings portray bulls, buffaloes, deer, a peacock, a tiger and the left hand of a child. Not sure how they classified the hand impression as that of a child as it seemed to be almost as large as my hand! </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOYpijwpUYBVLGiNHCsWN2s1hy_ncTvQaelMVjZU6mEu6uWpJGMC4rqsnPiI6wA62Q54moGV1BRWPhk79y4JCLB5jgsYhKnxKfVBopH1d-RMABi-af3uUuuyAAKj2HIWrPefkLrO5y9Ao/s1600/3.+Bhimbetka+Auditorium+Cave+-+Paintings.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOYpijwpUYBVLGiNHCsWN2s1hy_ncTvQaelMVjZU6mEu6uWpJGMC4rqsnPiI6wA62Q54moGV1BRWPhk79y4JCLB5jgsYhKnxKfVBopH1d-RMABi-af3uUuuyAAKj2HIWrPefkLrO5y9Ao/s400/3.+Bhimbetka+Auditorium+Cave+-+Paintings.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka shelter 3 - Auditorium Cave. Notice the image of hand of a prehistoric child in the bottom.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The cupules or cup shapes in the rocks that I mentioned above are found in this cave. These represent the art work of the now extinct Homo erectus who roamed these plains more than 100,000 years ago.</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWoJIO4dcCLkwLP8ewq9k-YWKOxnxKe0oGFFxgSedhJ6hw5GCKJ_1Kr772Iq-L42NdA586NcmWAUX9o-sQdduPHSX_NBZeAaT1b2K0jLMP7apfbcoPESPP42EdmLyXMW8wsx9O5v41Z_0/s1600/4.+Bhimbetka+Auditorium+Cave+-+Cupules.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWoJIO4dcCLkwLP8ewq9k-YWKOxnxKe0oGFFxgSedhJ6hw5GCKJ_1Kr772Iq-L42NdA586NcmWAUX9o-sQdduPHSX_NBZeAaT1b2K0jLMP7apfbcoPESPP42EdmLyXMW8wsx9O5v41Z_0/s400/4.+Bhimbetka+Auditorium+Cave+-+Cupules.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 3 - Auditorium Cave. The cup shape in front of the guys neck is called a cupule and is supposed to have been created by home erectus species more than 100,000 years ago.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 4 – Zoo rock:</span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This shelter is semi-circular in shape and popularly called “Zoo rock” because the paintings in this shelter comprise of more than 252 animals of 16 different species. Apart from the animal figures, there is also a depiction of a royal procession in dark ochre colour. The horsemen are shown with long hair and head dresses and armed with bows arrows and shields and are accompanied by drummers. Except a few that belong to Mesolithic age, most paintings belong to the Chalcolithic and Historical period.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaJH4857hr76Ghc1GvRtSFRvW5sJyRdUUasiQaqqXyUKfZRdeHbpx0keiUeT5U2IcKhX-LDG3XmOrfQiqlBqCUlCTJLeImIRN439QY2p0GdQEuPjhBQrHTx42mOIrzfgylYMDuVjE9BLA/s1600/6.+Bhimbetka+Zoo+rock.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaJH4857hr76Ghc1GvRtSFRvW5sJyRdUUasiQaqqXyUKfZRdeHbpx0keiUeT5U2IcKhX-LDG3XmOrfQiqlBqCUlCTJLeImIRN439QY2p0GdQEuPjhBQrHTx42mOIrzfgylYMDuVjE9BLA/s400/6.+Bhimbetka+Zoo+rock.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 4 - Zoo Rock.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdRTzrifPKTy4iJ0VuYADKoMf8SegBLDTyldffbLNm_LmcRDej0yEi-il1uYCEDPrDj6yKMpxE088bUIBp4R1K6mOeG1JHO5glIDiUmRs9hp3MsKjICAb0rFP-Cmt_PMJMtiqnXGu3us/s1600/5.+Bhimbetka+Zoo+rock+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdRTzrifPKTy4iJ0VuYADKoMf8SegBLDTyldffbLNm_LmcRDej0yEi-il1uYCEDPrDj6yKMpxE088bUIBp4R1K6mOeG1JHO5glIDiUmRs9hp3MsKjICAb0rFP-Cmt_PMJMtiqnXGu3us/s400/5.+Bhimbetka+Zoo+rock+2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 4 - Zoo rock with more than 252 animals of 16 species.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 6: </span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Contains figures of dancing men and woman along with drummers perhaps indicating that music and dance were integral to their lives.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ffOH6CZudLJKl4AKhdbNg0OCcGYfpZXYTIGHMuUbUvQDyxYkuuWM6zlP4l1-UP7Tu1zeOeC6mm5w6CftMIzefOYnftGSYjOOAAhbHPkPPJB1aNDN_3K4jM9ywxMTVjfUos7maGYcvUE/s1600/7.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+6+-new.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ffOH6CZudLJKl4AKhdbNg0OCcGYfpZXYTIGHMuUbUvQDyxYkuuWM6zlP4l1-UP7Tu1zeOeC6mm5w6CftMIzefOYnftGSYjOOAAhbHPkPPJB1aNDN_3K4jM9ywxMTVjfUos7maGYcvUE/s320/7.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+6+-new.JPG" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 6 - Time for song and dance</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Rock Shelter 7:</b> </span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Most of the paintings in this rock-shelter are from the historical period and you can see figures of swordsmen carrying spears and riding horses.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFCo8borQdMg8FeP1tZi9yg5fhsFiAyD8so9bW1cF3ELWgFdboWTNuFJEPMnT57IrDoC0Uq69_AWGO9PF0K5yfLEnMCFZ9TAQ_N1TELf79QdJI3MNobeeobmiaGoBcYWuqvjAZVGRZ_d8/s1600/8.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+7.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFCo8borQdMg8FeP1tZi9yg5fhsFiAyD8so9bW1cF3ELWgFdboWTNuFJEPMnT57IrDoC0Uq69_AWGO9PF0K5yfLEnMCFZ9TAQ_N1TELf79QdJI3MNobeeobmiaGoBcYWuqvjAZVGRZ_d8/s400/8.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+7.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 7 - Warriors on horses</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 9: </span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Various colours used in different periods are on display here. I initially thought that I had finally found evidence of aliens in the paintings but they turned out to be yellow paintings of flower pots and buds. Additionally there is an elegant figure of a horse and also an image of an elephant being stalked by a shrouded human figure. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQaOU22DnVLrKrXACd0QJ3jTomhGAMUoYNLrPEt9YSb-udFMb6jpnJVuHzdcQF0ckz2LDpMBD25e-hc9LOA40EouaM3NZPmjJqcORlGqOcjRGiz_6A7kyR4sn87nu3-1aaGmNlT5bJobk/s1600/9.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+9+-+Elephant.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQaOU22DnVLrKrXACd0QJ3jTomhGAMUoYNLrPEt9YSb-udFMb6jpnJVuHzdcQF0ckz2LDpMBD25e-hc9LOA40EouaM3NZPmjJqcORlGqOcjRGiz_6A7kyR4sn87nu3-1aaGmNlT5bJobk/s400/9.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+9+-+Elephant.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 9 - Elephant followed by shrouded man.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsG0B_90iq_QiTW1ZXW_56HnThvP0zDUSHHs0cS00Yh6su0EtK7q4DbD0D0k8GXtifzn3xhlzeGo5sUX85xqjToi46dWa-kmA7r5PSlFpDYUv8YUt0fOQKrBGHnn72ZBqSqvKAHQ3J5sU/s1600/10.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+9+-+Horse.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsG0B_90iq_QiTW1ZXW_56HnThvP0zDUSHHs0cS00Yh6su0EtK7q4DbD0D0k8GXtifzn3xhlzeGo5sUX85xqjToi46dWa-kmA7r5PSlFpDYUv8YUt0fOQKrBGHnn72ZBqSqvKAHQ3J5sU/s400/10.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+9+-+Horse.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 9 - Elegant Horse on right. Yellow dots and aliens on left. Actually flower pots and buds.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 10: </span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> It is said that in the early historic eras, the first Gods appeared. Here in the desolate rock shelters, you will find the very beginnings of known religion. The painting of a man holding a trident-like staff and dancing has been christened as “Nataraj” by Dr. Wakankar. Most of the paintings in this shelter have eroded due to rain.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMV2U8xFICsDocshtaasxA7k9XVeZul7zHM6HRG5480Jnl1PJsEgkTjtNzUti9xQOmuWVfUYsbGFlOTRMgPTDuW8NhLNB8NrPopT_-1JcBI6PiI9LraRCC3YlPYXcTmu91Z0G9PN9GBw/s1600/11.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+10+Natya+Shiva.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMV2U8xFICsDocshtaasxA7k9XVeZul7zHM6HRG5480Jnl1PJsEgkTjtNzUti9xQOmuWVfUYsbGFlOTRMgPTDuW8NhLNB8NrPopT_-1JcBI6PiI9LraRCC3YlPYXcTmu91Z0G9PN9GBw/s400/11.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+10+Natya+Shiva.JPG" width="305" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 10 - The Nataraj bearing trishul. Probably the beginning on known religion.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock shelter 11: </span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Pigments used for preservation by the ASI (Archeological Survey of India) in this rock shelter had an adverse effect on the paintings. The ASI had coated a layer of wax in this shelter to protect the paintings from the rain, but the chemicals seemed to have caused an adverse effect on the paintings causing blackening of pictures that survived thousands of years.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRurcDVtjzvxEgGVgpH5L7H6rSZGFdoJl6AltfHaLtShT-4Qm51ZBRhiEgTq-8J7wd-Us2jIRGZEnT7dbCGkVbQJRrk9_hPog7QXIoBg2Ahqy5j7Owknj-PJBdidb2ywRC3gSDN8dIoTI/s1600/13.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+11+-+Warriors.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRurcDVtjzvxEgGVgpH5L7H6rSZGFdoJl6AltfHaLtShT-4Qm51ZBRhiEgTq-8J7wd-Us2jIRGZEnT7dbCGkVbQJRrk9_hPog7QXIoBg2Ahqy5j7Owknj-PJBdidb2ywRC3gSDN8dIoTI/s400/13.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+11+-+Warriors.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Sheltor 11 - Warriors with shields and swords</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock shelter 12: </span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This shelter contains paintings of Carcasses and X-ray figures - mainly the bones of animals. Probably done by a witch doctor from those times! </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWOKTXA28U57M_hqUetUSqTl4UvYRJyJgfiGQ-2XMbXzMYeKXEo0Wcz4O0uOSpoL4S0Y8BubZkYrVnF-ZmImj2J9djA_7zQQtRwLWPMAWDfOyO83-QGLy360ek3mtsQ4ZLvYP4-S-Qu0/s1600/14.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+12.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWOKTXA28U57M_hqUetUSqTl4UvYRJyJgfiGQ-2XMbXzMYeKXEo0Wcz4O0uOSpoL4S0Y8BubZkYrVnF-ZmImj2J9djA_7zQQtRwLWPMAWDfOyO83-QGLy360ek3mtsQ4ZLvYP4-S-Qu0/s400/14.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+12.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Sheltor 12 - Hunting scene</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rock Shelter 15 – Boar Rock: </span></b><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The boar rock is mushroom shaped and has the painting of a gigantic boar with two crescent shaped horns chasing scrawny human running for his life. Clearly humour and sarcasm was also part of their lives.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4vV7M32vLBQlo6t032AGCAVtrJYWCV37fRwe3TXNul8ra48fgCboE4MbLApqzufVXm4z-t1Ngio5crOSSSwBeNQkwGYfQYKT8AjHJI1MCs1dhyphenhyphenPhcos8TtgZIB_0i16iFmYRDIKNakU/s1600/15.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+13+Boar+rock.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4vV7M32vLBQlo6t032AGCAVtrJYWCV37fRwe3TXNul8ra48fgCboE4MbLApqzufVXm4z-t1Ngio5crOSSSwBeNQkwGYfQYKT8AjHJI1MCs1dhyphenhyphenPhcos8TtgZIB_0i16iFmYRDIKNakU/s400/15.+Bhimbetka+Shelter+13+Boar+rock.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bhimbetka Rock Shelter 15 - Mythical large size boar chasing scrawny human.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Over time, the hunter gatherers became farmers and the shelters lay forgotten until they were discovered by Dr. Vishnu Sridhar Wakankar in 1958. He was bestowed with the Padmashree by the Government of India for this discovery.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Ajay and I walked back to the highway from the caves. We learnt that buses do not stop at Bhimbetka and climbed up a sand lorry to travel to the nearest town of Obaidullagunj to catch a bus to Bhopal. On reaching Bhopal, we visited Bharat Bhavan, a multi art centre with verbal, visual and performing arts. It provides space for contemporary expression, thought, quest and innovation. We found thought provoking masks, creative photos and lasting works of art created in towns, villages and forests. A must visit for any traveler to Bhopal.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Later we had a quick lunch at Bharat Bhavan canteen and rushed back to the hotel room to freshen up and catch our train to Hyderabad. Our journey was at end and I realized that even though we had spent four days in Madhya Pradesh, it was really not enough. It might actually take months of traveling to really understand and appreciate the culture and history of India. The word “Bhimbetka” is said to have been derived from Bhimbaithika, or the seat of Bhima- one of the five Pandavas of the epic Mahabharata. Bhimbetka may no longer be the seat of Bhima, but it is definitely the seat of ancient South Asian history.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">More blogs for further info on Bhimbetka and Bharat Bhavan:click <a href="http://puratattva.in/2010/03/26/bimbetka-a-dive-into-the-stone-age-57.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://depalan.blogspot.in/2007/05/journey-to-bimbetka-prehistoric.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cognit/shared_files/cupules.pdf" target="_blank">here </a>and <a href="http://www.mpculture.in/html/bharat-bhawan.asp" target="_blank">here</a></span>.<br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mpculture.in/html/bharat-bhawan.asp"></a> </span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-3408818305661640192012-03-18T20:30:00.002-07:002012-03-21T00:52:32.222-07:00Sanchi Stupas - Buddhism's holy grail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"> “You guys are obsessed” remarked an Aussie lady in Sanchi on learning our travel schedule. In three days of travelling in Madhya Pradesh, my friend Ajay and I had experienced various highs and lows. We spent mornings visiting UNESCO world heritage sites and historical forts, amazed at the cultural and historical riches of Madhya Pradesh and spent the night traveling from one place to another in trains. Consequently sleep was a luxury; we slept wherever and whenever we had a chance- in trains, waiting rooms and crowded platforms and had hardly seen the back of a hotel in three days. We ate at road-side stalls when we had to hurry but splurged on Biriyani in the Lalit Hotel when we had time to spare. We cycled at times, walked miles sometimes and once also ended up in the back side of a sand lorry with the wind billowing onto our faces as we sat on the tarpaulin sheets covering the sand. We were on a wild ride exploring the hinterlands of India and enjoying every moment of it.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5lsRrZiHYCFFM-avSb3vGcpwnvqEWUKtjWVaiFWrDS5VI80r7Bc4HoM-eEbIXX5HlhyTPM36sRnRJc9wOVP1SY7pJBsnggpzIW1HZbCTYyD66VwLhK9cvfg5sXvP05gy_cTPdNL-KWg/s1600/1+Stupa1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5lsRrZiHYCFFM-avSb3vGcpwnvqEWUKtjWVaiFWrDS5VI80r7Bc4HoM-eEbIXX5HlhyTPM36sRnRJc9wOVP1SY7pJBsnggpzIW1HZbCTYyD66VwLhK9cvfg5sXvP05gy_cTPdNL-KWg/s400/1+Stupa1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Main Stupa or Stupa No. 1 at Sanchi</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> In 3rd century B.C, more than 300 years after the birth of Buddha, the great Mauryan emperor Ashoka laid of the foundations for a Buddhist establishment in a place named Vedisagiri around 10km from the flourishing town of Vidisha. This place also came to be known as Sanchi. He erected a stone pillar (later to become the famous Ashoka Pillar) and a brick stupa. The empires that came later – the Sunga (2nd century B.C) and the Satvahanas (1st century B.C) made significant contributions to the main stupa by building additional stupas, temples for Buddha and erecting the four world famous gateways made of sandstone at the four entrances to the stupa. In its heydays, Buddhism enjoyed the patronage of four empires - Mauryan, Shungas, Satvayanas and the Guptas. Work continued on Sanchi till the 12th century A.D. after which it was abandoned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The stupas are meant to contain the relics of Buddha and are probably the most important Buddhist monuments currently standing, the holy grail of Buddhism. Two hundred years ago the British wanted to cart the Sanchi gateways to UK ostensibly to protect them and even the French emperor Napolean wished to possess one of the gateways. Thankfully the stupas remain where they were meant to be and not in some art collector's private gallery.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZzGPyhFDxTlEGfoUOClH50rcVySdvj1_Nk381sctzPxp8wcU_2JHcGn6heupFdgsxB0oNwweYwydRi9SoE8-X6dl9MR9wqMAb5Y7P-uaxYItLNNcpBkJBuacJP_c1V70C2ATDqgQIptg/s1600/2.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZzGPyhFDxTlEGfoUOClH50rcVySdvj1_Nk381sctzPxp8wcU_2JHcGn6heupFdgsxB0oNwweYwydRi9SoE8-X6dl9MR9wqMAb5Y7P-uaxYItLNNcpBkJBuacJP_c1V70C2ATDqgQIptg/s400/2.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stupa 1 - Northern Gateway</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> We arrived at the Vidisha (around 10 kms from Sanchi) Railway station from Jhansi at around 4:30 am in the morning. Our plan was to present the 3rd AC ticket that was had used a few days ago at the AC waiting room, hope the attendant lets us through after failing to check the date of travel and get some sleep before heading out to Sanchi in the morning. But the railways played a cruel joke on us – there was no waiting room at Videsha. Clearly Vidisha is no longer the rich and flourishing city that it was at Ashoka’s time. We unrolled our sleeping bags and slept on the platform; becoming one among the nameless, homeless people sleeping in railway station platforms. We woke up at 6.30 am, took a bus to Sanchi and had breakfast at the MPSTDC centre there after waking up the cooks. We then walked up the hill to reach the stupas and hired the audio guides on offer to learn more about the known beginnings of Indian History and architecture at Sanchi.<br /><br /> The stupas are a product of the Hinayana system of Buddhism where Buddha was never portrayed in sculptures and paintings. A casual visitor may scour all the sculptures in the gateways, not find a single image of Buddha in it and wonder how the gateways qualify as Buddhist. Actually certain items on the gateways indicate a milestone in Buddha’s life and thereby symbolize his presence – a lotus flower (birth), a rider-less horse (renunciation), the Bodhi tree (enlightenment), a pair of slippers (first step after enlightenment), a wheel (first sermon at Sarnath) or an empty throne (nirvana). Etched on the gateways you will find various stories from the Jataka tales – stories from the earlier lives of Buddha as a Bodhisattva searching for enlightenment. Interestingly Gods of the Hindu Pantheon are also sculpted - Laxmi the Goddess of wealth, Indra the ruler of the heavens and Brahma the creator.<br /> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieWzWF05fBzoYoKMyRO0-aYNneoGoTJ2-7dfSK0jgzzEgHbSzAPaHC24qKH51G_dK2fvVVHkg5CWRsaKJYHkQkMH-lnzyjgIDbuOFDPM-tlY_iiGI3B-sP8KsBXTyyILj5auows170jU/s1600/4.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran+Jataka+Tales+-+Vasantara+and+his+selfless+generosity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieWzWF05fBzoYoKMyRO0-aYNneoGoTJ2-7dfSK0jgzzEgHbSzAPaHC24qKH51G_dK2fvVVHkg5CWRsaKJYHkQkMH-lnzyjgIDbuOFDPM-tlY_iiGI3B-sP8KsBXTyyILj5auows170jU/s640/4.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran+Jataka+Tales+-+Vasantara+and+his+selfless+generosity.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Northern Gateway - Jataka tale of Vasantara reiterating importance of sacrifice. From left Vasantara is shown leaving palace with children, then staying in a hermit after giving away both his children.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Stupa 1:</b><br /> This is one of the oldest stupas in India and 36.5 m in diameter and 16.4 m high with a hemispherical dome. Work on the stupas went on well into the 12th century A.D. The entrance to the stupas is through four magnificently carved gateways or torans. These torans are one of the finest examples of Buddhist art in India. The four torans probably represent the four noble truths of Buddhism which talk about reason for pain and suffering and how to avoid it.<br /><br /><b>Northern Gateway:</b><br /> This best preserved of the gateways present an insight into the life and architecture of the Sunga Period. The inscriptions on the torans indicate that the carvings are donations of the people of Vidisha, not just the kings. There is an arc on the top of the gateway with a yaksa has (Demigod) to the right. The circular ring like structures are meant to indicate rolled up scrolls. The three rows on the gateway are filled with Jataka tales. The story of bodhisattva vasantara is one of selfless generosity – He gives up all his riches, his kingdom and children and finally his wife. In the back side of the row, the story continues – finally the Gods relent on seeing Vasantara’s sacrifice and the family is reunited. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkx49TrNLEEa2r_O-9q1f6WzfKy9HjQocps3vHu94L39tmXW3V6McbOVKrI1sWkPxKFGk7Lln8-DCOti8hLEzmIPDvdDCEkjOnP21MaP5iJcSaYo7mBghPAJ24OvRHrcV7JNKbkWA2kI8/s1600/5.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran+Evil+Mara+tries+to+end+buddha%2527s++penance.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkx49TrNLEEa2r_O-9q1f6WzfKy9HjQocps3vHu94L39tmXW3V6McbOVKrI1sWkPxKFGk7Lln8-DCOti8hLEzmIPDvdDCEkjOnP21MaP5iJcSaYo7mBghPAJ24OvRHrcV7JNKbkWA2kI8/s640/5.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran+Evil+Mara+tries+to+end+buddha%2527s++penance.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evil Mara tries to end Buddha's Penance. Buddha is represented through the Bodhi tree on left.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The middle architrave tells the story of how Buddha overcame temptation in the final moments of his penance when the evil Mara gets desperate and sends his own daughters to tempt the ascetic. Buddha attains enlightenment and Mara’s evil army disperses in confusion.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6txbYyZT05JYf6zPjRXnBijwLI7ft1EhqGcb8gkvuOYcxd912ER_qbybYOuWUT5Dad9fImiKNpige03vw01XvTVxJhi84Wfssa2eJGh3cbcn0yPH9Ko4dALOZCNti2wHKnIJ0sivT-8M/s1600/3.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran.+Monkey+giving+Buddha+Honey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6txbYyZT05JYf6zPjRXnBijwLI7ft1EhqGcb8gkvuOYcxd912ER_qbybYOuWUT5Dad9fImiKNpige03vw01XvTVxJhi84Wfssa2eJGh3cbcn0yPH9Ko4dALOZCNti2wHKnIJ0sivT-8M/s320/3.+Stupa+1+Northern+Toran.+Monkey+giving+Buddha+Honey.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monkeys giving bowl of honey to Buddha. Buddha is represented here as Bodhi tree on left</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Eastern Gateway:</b> <br /> The pillar on this gate depicts the great departure of Prince Gautama in search of enlightenment. The Gods are shown to be helping the young prince in escaping the city of Kapilavastu. There are also depictions of King Ashoka visiting the Bodhisattva tree. There is also a statue of "shalabhanjika" who depicts the fertility and abundance of the world of nature. This is a Hindu motif that seems to have been adopted by Buddhism. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoWbQhHEtshv0JMhvcp6MsrtFYN4vAhdfHW1nGCpI4lhPPKkoO_Pcsb3WynVzApSzxJZuz94wxI_5zRvo9BBh3YscmoSXvJ1Mef4gJY7Sln4o_26FWRHb88BvtBigdFF0uo0IQw5pU68/s1600/7.+Stupa+1+Eastern+toran.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoWbQhHEtshv0JMhvcp6MsrtFYN4vAhdfHW1nGCpI4lhPPKkoO_Pcsb3WynVzApSzxJZuz94wxI_5zRvo9BBh3YscmoSXvJ1Mef4gJY7Sln4o_26FWRHb88BvtBigdFF0uo0IQw5pU68/s400/7.+Stupa+1+Eastern+toran.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stupa 1 - Eastern Toran</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0p9YQLU1y5Y1AugBqc6ZueEQwkF2Pa_vLrEsKgMzu5t9jnx-b5D7SrbcK0Kmb25sdI9jQ0oVyui8NBhUDkgEhwM5D9OG8nZXfxjAu-IrgxkajiDDItO9DWrL2v-bB0_LNrq4oP90EVNk/s1600/7.5+Stupa+1+Eastern+toran+The+great+departure.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0p9YQLU1y5Y1AugBqc6ZueEQwkF2Pa_vLrEsKgMzu5t9jnx-b5D7SrbcK0Kmb25sdI9jQ0oVyui8NBhUDkgEhwM5D9OG8nZXfxjAu-IrgxkajiDDItO9DWrL2v-bB0_LNrq4oP90EVNk/s640/7.5+Stupa+1+Eastern+toran+The+great+departure.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stupa 1 - Eastern Gateway - The great departure. Buddha is represented by a riderless horse.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAsdF6wg_m0tLqWXxzLh4xwdlCPIOCol0q5f9aMYw3btSqB4JXYbLQ901SOl2sLatKQZt8ouBAPzH00LiZK9SVHjGRaerI42xITLibh_3F1Pz1Iwu86nWl9vvkDus4SOtG5qcXqdpcGQ/s1600/10.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran+-+Buddha%2527s+birth.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAsdF6wg_m0tLqWXxzLh4xwdlCPIOCol0q5f9aMYw3btSqB4JXYbLQ901SOl2sLatKQZt8ouBAPzH00LiZK9SVHjGRaerI42xITLibh_3F1Pz1Iwu86nWl9vvkDus4SOtG5qcXqdpcGQ/s400/10.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran+-+Buddha%2527s+birth.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eastern Gateway - Scene depicting Buddha's birth. Top frame - His mother dreams of a white elephant that enters her womb.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcYjGjipCvUr5oQtMSsQi0kaJSfEVY6_4mVrU3AIyRjM1NmM44CPW5_Ibf2xlucBcB20omVznQXKZuZ1LMKD7wqS7RmA0PNos9kQR1D_42Zx9OvLAjOwsAuvaU6euMLiXp9ZepbTDcAo/s1600/9.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran-Kashyapas+conversion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcYjGjipCvUr5oQtMSsQi0kaJSfEVY6_4mVrU3AIyRjM1NmM44CPW5_Ibf2xlucBcB20omVznQXKZuZ1LMKD7wqS7RmA0PNos9kQR1D_42Zx9OvLAjOwsAuvaU6euMLiXp9ZepbTDcAo/s400/9.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran-Kashyapas+conversion.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eastern gateway - On left, the Kashyapa brothers warning buddha about 5 headed cobra. On the right, the brothers are paying obeisance after they see the cobra protect Buddha instead of harming him.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Ashoka once dispersed a series of columns across North India with his edicts. The pillars at Sanchi were once 40 feet high but currently it stands broken. The audio guide tells us the story of how an iron monger once brought down these majestic pillars with great difficulty so that he could use them at his workplace!! The museum of Sanchi houses the crown of the pillars which was adopted as the emblem of India – four lions standing back to back. The words Satyameva Jayate from Mundaka Upanishad, meaning ‘Truth Alone Triumphs’, are inscribed below in Devanagari script.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4EQyaS_H_DWGB673Vun3ZJiC1MUhqSJHSGx81NlCkEELsHlGJZgkMbzTB6oAc2SY2aXDzU_MTUdJpB75G4uBS-l_cLYoxRO0e2b8dF-d3MaHTYGQhONH1W_VW6kAmoxQJdEBl68FOV78/s1600/11.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran+-+Shalabanjika+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4EQyaS_H_DWGB673Vun3ZJiC1MUhqSJHSGx81NlCkEELsHlGJZgkMbzTB6oAc2SY2aXDzU_MTUdJpB75G4uBS-l_cLYoxRO0e2b8dF-d3MaHTYGQhONH1W_VW6kAmoxQJdEBl68FOV78/s400/11.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran+-+Shalabanjika+.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eastern Gateway -<span style="font-size: small;"></span> Shalabhanjika depicting fertility or abundance in nature. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqoKWJLWHvqx3o-dRNTVxWZA3M5sga5WRf03df8m1qqwfTq9N0ReW0_Jimy1LCpBKHkVobgzNpABeb-lzK59g8gSvYMoJ9EmffGuk8PoPzRnnjO-VT9PftpTX5lDu6EZklUPNRJpojqU/s1600/8.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran.+Buddha+walking+on+water.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqoKWJLWHvqx3o-dRNTVxWZA3M5sga5WRf03df8m1qqwfTq9N0ReW0_Jimy1LCpBKHkVobgzNpABeb-lzK59g8gSvYMoJ9EmffGuk8PoPzRnnjO-VT9PftpTX5lDu6EZklUPNRJpojqU/s400/8.+Stupa+1+Eastern+Toran.+Buddha+walking+on+water.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eastern Gateway - Buddha walking on water.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Everybody knows that Christ is supposed to have walked on
water; the stories in this gateway tell us that Buddha had done the
same as well. Walking on water seems to be a touchstone that separates
prophets from Gods!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Southern Gateway:</b><br /> This was once the main entrance to the Stupa. When the Stupas were rediscovered by the British, treasure hunters and amateur grave diggers came in troves to find hidden treasure and almost destroyed the Stupas. This has a representation of scenes from the life of Ashoka and Buddha's Birth. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6y1av9cFVMok1DnwSqO1ELWB8BeBT4HyQ_EeFPgWafQiabV-KOb7k7LjYKH7yvr6Eg8vFqoop98jHxzrrlpCTaYwBUQs1XJBg0E0ppmFUpcEm0URnY0tvWh53ylKbNsOVL9T2IhPITCc/s1600/13.+Stupa+1+Southern+Gateway.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6y1av9cFVMok1DnwSqO1ELWB8BeBT4HyQ_EeFPgWafQiabV-KOb7k7LjYKH7yvr6Eg8vFqoop98jHxzrrlpCTaYwBUQs1XJBg0E0ppmFUpcEm0URnY0tvWh53ylKbNsOVL9T2IhPITCc/s400/13.+Stupa+1+Southern+Gateway.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Southern
Gateway - There are no sculptures below the four headed lions due to
amateur conservation effort undertaken when the stupas were
rediscovered.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArI4o_RHXxwylPAv0boygH2-a-apnWLwKShYJ45N4hZ2cX6hrD4RltPjwd3jKe2vygLrRXPjWHYAjL5XxmorgrT7WvTPGMolACZU-qCdf9U6nZAUK0FTm2xrSgR1xao0wFOyDCZofyxE/s1600/14.+Stupa+1+Southern+Gateway+-+Ashoka+and+Indra.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArI4o_RHXxwylPAv0boygH2-a-apnWLwKShYJ45N4hZ2cX6hrD4RltPjwd3jKe2vygLrRXPjWHYAjL5XxmorgrT7WvTPGMolACZU-qCdf9U6nZAUK0FTm2xrSgR1xao0wFOyDCZofyxE/s640/14.+Stupa+1+Southern+Gateway+-+Ashoka+and+Indra.JPG" width="425" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top - A despondent Ashoka find out that his favorite Bodhi tree is dead. Below Indra and other Gods taking away a lock of Buddha's hair.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Western Gateway:</b><br /> The western portion of the stupa had collapsed in 1822 during to the treasure-hunting by the British but restored 60 years later. It houses a few masterpieces - The first sermon symbolized by wheel preaches that ignorance is the root of all evil and it is called the Dharmachakra Pravarchan. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipSAVJzRemnmAaGyMh9_Gmlahoh3n-s1CvfNwx4Sg-8Axx-PX52QHqcLb9FVS2nBBOc7qgkIl7y8VChCk28dRHCMAZtQC-etcaw4e8pBbd3MLRA4d22qENgi5UN577X1AFVzaltXEjNE8/s1600/14.5+Stupa+1+Western+Toran+-+First+Sermon+at+Sarnath.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipSAVJzRemnmAaGyMh9_Gmlahoh3n-s1CvfNwx4Sg-8Axx-PX52QHqcLb9FVS2nBBOc7qgkIl7y8VChCk28dRHCMAZtQC-etcaw4e8pBbd3MLRA4d22qENgi5UN577X1AFVzaltXEjNE8/s640/14.5+Stupa+1+Western+Toran+-+First+Sermon+at+Sarnath.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Western
Gateway - First sermon at Sarnath. Buddha is represented by the wheel.
Notice the deer on either side to show that this happened in a deer
park.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> This gate is famous for depiction for the first sermon of Buddha at the deer park at Sarnath. The six incarnations before becoming the Buddha is called the Manushi Buddha. The architrave is supported by pot-bellied dwarfs showing various emotions like anger, duty, pain and joy as the weight of the torans bear down on them.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhicF-b4o7_1Qm6Pt6Lx8AsiY8NHOuBi2Cfn0Nru0vI9mU_PFu27cMgHgNXSW7DpsneTYZFRMNJfSI3sV28ESAg_NAX0ZX1Skcg3ytgXlxwhu6M7R9h7B1R8R0Gtp0_M85mdXdxvYSak8s/s1600/16.+Stupa+1+Western+Gateway+-+Monkey+King.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhicF-b4o7_1Qm6Pt6Lx8AsiY8NHOuBi2Cfn0Nru0vI9mU_PFu27cMgHgNXSW7DpsneTYZFRMNJfSI3sV28ESAg_NAX0ZX1Skcg3ytgXlxwhu6M7R9h7B1R8R0Gtp0_M85mdXdxvYSak8s/s320/16.+Stupa+1+Western+Gateway+-+Monkey+King.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Western Gateway - Story of the Monkey King. The top frame shows the monkey king making a bridge across the river. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> There is also a story of a monkey king Bodhisattva whose clan is attacked by a human king. The monkey king makes a bridge between two trees allowing his subjects to cross the river and escape but perishes in the effort. The importance of sacrifice is a motif that is mentioned many a times in the stupas.<br /> <br /> Also finding mention many a times is the theme that devotion to God is always rewarded. One such story is that of Sama, a devoted son of his blind parents being shot down by a king who mistook him for an animal. The King regrets and prays to the Gods who bestow </span><span style="font-size: small;">the gift of vision to </span><span style="font-size: small;">the blind parents.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcHP-0UCwveFt5UEvXXDxhTwcJfiOPyJ5KctcxGqKP0VmnG1NXu4Pr7op2B93uU5Q2tfCkOn1daTGu6tZ-QZtcUi4kP8M0biv2oZ2ZDXLivL1o0bahtuVd7MTFz2yBlCkdyBfUeyDwhCQ/s1600/17.+Stupa+1+Western+Gateway+Story+of+Sama.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcHP-0UCwveFt5UEvXXDxhTwcJfiOPyJ5KctcxGqKP0VmnG1NXu4Pr7op2B93uU5Q2tfCkOn1daTGu6tZ-QZtcUi4kP8M0biv2oZ2ZDXLivL1o0bahtuVd7MTFz2yBlCkdyBfUeyDwhCQ/s400/17.+Stupa+1+Western+Gateway+Story+of+Sama.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Western Gateway - Story of Sama. On left frame king fires arrow that kills Sama. On right the blind parents.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The Western Gateway also depicts the story of a Bodhisattva who was a royal six tusked white elephant. His jealous younger wife feels left out, vows to be reborn a princess so that she could kill him, pines away and dies. She is reborn in human form and becomes the Queen of Varanasi. The Queen sends men to kill and get back the tusks of the six tusked white elephant. The hunters wound the elephant but find it difficult to remove his tusks. The Bodhisattva elephant obliges by removing his own tusks and presenting them to the queen who realizes her folly and perishes in grief this time... The cave paintings in Ajanta have a beautiful painting of the entire Matropaksha Jakata - <a href="http://bharathkumaran.blogspot.in/2012/03/cave-temples-of-ajanta-and-ellora-part_13.html%20" target="_blank">here</a><br /><br /><b>Temple 17: </b><br /> This was built in the beginning of the Gupta period around the 5th century A.D. and consists of a flat-roofed square sanctum and a portico supported by four pillars. This is remarkable for its structural propriety and symmetrical proportions.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTXgUHGZsdYlVjtu3kDY5SJy0Q2sjdy09Wk_nFY1tyrNPfvkXC1IdPL09vNL_rDBfW6di3WFOi2lTte1z11czW1k1j8Y4rHMYCjonPLtlHNCjaaTy0hCJSDBEgwgDGMjwAdduyWqXgnFE/s1600/18.+Gupta+Period+Temple+17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTXgUHGZsdYlVjtu3kDY5SJy0Q2sjdy09Wk_nFY1tyrNPfvkXC1IdPL09vNL_rDBfW6di3WFOi2lTte1z11czW1k1j8Y4rHMYCjonPLtlHNCjaaTy0hCJSDBEgwgDGMjwAdduyWqXgnFE/s320/18.+Gupta+Period+Temple+17.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remains of Temple No. 17 from Gupta period.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Temple 18: </b><br /> This is the remains of temple or stupa. Does not look special now, but in those times it was a paradigm shift in temple building and most of the Temples in India now are built in this style.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitNkuq0olbsmP1UtbPU_NIPQm-HIMseHbH7uuV_GkbyUJFJmotWx_LioNmhyphenhyphenV_MpSyiyS7L50ecbWueXPK9rEGCjHnK3E7W0vXXIsCElLwDZ3GBkeGJOf4Lkh7EjtJ9ylw9iHDgMA-Xrs/s1600/19.+Gupta+Period+Temple+18+.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitNkuq0olbsmP1UtbPU_NIPQm-HIMseHbH7uuV_GkbyUJFJmotWx_LioNmhyphenhyphenV_MpSyiyS7L50ecbWueXPK9rEGCjHnK3E7W0vXXIsCElLwDZ3GBkeGJOf4Lkh7EjtJ9ylw9iHDgMA-Xrs/s320/19.+Gupta+Period+Temple+18+.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temple No. 18</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Temple 45: </b><br /> This is a temple of the medieval period and stands on the ruins of an earlier seventh century structure. Still has a glorious image of Buddha with images of River Goddesses Ganga and Yamuna on the door indicating that Buddhists adopted established Brahminical motifs over time. The statue shows Buddha at the moment of his enlightenment.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSXYL-cixsFJLpY2Adf0mspipSIX0XBsckhNKJMNRRvuCbRKWmLdzGQjoHo85dbHIRnlsPJgPtSzZh46kq-iOUEcap-pKYS2BT6fr4Lo17NHwNYXcUlnc5FECwNRfHCQwNXfVDiLVYWiI/s1600/20.+Temple+45+Sanchi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSXYL-cixsFJLpY2Adf0mspipSIX0XBsckhNKJMNRRvuCbRKWmLdzGQjoHo85dbHIRnlsPJgPtSzZh46kq-iOUEcap-pKYS2BT6fr4Lo17NHwNYXcUlnc5FECwNRfHCQwNXfVDiLVYWiI/s400/20.+Temple+45+Sanchi.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temple No. 45 in the background.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Stupa 2 and Stupa 3:</b><br /> The second stupa stands at the very edge of the hill and its most striking feature is the stone balustrade that rings it. The third stupa once contained the relics of Buddha’s disciples Sariputta and Mahamogallena. This stupa was reconstructed brick by brick after it was destroyed by treasure hunters.The relics that the treasure hunters found were taken to London but were returned after India became independent and are now housed in the monastery in front of the Sanchi Stupas. If only the British would return the Kohinoor diamonds this easily!</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWwg9afVFjQhI0KUGuIRA4LqfXhWuOePkGU9NIcqyD7Atg1_9U7Lzp9_lhpiFT0HIk56EufJgfjgkd9Wj4RA-yH1HXiUX2ixcHNh5EoJgqiF7_5L2mAbSytFwS-DnHnXaUKupjdhssq8/s1600/6.+Stupa+2+.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWwg9afVFjQhI0KUGuIRA4LqfXhWuOePkGU9NIcqyD7Atg1_9U7Lzp9_lhpiFT0HIk56EufJgfjgkd9Wj4RA-yH1HXiUX2ixcHNh5EoJgqiF7_5L2mAbSytFwS-DnHnXaUKupjdhssq8/s400/6.+Stupa+2+.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajay in front of stupa no. 3</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> On the path to enlightenment Buddha says – “It is better to travel well than to arrive”. Ajay and I headed back to Bhopal with the satisfaction that we had traveled well and walked the path once taken by giants.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">P.S. For more info Sanchi stupas and the gateways:<br />http://sanchi.org/<br />http://personal.carthage.edu/jlochtefeld/buddhism/sanchi/</span></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-24091093338421768172012-03-16T01:37:00.001-07:002012-03-16T01:37:08.836-07:00Khajuraho - Truly Incredible India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Wrote an entry on Khajuraho for gounesco.in - A travel based competition requiring participants to visit all UNESCO World Heritage sites in India within a year - <a href="http://gounesco.in/post/19355818608/khajuraho-is-one-of-the-most-popular-tourist" target="_blank">here</a><br />
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My usual longer-detailed blog on Khajuraho will come in a couple of weeks.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-24672547813860667312012-03-13T20:06:00.000-07:002012-03-13T20:53:38.688-07:00The cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora - Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"> When you see a sculpture or a statue of a God in a temple nearby, what is the emotion you see portrayed? Joy? Anger? Guilt? Probably not. Gods, these days, are portrayed as solemn and majestic beings. This richness of emotions and stories conveyed in sculptures and paintings of the temples of the old is what separates them from the temples built today. The empires of the old left us art and beauty in structures that were meant to last; we unfortunately are leaving our descendants dull serious dolls in bricked walls that will not outlive the generation that built them. Here is the story behind our journey to one more of the great temples of the old - The caves of Ajanta. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ghTajH5J_Qygn8oBHb2asoxQKx9rTQEhbFcFv5J-4GPPHRWeZdTIXvrvAaQvLvB47cFAAnhAIWxj9ynUO81zp2OeeAuEgQUUVwtBQUOaEga1M_xSYw_c2zQeUrGDntNWi13EqLvzev4/s1600/AjantaCaves.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ghTajH5J_Qygn8oBHb2asoxQKx9rTQEhbFcFv5J-4GPPHRWeZdTIXvrvAaQvLvB47cFAAnhAIWxj9ynUO81zp2OeeAuEgQUUVwtBQUOaEga1M_xSYw_c2zQeUrGDntNWi13EqLvzev4/s400/AjantaCaves.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The horse shoe shaped cave temples of Ajanta</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> After visiting the breathtaking cave temples of Ellora, Ajay and I returned to Aurangabad and chose a budget hotel to spend the night. Ajanta is around 104 kms from Aurangabad and bus services are frequent, unlike the services between Ellora and Ajanta. From the cave entrance, we had wait for half an hour to travel a further 4 kms by CNG buses as diesel buses are not allowed in the vicinity of the caves to avoid pollution. Along with a couple of French students touring India, we hired a guide just before entering the first cave. Our guide hardly bothered about explaining all relevant details and kept repeating the few details he knew. I suspect he who woke that morning, decided to become a guide and read a couple of pages about Ajanta in his son’s history book. One more good reason to push for audio guides across all UNESCO world heritage sites in India. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> There are 30 caves in Ajanta and all are a product of Buddhism. Five of the caves are Chaitya halls (Prayer halls) and the rest are Viharas (Lodging places for the monks and artist-monks). The caves were built across two entirely different time periods.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Hinayana Phase: </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> More than 2200 years ago, the Mauryan Empire was at its zenith extending from present day Afghanistan to Southern India and the first phase of the Ajanta caves were supposedly built under the patronage of their feudatories – The Satyahana Empire. The oldest caves excavated in 2nd century BC are a creation of the Hinayana sect of Buddhism. In the Hinayana sect, Buddha was never portrayed in human form in the paintings and sculptures. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUWo0o_4HumifCN85k0uRHpjHV1BUEtbJqGolLd5dpBubgTVTb_sDxkp8tEmabnoC_gNihdbXwsqxyjbchTBT9Le-1lI5CbAvJZifuqCJHXr_5pr625gPKZUeVZejB4IlbqnIq2Hx6GU/s1600/Stupa_Cave10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUWo0o_4HumifCN85k0uRHpjHV1BUEtbJqGolLd5dpBubgTVTb_sDxkp8tEmabnoC_gNihdbXwsqxyjbchTBT9Le-1lI5CbAvJZifuqCJHXr_5pr625gPKZUeVZejB4IlbqnIq2Hx6GU/s400/Stupa_Cave10.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stupa in Ajanta cave 10</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Five caves belong to the Hinayana period - Chaitya caves 9 and 10 and Vihars 8, 12, 13 and 30. The pictures paint an image of an austere and frugal time. There are themes and motifs from everyday life as well as the life of Buddha(without actually portraying him).</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Mahayana Phase: </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The rest of the 25 caves, excavated centuries later in the 5th and 6th centuries make the Mahayana series. Researcher Walter M. Spink declared that most of the work took place over short time period, from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty. By this time, the effects of idol worship prevalent in Hinduism were seen on Buddhism and Buddha was portrayed in human form. Yet there were strict rules regarding how he was to be portrayed. Buddha's long earlobes are a sign that he came from a noble family and the tight curl of the hair is a sign of an important man. These rules did not hinder or limit the imagination of the artist-monks of that time. As a result, not only does Buddhism teach us simplicity, peace and the meaning of life, it has also passed onto us a treasure trove in the world of art.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfiIebN3tnEsE6CtB-J-BYRYAck9G2kOdh4qVX2ylEFpc45w3wY_cgtKkS355MH59OhcQKjYCshkAAGTw8CgN3XuRpJ2yRbeAxgmhwGH1ChyOuQUm0ITVHKpqUJGq50_4oux98mUd8AqU/s1600/Padmapani_Cave1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfiIebN3tnEsE6CtB-J-BYRYAck9G2kOdh4qVX2ylEFpc45w3wY_cgtKkS355MH59OhcQKjYCshkAAGTw8CgN3XuRpJ2yRbeAxgmhwGH1ChyOuQUm0ITVHKpqUJGq50_4oux98mUd8AqU/s400/Padmapani_Cave1.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajanta Cave 1: Bodhisattva Padmapani and his wife</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> When compared to other rock caves in India built primarily by the Rashtrakuta and Chalukya dynasties, the Ajanta caves are not only the oldest but also boast of an art form not found in other caves - Paintings. The technique and process used to produce this kind of artwork is unlike any other artwork found in the art history of other civilizations, including within the history of South Asian art. Various natural substances were used to create colours and the place is world famous for "Ajanta type" paintings - vivacious figures of men and woman with elongated eyes, adornment and the history of the bodhisattvas and the avatars of Buddha. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV1VOLQQIwk7bTrTXk0jovSVlXJ49HOJujLGbOmtZPRujzwUm8zZSNCjkQkUlSvzbXkGzaolVuG3SLEtylcMWSiGwLe19cRqmA2DgDOHjoYcJDT3gxiOKWQUfJAfizI52qG8M-A8m-pmk/s1600/EpiphanyofBuddha_WheelofDharma_Cave2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV1VOLQQIwk7bTrTXk0jovSVlXJ49HOJujLGbOmtZPRujzwUm8zZSNCjkQkUlSvzbXkGzaolVuG3SLEtylcMWSiGwLe19cRqmA2DgDOHjoYcJDT3gxiOKWQUfJAfizI52qG8M-A8m-pmk/s400/EpiphanyofBuddha_WheelofDharma_Cave2.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajanta Cave 2: Epiphany of Buddha - The wheel of Dharma.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The central themes on the walls are either about Buddha's life or the Jataka tales - tales about the previous births of the Buddha where he was a Bodhisattva (either in the form of a human or animal) in search of enlightenment. The Jatakas are portrayed across all Buddhist monuments and I’ll cover a few of these in further detail in one of my next blogs on Sanchi.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">The Mahayana caves: </span></b></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">Cave 1: </span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> One of the most famous paintings of Ajanta is the image of the serene looking Bodhisattva Padmapani and his attractive dark wife to his right, amidst a scene of festivities. On the right there is an image of Buddha in hundred different attitudes. The Jataka tale of King Sibi protecting a pigeon from a hawk also finds prominence.</span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">Cave 2: </span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> There is a panel depicting the birth of Buddha and the prediction that the boy born would either become the greatest ascetic Buddha or the Monarch of Monarchs. Legend has it that Buddha cleared up the confusion when he was born by proclaiming that he would attain the highest release and cross the ocean of existence. Robust pillars ornamented with designs support the cave and the ceilings of the caves contain paintings of ornamental flowers.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_LdQfrtUtj1oF4uaB4xh5lc3I0deEqVtjIKMp3t_G4lQrV2myoZfOwBTk0_uGs-XJR-e3Erpo2qVfRuCl3gXKVE5ANm9iK8ayDV6kQCraFxlQbBuEzqLFF682jr_-68Ej9JIS9enHYww/s1600/Buddha+with+various+expressions_Cave2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_LdQfrtUtj1oF4uaB4xh5lc3I0deEqVtjIKMp3t_G4lQrV2myoZfOwBTk0_uGs-XJR-e3Erpo2qVfRuCl3gXKVE5ANm9iK8ayDV6kQCraFxlQbBuEzqLFF682jr_-68Ej9JIS9enHYww/s400/Buddha+with+various+expressions_Cave2.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buddha with various postures and emotions</td></tr>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">Cave 6: </span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> This is the only two two-storeyed structure in Ajanta, unlike Ellora where there are a few three-storeyed structures.</span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">Cave 16: </span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> This is one of the most imposing caves. Though very few paintings inside have survived, a few masterpieces have withstood the ravages of time. The famous painting of the "The dying princess" depicts Sundari; the heart broken wife of Buddha's cousin Nanda who gave up his royal lifestyle to became an ascetic. The picture depicts the princess' pain and anguish at seeing her husband one last time.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHG7S6tTgU9wVwPqdyEP8aTBgP57X0H4gP-uh37-HE8MAz8EMZDse5NWIKrkVyH-vmODpCk0441p0gNy23ViSW1baRlZfgCaP0Xcu-3q_cbpr9trL6r-3Rw59ajpl4N4gkI91NKRQ-xK0/s1600/DyingPrincess_Cave16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHG7S6tTgU9wVwPqdyEP8aTBgP57X0H4gP-uh37-HE8MAz8EMZDse5NWIKrkVyH-vmODpCk0441p0gNy23ViSW1baRlZfgCaP0Xcu-3q_cbpr9trL6r-3Rw59ajpl4N4gkI91NKRQ-xK0/s400/DyingPrincess_Cave16.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajanta Cave 16: Dying Princess</td></tr>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">Cave 17: </span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> This temple has the largest number of paintings in good conditions. The theme of self-sacrifice is prominent among the Jataka tales painted in this cave. One famous Jataka tale called the Matropaksha Jataka tells the story of a Bodhisattva born as a six tusked white elephant that is attacked by warriors commissioned by the queen of Banaras. The Elephant-Bodhisattva removes his own tusks to present them to the queen. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDdNSSDSXzjcDn3SLzAAPfgl9r-yRspTTJQNpSpLpO40Q6U_-vw4A1jSr0GMFTPco0WnhcD-wJ_3nSzA-Q0dZjS7ILIs6up57GLdh2gJyMR9Gwm4ZigkyXE-yaGxmxWcoH5IcrTEGyyg/s1600/MatropakshaJataka_Cave17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDdNSSDSXzjcDn3SLzAAPfgl9r-yRspTTJQNpSpLpO40Q6U_-vw4A1jSr0GMFTPco0WnhcD-wJ_3nSzA-Q0dZjS7ILIs6up57GLdh2gJyMR9Gwm4ZigkyXE-yaGxmxWcoH5IcrTEGyyg/s640/MatropakshaJataka_Cave17.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajanta Cave 17: Matropaksha Jataka</td></tr>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">Cave 26: </span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> This is a Chaitya hall with a colossal reclining Buddha figure. The wall also depicts Gautama's final test before becoming Buddha - one where evil Mara sends his own daughters to seduce the great ascetic and break his penance. Buddha of course does not give in to temptation and touches the ground bidding mother earth to bear witness to his enlightenment.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBqO6G8fzcq9-bA2zs1t-VXnRF_IsHNlOEpPJzozirx9dTjkZfB0zdhDJuV8M0Zy_cN984iSlEZXvMIFLXtBOOyMty-6az3Jps5S324eqlKbh-zpQHHrqpq4jrrvcr1pwdksgCEsHvPs/s1600/RecliningBuddha_Cave26.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBqO6G8fzcq9-bA2zs1t-VXnRF_IsHNlOEpPJzozirx9dTjkZfB0zdhDJuV8M0Zy_cN984iSlEZXvMIFLXtBOOyMty-6az3Jps5S324eqlKbh-zpQHHrqpq4jrrvcr1pwdksgCEsHvPs/s400/RecliningBuddha_Cave26.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ajanta Cave 26: Reclining Buddha</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> At the end of the 7th century Buddhism began to decline in the land of its origin and the Ajanta caves were abandoned and later forgotten. For more than thousand years, the caves lay buried under the forest canopy until 1819 when Sir John Smith of the East India Company did something every archaeologist dreams of. While out hunting tigers in the region, he re-discovered a lost city - the awe inspiring caves of Ajanta. A long time ago, sacred chants of monks reverberated across these caves. Those artist-monks are long gone but etched in the walls of these consecrated caves, their stories live on.</span></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-40792894591753983662012-03-05T10:38:00.000-08:002012-03-14T03:49:58.563-07:00The cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora - Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"> There is a deep and appealing notion
in Hinduism that the Universe is indeed the dream of the Gods. Our ancient
history shows that at times religious ideas are transcended by art. The
sculptures and paintings of Ellora and Ajanta are an expression of the ideal
that men may not be the dreams of the Gods but rather that the Gods are the
dream of men.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> Ajay just wanted to get out of town
every weekend. In an attempt to make his plan more concrete, he hit upon the
idea of visiting all the UNESCO world heritage sites in India in the current
calendar year and invited a few of his friends to take part in the challenge. There are 28 world heritage sites in India. The sites cut across religions, time-periods and dynasties - temples, mausoleums, churches and forts, a few caves that were excavated Before Christ, a few national parks including the man-eater tiger infested Sundarbans, one railway station (CST), another a rail network. Also they are spread across the country from the
Qutb Minar in the North to the great Chola Temples of the South, from the
Kaziranga National Park in the East to the Elephanta caves in the West.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> So we
definitely have our tasks cut out for us if all these sites are to be visited in one calendar year. The marathon season ended with the Auroville marathon on Feb 13th; so when Ajay invited me to this, I was more than looking forward to a new challenge. Just to make things a bit more
formal, Ajay set up a web-site to track activities of participants and remind
them frequently that they have plenty more places to visit - <a href="http://gounesco.in/" target="_blank">here</a>.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Bibi Ka Maqbara:</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> Ajay and I decided to visit the
famous Ajanta-Ellora rock caves during the weekend after the Auroville Marathon.
Such impulsive travel is difficult in India because it's not easy to get train
tickets at the last moment. But Tatkal and a 10 Mbps internet connection made this
trip possible. We reached Aurangabad at 8.30 am, had a quick breakfast in a nearby
hotel and then took an auto to Bibi ka Maqbara (meaning wife's mausoleum),
around 7 kms from the railway station.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDmtBkCEkLu6RAPim1-u74NnljW171Xp0sTBIvAVqGMEd1p4jFcXzpTZ37CNNgy7dyKX7YndTv3TlOj7uuDJ9pckmymrOAUUdq_flzhLm7X0LnBCXi4ZKHD8_F_Hhoi33dWTEZkpQY31o/s1600/BibiKaMaqbara.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDmtBkCEkLu6RAPim1-u74NnljW171Xp0sTBIvAVqGMEd1p4jFcXzpTZ37CNNgy7dyKX7YndTv3TlOj7uuDJ9pckmymrOAUUdq_flzhLm7X0LnBCXi4ZKHD8_F_Hhoi33dWTEZkpQY31o/s640/BibiKaMaqbara.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Bibi Ka Maqbara, Aurangabad</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> This structure was constructed
between 1651 and 1661 A.D. by Prince Azam Shah, son of Mughal emperor
Aurangzeb, in memory of his mother Rabia-Ul-Durrani. Not sure how he managed to do this since the </span><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azam_Shah" target="_blank">wikipedia</a></span><span style="font-size: small;"> says that he was born only in 1653. T</span><span style="font-size: small;">he kid was all of 7 years old when this mausoleum was completed (in 1660) making him India's very own Bob the Builder...</span><span style="font-size: small;"> The Maqbara is a poor
imitation of the Taj mahal, perhaps indicative that the prince just wanted to
build a mausoleum better than his grandfather Shanjahan but ran into financial
difficulties midway. It is part marble and part plaster and the interior
decorations are nothing when compared to the Taj Mahal; but the place has its
own grace and charm. Unfortunately, the ASI (Archeological Survey of India) is 'scientifically' rebuilding
parts of the structure using cement making it look like one of those partially
constructed residential complexes you find in big cities these days. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Daulatabad Fort:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> We then hopped onto a jeep to go to
the Daulatabad Fort- a pyramidal fort that's about 600 feet tall and around 15
kms from Aurangabad. The place had its moment under the sun when Muhammad
Tughlak ordered his capital to be shifted here in 1338 A.D. I wonder what
Tughlak saw in this dusty little town to shift his capital here and what he
disliked in this place to transplant the entire population back to Delhi. Needless
to say, the arduous to-and-fro journey killed thousands en-route. The climb uphill
was tough and we were definitely not aided by the steep and narrow steps built
to confuse invaders, stinking dark tunnels full of bats and a scorching sun
that showed us little mercy.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6PrOVJp5O9x99a320kHv8IkSOOPfzU0Ar8G9OzdMz0uqW9U1jtUuAk7cZLU1Bh3CQrgPwWxzMz6iu_x0YLexgT9d8re9lvpxfo4FycGkFRDcsCP1kNofyla-EOWAFGsCXiDJs2gwaSY/s1600/DaulatabadFort_ramparts.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6PrOVJp5O9x99a320kHv8IkSOOPfzU0Ar8G9OzdMz0uqW9U1jtUuAk7cZLU1Bh3CQrgPwWxzMz6iu_x0YLexgT9d8re9lvpxfo4FycGkFRDcsCP1kNofyla-EOWAFGsCXiDJs2gwaSY/s640/DaulatabadFort_ramparts.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Ramparts of the Daulatabad Fort</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTCFV8Xuc-OrrE5zrQRvHw2eZz23H41BptdXbCAqSOqzzqcKVWyTc8NzWDMwHWv8RvP1i5sXmcfbTojfeS9UgnW9WT39gJd05aFmePAxU-skM2uc-iWMjQSImPXfDj4J4KTtj-jvddbg/s1600/DaulatabadFort_Howitzer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTCFV8Xuc-OrrE5zrQRvHw2eZz23H41BptdXbCAqSOqzzqcKVWyTc8NzWDMwHWv8RvP1i5sXmcfbTojfeS9UgnW9WT39gJd05aFmePAxU-skM2uc-iWMjQSImPXfDj4J4KTtj-jvddbg/s640/DaulatabadFort_Howitzer.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Plenty of howitzers and bronze cannons at Daulatabad Fort</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> If you wish to study the various
types of cannons used by the Mughals in war, this would be the ideal place to
start off. We found large to heavy guns to medium howitzers, most made of iron and a few
of bronze. We reached the top to find a bastion with a large bronze cannon and
plenty of school children perched upon it encouraging their class mates below
to click pictures. Attention seeking langurs were patiently waiting for
handouts, scrambling and fighting when one of the kids threw down a banana. We
rested for a few mins at the top, got down what was once the most powerful fort
in India and again took a jeep to Ellora, around 13 kms from the fort (28 kms
from Aurangabad).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Ellora:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> By the time reached Ellora, I felt
exhausted and had no idea if I had energy left to cover Ellora that day.
Somehow I had always imagined that I was tougher than most people, being a
runner and all. So it was a bit of a reality check that maybe I had overreached
myself during the running season. The only reason I managed to walk miles in Ellora was because of a
short nap at the hotel after lunch. I still don't know what Ajay what doing when I indulged in that cat nap. A word of caution - the Ajanta Caves are closed on Monday and Ellora Caves are closed on Tuesday, so plan accordingly. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwKTGWqznxldJUbA-IgTlen9smn5oOhp-_TC5B0YnxNiv8b2lHVSoZQmi8DizV1nKxfX0DveJAhuPW5kVRNw9GMsmlp35XnxanzEzIxbOz4_VmEPqrvNQ-E15vkPaiUylqIZzGm6i89kI/s1600/Brahmanical_Cave16_Kailashanatha.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwKTGWqznxldJUbA-IgTlen9smn5oOhp-_TC5B0YnxNiv8b2lHVSoZQmi8DizV1nKxfX0DveJAhuPW5kVRNw9GMsmlp35XnxanzEzIxbOz4_VmEPqrvNQ-E15vkPaiUylqIZzGm6i89kI/s640/Brahmanical_Cave16_Kailashanatha.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The majestic Kailashanatha Temple in Ellora</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The caves of Ellora are a product
three religious systems – Buddhism, Brahmanism and Jainism and each one of them brought in its own individual style in architecture. Ellora has around 34 rock
cut caves, the first twelve Buddhist, the next sixteen Brahmanical and the last
four Jain. All the caves have been excavated out of the vertical face of the
Charanandri hills.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><u>The Buddhist Caves:</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The Buddhist caves are the earliest
(500-700A.D.) and the caves are either Viharas (dwelling place for wandering
monks) or Chaitya(Prayer) Halls. Cave 2 has an interesting sculpture of Buddha
on an iron throne; perhaps he was king as well as an ascetic. A sculpture of Saraswati – the Hindu goddess of learning adorns cave 6. Cave 12 is a
three storey structure hewn out of rock! The simple facade outside does not
betray the rich sculptures of Buddhist Gods and Godesses inside. Cave 10 is a
proper Chaitya Hall and has a sculpture of Buddha in stupa along with
attendants. The ceiling has been carved to give the impression of wooden beams. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI1cL4Avs3tB6n0V0GrfX-q9doV3kuToMJ6iDo6kWWg_qF5zhWbflbtFFKRdRkmTbEbxXKdKBg998a9K2GI8ddKUAO-BTzbdI_EXT-ejKtJbDnm7hdOWLa8ZGNhHZnhX2-Prl72_fQTEM/s1600/Buddhist_Cave10_BuddhaGuarded.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI1cL4Avs3tB6n0V0GrfX-q9doV3kuToMJ6iDo6kWWg_qF5zhWbflbtFFKRdRkmTbEbxXKdKBg998a9K2GI8ddKUAO-BTzbdI_EXT-ejKtJbDnm7hdOWLa8ZGNhHZnhX2-Prl72_fQTEM/s400/Buddhist_Cave10_BuddhaGuarded.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Buddha sitting on throne at the Buddhist 'Carpenter' cave.</span> </span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9u6BCvrOBaXXXLywDMfFxS1VMTy2nxZN7XrgrPV6ZuWuU3NKbMzPYalpZrb-i1XByvnlFWoY4vSxLS08J_sX9uIlYLT622LmcRFO55jXIcWN-Ygq95MG5qsFRAlJeCEi93prUlhbcv5A/s1600/Buddhist_Cave10_WoodLikeBeams.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9u6BCvrOBaXXXLywDMfFxS1VMTy2nxZN7XrgrPV6ZuWuU3NKbMzPYalpZrb-i1XByvnlFWoY4vSxLS08J_sX9uIlYLT622LmcRFO55jXIcWN-Ygq95MG5qsFRAlJeCEi93prUlhbcv5A/s640/Buddhist_Cave10_WoodLikeBeams.JPG" width="427" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Carpenter Cave - Long shot</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHGYzjNQnoH1ZYKnCNHMZYqcNCosfoMhhybuaUjvbYddc23_faJum8S5HoML03Hqjq_s6AZ_ihvqgo3SJrdLhYmtrNoV7Rf1jVl1HdwkggJJw3FYpDQK3jFBUjk7EW6C2zj3gekur6RUE/s1600/Buddhist_Cave12_TeenTal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHGYzjNQnoH1ZYKnCNHMZYqcNCosfoMhhybuaUjvbYddc23_faJum8S5HoML03Hqjq_s6AZ_ihvqgo3SJrdLhYmtrNoV7Rf1jVl1HdwkggJJw3FYpDQK3jFBUjk7EW6C2zj3gekur6RUE/s400/Buddhist_Cave12_TeenTal.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Cave No. 10 - Teen Taal, 3-storeyed structure hewn out of rock</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;"> The art forms are so similar to later Hindu sculptures and designs that there
must have been very little trouble naming Buddha as one of the Hindu Gods
leading to the virtual extinction of Buddhism in the land of its birth. That
the Buddhist caves remain is testimony to the fact that the war was fought in
the debating halls rather than in the battlefield.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><u>The Brahmanical Caves:</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> A smile, a word of thanks and joy in
the eyes of the beholder is perhaps the vindication of an artist’s genius,
dedication and years of hard work. The symmetry, precision and grace of
sculptures hewn out of rock mean that generations of sculptors spent their
entire lives in the confines of these caves. What was their motivation? I
always wondered what the Rashtrakuta kings of the yore bestowed to the Picasos
and the Ravi Vermas of their age. Anyways that era is clearly a sharp contrast
to present day IT industry where you are termed a failure if you stick to the
same job for more than two years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> The Brahmanical caves, excavated
between the seventh and ninth centuries are glimpses of an era when Buddhism
was on its wane and Hinduism on a resurgent second coming. Lord Shiva and the
Dash Avatars of Vishu replace Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. Most of the
Rashtrakuta temples in history are based on the same motif – the richness of
Hindu Mythology. Frescos and scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharata adorn the walls
and the temples are as a rule multi-layered. The bottom layer is made generally
carved with elephants indicating the strength of the Rashtrakuta Empire.
Amorous couples in various states of undress adorn the upper layers hinting
that perhaps our present-day Victorian-based society is a legacy of 400 years
of British rule.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWItP2QTJuxZBnmIwUk__vd7bZJflS4C9b7H4eKdVCE3oSb4xYDnucQo9K2s61mflPHUpcH76j35u0zmuxfSO8aOqGoHbhBZ6pjGOAfL3Rb3rxR9zNWSClMxwtpLjK9DZgWXVuunrQ1Uk/s1600/Brahmanical_Cave16_ShivaDancing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWItP2QTJuxZBnmIwUk__vd7bZJflS4C9b7H4eKdVCE3oSb4xYDnucQo9K2s61mflPHUpcH76j35u0zmuxfSO8aOqGoHbhBZ6pjGOAfL3Rb3rxR9zNWSClMxwtpLjK9DZgWXVuunrQ1Uk/s640/Brahmanical_Cave16_ShivaDancing.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Kailashanatha Temple - Shiva Dancing.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Cave No 16 or the Kailashanatha
Temple is the unrivalled masterpiece of Ellora. This muti-storeyed temple that
would cover two-thirds of a football field is hewn out of a single monolith and
is meant to mimic the appearance of Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva. The
temple resembles other south Indian temples built by Rashtrakuta rulers based
on the Dravidian style architecture like Pattadakal or Halebid. The temple is
richly carved with pilasters, windows and niches and various master pieces of
Hindu Mythology adorn the walls of this temple. Sculptures of the Natya(Dancing)
Shiva and a scene depicting the wedding of Shiva and Parvathi and another depicting
Ravana trying to lift Mount Kailasha are a few of the highlights.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-PtM84wIRHNVpiqM7fNpRM14obSuA5woraRIkG4il2VMppEKUemSf-RabI5ZoOpVbiLYLKMtj86eoPgXttGq_58wGw02qbps0VwntgmZGp5bjGFwOfOdmuy06-C-_VJ1SDdrdGi9vMw/s1600/Brahmanical_Cave16_Gajalaxmi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-PtM84wIRHNVpiqM7fNpRM14obSuA5woraRIkG4il2VMppEKUemSf-RabI5ZoOpVbiLYLKMtj86eoPgXttGq_58wGw02qbps0VwntgmZGp5bjGFwOfOdmuy06-C-_VJ1SDdrdGi9vMw/s400/Brahmanical_Cave16_Gajalaxmi.JPG" width="376" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Ajay and me at the entrance of the Kailashanatha</i></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHSMD5P64-Oiz58uqyTruZft0vJ0ip1l4Vqz9pTTw7YD4F-toyi8IHQoltQzCq0t73uwbxZ3emjUvrRzjY_AehzyLjgVJ5zuqngT3dAPBwQcVfPZ0zxUAPWa4i-4376VnI8uahXJJsyQo/s1600/Brahmanical_Cave16_RavanaLiftingKailasha.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHSMD5P64-Oiz58uqyTruZft0vJ0ip1l4Vqz9pTTw7YD4F-toyi8IHQoltQzCq0t73uwbxZ3emjUvrRzjY_AehzyLjgVJ5zuqngT3dAPBwQcVfPZ0zxUAPWa4i-4376VnI8uahXJJsyQo/s640/Brahmanical_Cave16_RavanaLiftingKailasha.JPG" width="427" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Kailashanatha Temple - Ravana lifting Kailasha</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The other Brahminical caves contain
very little note-worthy when compared to the great Kailashanatha temple. Sculptures
of Brahma (a rare sight in Hindu Temples), Indra lording over the heavens,
Goddess Durga killing the buffalo demon and Varaha Avatar of Vishnu are a few
notable sculptures in the other caves.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLq_OQiZc4rQuvT5BijX7CGTdILZ4hRe-MBaMdbhcNSO_1mc9RnyhxLX3IXHHbOrPSuBKeWBUR0nyBxGGTUXsA7uJqugTAuy6BnX0gVg19ocXbKEwVWNKW2Q0Aa2LaHN46OiIT4yJUhjw/s1600/Brahmanical_Cave14_DurgaSamhara.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLq_OQiZc4rQuvT5BijX7CGTdILZ4hRe-MBaMdbhcNSO_1mc9RnyhxLX3IXHHbOrPSuBKeWBUR0nyBxGGTUXsA7uJqugTAuy6BnX0gVg19ocXbKEwVWNKW2Q0Aa2LaHN46OiIT4yJUhjw/s640/Brahmanical_Cave14_DurgaSamhara.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Cave 16 - Durga killing demon.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> <u>The Jain Caves:</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> The four Jain caves were excavated
between the ninth and eleventh centuries. Cave 32 is a two-storeyed cave that
is a smaller version of the Kailashanatha Temple and called the Indra
Sabha. There are figures of Mahavira and other Tirthankaras of Jain
religions lore. The statue of God Parshvanath being guarded by the Serpent King is an example
of a historical personage elevated to the status of God.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTt_S-ZlwAMJkg0JuKddKgJSohm7D8_ZmW7OmvLUs6rUn4BurAsF64bcdqUO5R7kAxKIBywYvqhZCbQtDI00rO_xpSCcBUFhm4-BZtsPNGMD2T424J8B0oZZgSa3C6cSGOwcwYztLNxdM/s1600/Jain_Cave34.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTt_S-ZlwAMJkg0JuKddKgJSohm7D8_ZmW7OmvLUs6rUn4BurAsF64bcdqUO5R7kAxKIBywYvqhZCbQtDI00rO_xpSCcBUFhm4-BZtsPNGMD2T424J8B0oZZgSa3C6cSGOwcwYztLNxdM/s640/Jain_Cave34.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Jain cave no 34 - Mythical creature or aggressive fat lion?</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;"> At 6 pm the ASI guards began
shouting out and loudly blowing whistles to clear the caves of persistent
visitors like me who were intent on not missing out even a single sculpture.
Ajay and I took a jeep to Aurangabad and the driver filled in around 15 people
into a 9 seator vehicle and insisted on us paying him in advance. He must have
worked as Mumbai local train driver before taking up this job, I thought. We
were least surprised when he managed to squeeze in a few more people into the
back seat on the way. We were done for the day; it was time to rest our tired
bodies and sated minds in Aurangabad. The Gods of Ajanta would have to wait for
another day.</span></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-7559452612222357532012-02-20T12:56:00.000-08:002012-02-21T04:51:44.036-08:00The Epilogue - Auroville Marathon 2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US"> <span style="font-size: large;">M</span>ore than 50 runners set out from Hyderabad
to complete our annual pilgrimage or our end of season run, the Auroville marathon 2012. Our group in the train had
passionate runners from all walks of life - doctors, pilots, teachers,
businessmen, entrepreneurs and engineers. Like any diverse group, there were
few things that all of us seemed to agree upon. We settled on discussing well-known-universally-accepted
stereotypes like 'like why egoistic Delhites are headed straight to hell' and
backed it up with the usual set of not-so-empirical statistics. Delhi-bashing after all
is a great ice-breaker with anybody who's ever visited our national capital.
Just make sure there's nobody from Delhi around as they tend to get a bit
touchy about such things.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> We reached Chennai early in the morning,
the best time for the hot pongal with vada. Once you eat pongal in Tamil Nadu,
you really don't feel like calling the gooey broth served in other south Indian
States 'pongal'. If you live north of the Vindhyas, you'll find few capable of appreciating or cooking such a fine dish. And please don't get me started on filter coffee...</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHXSY_lmLmud9aIgJWDFYRecF-pWS5WUCi1Fzw9blC_IFWn7L6ubFId1Pj8v62O9tys1h8NgksB_u7jYy_UetkFhNGOUHnic9sAQUMXnSFFQYtDEp0MzHPlAQv5YWmXmwheCoSfTjMv5g/s1600/AM_Train.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHXSY_lmLmud9aIgJWDFYRecF-pWS5WUCi1Fzw9blC_IFWn7L6ubFId1Pj8v62O9tys1h8NgksB_u7jYy_UetkFhNGOUHnic9sAQUMXnSFFQYtDEp0MzHPlAQv5YWmXmwheCoSfTjMv5g/s400/AM_Train.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some lighter moments in the train</td></tr>
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We reached the Neem Tree Hotel near Auroville and a few of us immediately headed
to the beach. The sea was rough, lulling us into confidence for a couple of
minutes before lashing out. It was good fun nevertheless. Manoj and Ajay
were shooting for a sub 4 hour finish in the Full Marathon category and so they
left for the dorm at Auroville after the swim to get some rest. Since I was
planning on an easy run post my heroic performance at Mumbai Marathon a month
ago, I went to Pondicherry for lunch and sightseeing along with others folks
from Hyderabad Runners.</span></div>
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As a runner, there are times when you are rest on your past glories and get
complacent with training and preparation. I now realize that this is exactly
what happened to me at Auroville. A 3.38 FM finish at Mumbai marathon was the
fruition of six months of planning, austerity and training. Saturdays and
Sundays were reserved exclusively for long runs. Running dominated my life and
before I knew it, I had crossed the line separating passion and obsession.
I had even stopped visiting my home in Mysore so as to not affect my
preparation. My Mother ruefully remarked then that I had become detached and non-caring after moving to a new city. In Mumbai I came
very close to achieving my target. It was a vindication of all the hard runs on
the road and there's no better feeling.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5qnR39yNztCL70RRN8uQgzVYHzs4O6BTp4_0sCwmdeMbi5R-hxKsb5aqWb7mqbd54dn3y9l6_8aaXLcVj0bgQv-Nu4bnvdO72sgAK3CXF5H4uhujjcsjyZh9uXxOyDpnKYTmKG4JPGdM/s1600/AM_Pondy_Beach.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5qnR39yNztCL70RRN8uQgzVYHzs4O6BTp4_0sCwmdeMbi5R-hxKsb5aqWb7mqbd54dn3y9l6_8aaXLcVj0bgQv-Nu4bnvdO72sgAK3CXF5H4uhujjcsjyZh9uXxOyDpnKYTmKG4JPGdM/s400/AM_Pondy_Beach.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Pondy Beach</td></tr>
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But I got carried away with my celebrations. They say you have to forget you
last marathon to run the next one, but I still savored that victory, like a
glutton licking a bone even after the last morsel of meat was long gone. There
was no immediate motivation to train and frankly I refused to see the writing
on the wall. Coincidentally the food caterer at my workplace changed and I got great
fare at no cost. I gorged, convincing myself that I had somehow earned it and that the
next long run would burn any unwanted calories. That never happened and not
surprisingly I put on weight. For a runner, every extra kg comes with a penalty
in terms of speed and endurance. So the Auroville Half Marathon was truly an
epilogue, a movie that should have ended when the dreaded villain was bravely shot behind the back extending for hours with new twists and turns.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span lang="EN-US"> In spite of all this, at the start point at
the Auroville Half Marathon, I somehow still believed I could go out and run
hard. Oh the folly! Deep down I knew I might fail, but was not ready for the
depths that I descended. I started strongly, overtook loads of people, dropped
my insane pace at the 4k mark, and then dropped my usual marathon pace at the 8k
mark. After the 12k mark, running became a struggle and I was just holding on.
I ended up spending more time at the aid stations than I needed to. Generally I
hardly remember what is served at the aid stations, but in this run I could
probably tell you the brand of biscuit they served at which aid station. And
that is a good indicator of lack of focus.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT103vcWxdg6fxVlflugmKARML1BG9QRT4ABA3ZqAXwXQvhqzEaIyX4cvMR2jwRWA5_ovNi2ZiO5Fs2nANW638dwgfVGiKbQjv9F_oBkqJ2LszHO8zu5JNla7XeFgok-6ubPnt3b_z-zY/s1600/AM_AurovilleHM_Finish.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="433" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT103vcWxdg6fxVlflugmKARML1BG9QRT4ABA3ZqAXwXQvhqzEaIyX4cvMR2jwRWA5_ovNi2ZiO5Fs2nANW638dwgfVGiKbQjv9F_oBkqJ2LszHO8zu5JNla7XeFgok-6ubPnt3b_z-zY/s640/AM_AurovilleHM_Finish.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hyderabad Runners at the finish point</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"> When I run hard and am in the zone, the surrounding blur out and I am able to
shut down external stimuli. Running becomes effortless, meditative at times.
After the run when somebody asks me if I remember the names of the buildings
and parks I crossed, they are in for a lecture on focus. </span><span lang="EN-US">I truly envy those who
remember places and the route in excruciatingly painful detail; I pity them a
bit as well... If you have no targets with regard to time and are running just for the joy of running great, no complaints. But if you are shooting for your sub 4 or sub 5 FM finish, then why not give it your best shot? There's more to running than
being able to gulp down that extra strong beer without guilt later. I know I am
not winning any friends by saying this but it's a good thing then that I am not
into blogging to 'make friends and influence people'. If you end your
marathon with a fast sprint, I'm sorry my friend, you have not tried hard
enough.<br />
<br /> At around the 15k mark, the infamous Chennai heat made its way to Auroville and
an old niggle on my right shin started acting up. I came to the realization
that a sub 2 in those conditions would be decent timing. And achieved just that with
more than 5 minutes to spare. Then went back to run the last 200 meters with Manoj and Ajay. Both missed out on their sub-4 finish due to the extreme heat and humidity. For me, it was the first major event where I had not
bettered my previous best. I learnt the hard way that one does not get rewarded
for slacking. Guess it is part of growing up as a runner and understanding that
there will be bad days... </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"> Not a great way to end the running season but a great
season overall for me nevertheless; one which saw me metamorphose from a 5.31 FM slow-coach
into a 3.38 FM speedster. And it would not have happened if not for the
encouragement and sound advice I received from friends and readers of my blog.
I dedicate this season to all you good folks from Hyderabad runners and DailyMile.com.
You guys absolutely rock.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7522841452945028116" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-74553443829471020192012-02-03T06:02:00.000-08:002012-02-04T06:00:27.557-08:00The Falling Star<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I was in my hometown - Mysore, a city steeped in history and culture and also a runners’ paradise with parks, lakes and hills. Kukkenahalli Kere(‘Kere’ means lake in Kannada) is amongst the most serene places to run. Early morning is the best time to put on running shoes and hit the road; a blanket of mist covers the trail along with an eerie silence that is broken by the cadence of one’s own footsteps and a few painted storks clacking gracefully to court the females of their species rather early in the day. That’s until the city wakes up and the trail becomes a maze where runners are forced to dodge walkers. A few resting on the cement benches warily scrutinize runners wearing fuel belts and other fancy gadgets and loudly pass glib remarks about whimsical people who willingly subject themselves to pain and laughter. Overall a charming place to live in and run daily. And that’s where I met speedy Gonzales, a 19 year old engineering student named Ponappa.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> As usual, my run started with a brief and frustrating struggle to get the satellite signal in my GPS watch. When I reached the park, I stopped for a few moments to find a hiding place for my Gatorade energy drink. I decided to consume fluids only in the third lap of the 4k loop around the lake and saw no need to carry it for 8k. As I emerged from the thorny bush that served as my hiding place, I saw two runners blazing through and decided to catch up and run with them. Their muscular physique and graceful movement led me to conclude that they were from a local sports school but they turned out to be engineering students. Ponappa and Vivek were in their elements running fast and I was breathing hard with my fists clenched but determined to keep up. I told myself that my body was still in recovery after Mumbai Marathon and that it would take time to return to usual running pace. The half-truth had the intended placebo effect and I kept up with the youngsters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> After the first loop was over, Vivek dropped out having pulled a muscle. By now I was intrigued and casually brought up the topic of “best timing” like I was talking about the weather or the picturesque trail. When runners meet for the first time, this question serves as means to break the ice and determines who is higher up in the pecking order. “12k in 39 mins is my best and I am the current University record holder for that distance”, Ponappa proclaimed. The fact that I was running fast and breathing heavily with my mouth wide open, consuming at least a couple of flies every lap, renders redundant usage of the phrase “my jaws dropped”. But it did in a way. Ponappa’s race-time pace was truly beyond my running ability. I had been relegated to play second fiddle and slowed down for my own well-being. I was running with a superstar, somebody who in amateur running circles would have been the cynosure of all. The youngster was of course was oblivious to all that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Ponappa had never run more than 12k, no doubt due to PT coaches who would have warned him that he would lose his pace if he ran longer distances. When I told him I was planning to run 16k, he surprised me by gamely agreeing to give me company till the end. Like any runner, he hated running alone and seemed to thrive on company. He took on the role of my coach during our run, reminding me to loosen my arms and swing it proportionally and sometimes advising me to change running form once in a while to break the monotony. Overall he was running at a slower pace only for my benefit and seemed to be itching to run at his usual pace. At the last kilometer I gave him the thumbs up sign and he took off like a spring chicken. He was patiently waiting at the finish point and we completed our post run stretches beside the lake. He was curious about my GPS watch and how it calculated the average running pace and I gave him a brief demo of the system. We parted with me promising to catch up with him for a run the next time I visited Mysore. Something tells me I might never see him running again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> If Ponappa had been born in China, he would have been identified by talent spotters the minute he showed potential and enrolled into a government run sports school, a veritable cauldron that produces world class athletes. If he had been in Kenya, he would have run day in and day out with a single minded intensity to become a world beater. From my brief chat with him, I think his future in India has all the makings of a well-known tragedy that athletes of our country have endured for decades. Once his next semester starts, attending lectures and labs exams would supersede running; a few years on, he would settle into one of the multitudes of body-shops in Bangalore, run the rat-race called life and probably take up running as a hobby late in life. He would be just another potential long distance runner that our nation lost to engineering a.k.a ‘making a living’.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-5939082827682285682012-01-29T06:57:00.000-08:002012-01-29T23:41:34.735-08:00Is it worth all the pain?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A friend asked me this question when he saw me limping ostentatiously having just finished my first ultra marathon distance of 50k the previous day- “Is it worth all this pain?” “Why that question? Why not just congratulate me and get on with making a living writing code”, I thought. The answer is straightforward. We Indians are obsessed with value in any transaction or activity, be it mileage of our cars or the best value-for-money restaurant nearby. When running marathons, you spend good money and return home walking looking like a Hyderabad auto just ran over your foot; clearly poor return on investment.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> “Absolutely worth every moment of it”, I replied instinctively and without much reasoning. Stupid question I thought. Would you ever ask a woman who just spent loads of money getting the latest pedicure whether it was worth it? Of course not, though I suspect mainly for personal well being sake. I probably came off sounding as a masochist who loved suffering and pain with that answer but that is not true, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">at least not </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">completely.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Seeing that nothing more was forthcoming he offered me the usual platitudes like “You’re an Inspiration”, “Great performance” etc. and we both moved on. But f</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">or some reason the question, like some bad memory, rankled me for quite some time.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A couple of weeks later, the good folks in the HR department of my company organized a talk by Mark Inglis – mountaineer, researcher, wine-maker and motivational speaker. As a rule I steer clear away from motivational speakers who never achieve much in their own lives and remain in business mainly due to their superior oratorical skills. But Inglis is a doer, so I was eager to attend his talk. He had an interesting tale for us, the story of his life.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Mark Inglis started his life as a mountaineer and ended up having to amputate both his legs due to frost bite after being stuck in a small cave on top of Mount Cook in New Zealand due to an intense blizzard. With his chosen career path no longer a livelihood option, he returned to University to earn a degree in Biochemistry, become a wine-maker and also cycled his way to Silver medal in the Sydney 2000 Paralympics. Twenty years later, he took up mountaineering again, conquered Mount Cook and later become the first double amputee to conquer Mount Everest. Inglis had us mesmerized for more than an hour with his gritty and poignant tale.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> So when he threw the floor open for questions, there was only one question that came to my mind – “Is it worth all the pain?” “Absolutely”, he replied, “When you chase adventure, suffering is an occupational hazard”. The look of pride in his eyes said it all. I might have as well asked Alexander the Great it conquering all those lands served any purpose. I realized that some questions cannot be answered with words alone.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Now I am going to risk sounding as didactic as one those hollow motivational speakers that I love to hate and tell you what I really think is the reason why people ask that question. Most Indians are so busy surviving and making a living they look forward to very little in life, let alone adventure or sport. So when somebody else chases that dream, it is sometimes regarded as a vain pursuit. This must and hopefully will change once we reach a certain standard of living. And once we get there we might even learn to enjoy suffering, much like what Rafael Nadal said after losing an epic five setter to Djokovic in the Australian Open </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2012</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> finals - "<i>When you are fit and have passion for the game, when you are ready to compete, you are able to suffer and enjoy suffering</i>". </span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-83239414401568433942012-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:002012-01-19T19:59:04.971-08:00SCMM 2012 - A taste of Mumbai - Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I finished among the top 50 in India's premier marathon (48th actually but a top 50 finish nevertheless!). The story of my running life is a bit of a fairy tale – an average runner who put in the miles, got good at running, managed to have loads of fun along the way and finally reaped the benefits of those long hours spent on the road. But unlike fairy tales my story does not have an ending, just good days and a few not-so-good ones. The 42.2k run at the Standard Chartered Mumbai marathon-2012 was one of those very good days. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> My entire strategy revolved around sticking with Kothandapani, a 54 year old veteran runner from Bangalore, for the entire course of the run and completing the race in 3 hrs and 30 mins. Pani Sir is ex-air force and the sort of person you would see and say “Boy, I wish I were half as fit as he is when I hit 50”. I arrived a bit late at the start point and ended up at the start point with very little warm-up. At the 500m mark, I caught up with Pani Sir who was running with his usual running partner, Bobby Thomas from Bangalore. The three of us maintained a steady pace with Bobby and Pani Sir keeping an eye one their GPS Watches to ensure that we are on track for a 3:30 finish.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> It was my first run in Mumbai and I was pleasantly surprised at the support of local people who were handing out home prepared lime juices and biscuits to marathoners – not something you see in other cities in India. My strategy for the run was to use Gu Gels and water for hydration. I carried five gel packs with me and planned to use one every 45 mins. At the 10k mark, we were running comfortably and I used my first gel pack. At the 15k mark, we started running across the beautiful sea link bridge. At the 16k mark, Bobby told us that the pace was too much for him and slowed down. Truthfully the pace was a bit too much for me as well, but I held on with Pani Sir and took to counting my strides – a useless exercise but it helped focus and cut down external factors. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> We hit the half marathon point (21.1k) in 1:42 mins. I have learnt that whatever my pace at the beginning, I always slowed down at the end of the race so saving a couple of minutes in the first half of the race seemed fine. At this rate we were all set to finish well within our target time of 3:30. But the marathon is an unpredictable beast – there are always decisions to make and things do go wrong.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> At around the 29k mark, both of us had slowed down by at least 10 seconds/km. At the 36k mark, we had to run up a steep 50m road and slowed by around a min. My thoughts running up that hilly road – “What have I gotten myself into”. At the 38k mark, we were running with the Half Marathoners, rather I was running in pain and most of them were walking, shouting and having fun. Weaving around the slower half-marathoners and avoiding outstretched arms of the volunteers was even more taxing. I gave up pretensions of running and began walking. Bad decision, a pain shot up from my heels to my knees and I returned to running. At the 40k mark it got tougher and I kept repeating to myself something my friend Steve told me during one of our runs together – “There will come a point in the race when you think you are down and out, that’s when you gotta commit”.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I finished the marathon in <b>3 hours 38 minutes and 52 seconds, around half an hour faster than my previous best</b>. At the end of the run I felt no “runners high”, only the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and a bit of joy at having completed the course. I felt gutted physically which means I gave the run my best effort. Felt even more gutted when we were made to wade through a 10 min long queue like cattle to reach the refreshment/medal counter and found no medical station in sight at Azad Maidan to ice my tired legs. Clearly pain comes first, the joy later.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmoJZwpc2JnYmdIXDyCnMwBJk0W6ILL-MYqa2WrW53UUbSou7UmhZUEBuzDCDMtMO5bXt5UExvsW7kyUdH25BoWOyvNoVKGFhpe7_knCMp8t-biQzMFNECa9_zVQcuS1fiWTL9ADPySw/s1600/SCMM_endpoint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmoJZwpc2JnYmdIXDyCnMwBJk0W6ILL-MYqa2WrW53UUbSou7UmhZUEBuzDCDMtMO5bXt5UExvsW7kyUdH25BoWOyvNoVKGFhpe7_knCMp8t-biQzMFNECa9_zVQcuS1fiWTL9ADPySw/s400/SCMM_endpoint.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the end point with other runners from Hyderabad Running club.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> For amateur marathoners, the open-category marathon result is an interesting study- <a href="http://www.timingindia.com/results_page.php?category=66">link</a>. Guys like Anik/Pramod who did the first 15k in around 58 mins ended up in 13th and 15th rank respectively while Gary, Steven and Gerald who did 15k in around 1:03 ended up with better positions. Clearly folks who had the better strategy won out at the end of the day, not necessarily the fastest or the strongest.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> The elation of my good finish time is yet to sink in. One of those good days indeed. But lessons need to learnt even in a victory – I have realized that it was the lack of sufficient strength of core section that took its toll during the second phase of the run, so I am still a work in progress. At the beginning of the running season, my goal was to run a sub-4 hour full marathon and with that accomplished, new goals beckon. I generally do not use quotes in my blog, but this one by Vince Lombardi, I could not resist – </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"<i>If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.</i>"</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
P.S: you still here? Oh good. You have reached the end. Thank you for a patient read! Now that you have indicated that you have plenty of time to spare, you might as well read the first part of my story at SCMM 2012 which is mostly about pre-race day preparations and the city of Mumbai - <a href="http://bharathkumaran.blogspot.com/2012/01/scmm-2012-taste-of-mumbai.html" target="_blank">here.</a><br />
</span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-91301038188649736862012-01-17T11:37:00.000-08:002012-01-25T03:37:09.331-08:00SCMM 2012 - A taste of Mumbai<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> My preparation for the Mecca of Indian long distance running – The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, started three months ago. Interval training, Hill Runs, tempo runs, long runs, slow runs – I had done them all. I secretly hoped to finish the marathon (for the uninitiated it’s 42 long kms) in 3:30(3 hours and 30 mins) and improve on my previous best of 4:07 by around 37 mins! Ambitious to say the least... So as to not pile more pressure on myself, I parroted 3:45 as my supposed target to everybody who asked.<br />
<br />
A week before the marathon, I ran my usual weekend run with folks from the Hyderabad Runners club at the Nagole Forest Trail. The guy with who I was running that morning, Steve Kaplan, said something that ultimately proved immensely helpful for me during the Mumbai Marathon – “There will come a point in the race when you think you are down and out, that’s when you should commit”. Then for emphasis sake he reiterated, “You gotta commit man”. Sound advice that. Though an obstinate muttonhead at times, I, without exception, respect and listen to guys who complete marathons well within 3 hours.<br />
<br />
I had been invited to a pasta lunch by GQIndia Magazine on account of being an over-enthusiastic follower of Ashok Nath’s marathon training program they publish – <a href="http://www.gqindia.com/content/marathons-new-age-everest" target="_blank">here</a> (Recommended for anybody who wants to run a marathon). My train to Mumbai was more than an hour late and I turned up at Indigo Deli dressed like a trainwreck to a party whose sponsor generally publishes magazines on how to dress fashionably in high society.<br />
<br />
I chatted with Ashok about my training and he asked me why my training schedule had no cross training (cycling, swimming, Yoga etc.). “Principle of specificity”, I explained like a professor explaining a finer point to student. Meaning if you want to get good at something, do it more often. You cannot become a good runner by cycling every day. His reply to this is something I’ll remember for a very long time. He said, “What if I can promise you a 3 hour marathon finish at the cost of muscular imbalance that would result in you limping for the rest of your life? Professional runners might agree to this since it is a question of livelihood for them, but I think as an amateur runner you should focus on developing an overall physique”. Trust me he was pretty convincing. I’m now ready to switch sides and do a bit of cross training.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpLu66ex2nF3els9qT52YzHjZ7AEXL8OPg3cZIn1F9kgajKRnImHRbw1R2tkj2pZwyWXRwaTtGgrZFK1s0dRB2fvQPttMcXnvzq2kyymEESDIIR0DSoYZmqrlnpS0NzMDgoEbLnN6sVo/s1600/marathon_gqIndia.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpLu66ex2nF3els9qT52YzHjZ7AEXL8OPg3cZIn1F9kgajKRnImHRbw1R2tkj2pZwyWXRwaTtGgrZFK1s0dRB2fvQPttMcXnvzq2kyymEESDIIR0DSoYZmqrlnpS0NzMDgoEbLnN6sVo/s400/marathon_gqIndia.png" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">At Pasta Party hosted by GQIndia at Colaba Deli</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Ashok also threw in a bit of wisdom for race day. He asked me to soak my legs in salted water for around half an hour and then apply Volini spray on my legs before I go to bed and then apply volini again the next morning before the race. Though skeptical, I tried this out and can confirm that it was definitely helpful. As an amateur marathoner, I am at a stage wherein I’d try anything to cut down a couple of minutes! But be aware that doing this numbs pain during the marathon. But once its effects wear off and if you have </span><span style="font-size: small;">overreached yourself during the run</span><span style="font-size: small;">, be rest assured that it will hurt. Pain is good at times because it gives you an indication of the limits of your body.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> I asked Ashok his thoughts on my plan to train for a triathlon after Mumbai Marathon. He asked me if I thought I had reached my goals in running and found out the level at which I plateau – i.e. the timing at which improving finish time becomes very difficult. I had not. Yet to decide whether I should continue focus only on running or begin training for a triathlon.<br />
<br />
I headed to the World Trade Center in Cuffe Link to pick up my bib and goodie bag which was mostly filled with medicine for lactating women and items whose expiry date can be counted in hours. I was disappointed to find that my assigned start point was staging Section – D, the last section allotted for Full Marathoners. Tried talking to the organizers to accommodate me in Section - A but I guess they had enough on their plates and asked me to live with it in a not-so-nice manner. <br />
<br />
At the WTC, I met Nitin Jain, my friend from Bangalore who had planned and booked rooms for our stay at Hotel Sealord near CST Railway Station. We took a taxi to our hotel and when our taxi driver pulled over; he gave us a scrutinizing smile and announced “Hmm. Hotel Dreamland” Our hotel seemed to be right beside “Hotel Dreamland” which by look on the face of the taxi driver I could clearly understand was a shady sort of place. “Hum toh yahan daudne aye hain”, I said answering his unasked question. <i>We are here to run</i>. He drove off with a smile still unconvinced while we headed into our hotel- Sealord that is.<br />
<br />
We soon headed out to dinner at Leopold Café where we ran into its local celebrity – Shantaram, a convict from Australia who penned his experiences living in the slums of Mumbai, raked in millions thereafter and had no more reason to live in a Mumbai slum. Ok I admit there’s a bit more to the story than that.<br />
<br />
We came back to our hotel and I headed out to find a medical shop to buy Volini Spray. Someone suggested a shortcut and I ended up right in the midst of a Mumbai Slum. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. The filth, squalor and poverty of the place was in sharp contrast to what I had seen a few mins ago at Colaba. This is the way I end up remembering Mumbai – a city which is just as much about the struggles and aspirations of the have-nots as it is about the extravaganza of the well off. Somehow I did not want to dwell on Mumbai's idiosyncrasies at that point in time; I had a marathon to run the next day.</span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: small;">...continued - <a href="http://bharathkumaran.blogspot.com/2012/01/scmm-2012-taste-of-mumbai-part-2.html" target="_blank">here</a></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-43131272836790958862012-01-03T12:55:00.000-08:002012-01-04T13:20:53.703-08:00The Last Battle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">The young prince was dying. He had been sure that in battle he had no equal in the known world, just as he had been sure of victory 18 days ago when he led his vast army into the battleground. How the tide had turned... He was now lying alone in mortal agony beside a forlorn lake with crows and vultures already fighting over him while his brothers and friends had laid down their lives in his defense.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">The prince could not move his legs, his thighs had caved in and he could feel no sensation below his navel but pain. Unable to life his mace, he swung his hands weakly at a vulture that got too close. It will need to wait a bit longer, he thought dryly. His thoughts went to his last battle. He was up against a powerful warrior, the one who had killed his brothers. Anger and retribution powered the prince's tired body and soul. The enemy had never fought fair during battle and its warrior saw no reason to change now. The warrior's code was thrown to the winds; the prince was tricked, defeated and left to rot. The warrior who had bested him placed a leg on the prince's head, proclaimed some vow as complete and celebrated in macabre fashion by kicking and dancing on the prince's face. The code of honour that countless warriors lived and died upholding before this war was no longer sacrosanct; "laws of a mythical age" they would soon become. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hours later, a few of the prince's warriors arrived at the scene. With just a glance they understood what had happened. The price was not yet ready to die. He knew the price of peace for a nation stricken with war was his own death. He was willing to pay it but he would not be denied vengeance for the humiliation meted out to him. He named one of his warriors as Supreme Commander of his now non-existent army and wished them luck one last time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">The final wait for death was unbearable, full of pain, suffering and regret. The prince spent the rest of the night holding death at bay, waiting for his warriors. His men returned just before the first ray, claiming to have burnt down </span><span style="font-size: small;">the enemy camp </span><span style="font-size: small;">and killed all its soldiers. Battle at night was unheard-of, the game had indeed changed for a world that taught its children that battles should start at sunrise and end at sundown. The prince gave a small smile, his time had come. The crimson sun rose in the distant horizon as Duryodhana, the last of the Kauravas, left the mortal realm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-61191326193515606942011-12-18T10:56:00.000-08:002011-12-18T23:44:48.611-08:00Running in India - The Public Perception<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">There are those who run and those who don’t. It’s been almost two years since I retrieved my dusty trainers from the back corner of my shoe rack, cleaned them and went for my first run. And this single act opened up a new world for me. And that was the day I became a runner. It did not matter that I hardly knew the technical details of the sports - What type of clothes to wear or shoes to buy, whether I should take walking breaks when running and how many kilometers I should run to avoid injury and lose weight. All that knowledge would come later but on that day, I just wanted to run. And that’s all it takes for any person to become a runner. No need to spend money on equipments or enroll in pricey coaching camps to master the sport.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"> Running has given me this opportunity to change and influence lives of a few people for the better. I have had people who I have never met message me asking how they should go about preparing for their first 10k or half marathon. Once during one of my long runs in Hyderabad, a company watchman decided that he had had enough of watching folks run and joined me for a mile or so running in his uniform and sturdy boots. Forget the health benefits of running for a moment, the joy you get when you run your first mile is something to behold.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"> Most things in social science can either be explained or blamed on perception. And how society perceives running is going to determine the future of the sport in India. Here are a few of my interactions with society as runner:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">The incredulous looks that folks give when they see runners with water belts, GPS watches and fancy gadgets huffing and puffing when common sense dictates that they take a break. The first thing I learnt on taking up running is to ignore these looks and comments like “Why do you have to put themselves under such pain?!”. No one becomes a long distance runner without pushing past perceived limits of pain and endurance.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">An overweight constable in Bangalore once warned me that my running shorts was too short and asked me to wear full length track suits during running. I pretended not to understand Kannada and kept running. Some people lack the imagination to think of a world beyond their own. </li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">A few folks from the forest department in KBR Park terming runners as a nuisance to walkers and warning the Hyderabad Runners group that they would arrest all of us if we ran as a group. We raised our voices and aggression to match theirs and dared them to arrest us on our next run there. Of course they backed off and nothing happened on our next run. </li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">The print media in India is currently enamoured with this concept of ignoring all news-worthy stories and focuses mainly on sensationalization of trivialities. And everything is fair game for reporters/journalists without depth and understanding – check articles like <a href="http://www.hindu.com/op/2011/05/15/stories/2011051558061800.htm">this</a> and <a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-08/science/30489828_1_irregular-heartbeats-arrhythmias-european-heart-journal">this</a>. I do hope that such couch potatoes with half-truths and inadequate journalistic skills do not turn the general public away from the sport – but such hope is misplaced. People are influenced by what they read and unfortunately such shallow articles always hurt the sport. This is the most difficult and insidious of the issues that runners have to deal with. I have had relatives and friends read up some random article on the internet and advise me to take up a “normal” hobby like gardening or walking. </li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">I have run quite a few marathons and mostly found lukewarm response from the general public to marathons and other running events. In an international marathon like say New York or London, people come in droves to support runners. Of course the sport is still in its infancy here. In comparison, Mumbai Marathon draws good crowds and public support but whether they come out to cheer runners or drool over Bipasha Basu is anybody’s guess. We are not there yet but someday the crowds will come for marathons. Until then we might have to make do with Bips...</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">For all the talk about India being a modern society, it is not easy for women to take up running in our country. Even when running in a group, women are subjected to lewd comments and unwanted advice. I recently attended a workshop by an ultra-marathoner/tri-athelete named Anu Vaidyanathan who began her presentation with a question somebody had asked her when training for a triathlon – “Why don’t you go get married?” Unless attitudes change, it is very difficult to ensure women take up long distance running either as hobby or a passion.</li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal"> One of the first things I learnt in my corporate life - The world does not run on truth, it runs on perceptions. Likewise with the sport of running. And one of the things we can do for running is to be its ambassadors. Let's motivate a few folks to run. Let's tell them the story of how running changed our lives and get them to join the local running club. Let's convince them that if they run today, it does not mean a painful knee replacement surgery down the line. Above all, let's be the change that we want to see in the other person – Let's run...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-4516090166479588822011-11-30T01:29:00.000-08:002011-12-18T10:04:20.986-08:00Redemption – 50k Ultra-marathon at the Bangalore Ultra 2011<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Now why would anybody run an ultra-marathon (in which runners run beyond the regular marathon distance of 42.2k) and willingly put themselves under such pain? When asked this question, I end up providing a simplistic response like “it’s fun”. Mainly because it is not very easy to explain it to a “normal” person (generally people don’t run or those who say- I can walk for a whole day but don’t ask me to run). “It’s not like you’ll win the prize money or anything!! So why bother” they say signaling that any further conversation on my part would serve little purpose. So in this blog entry I will try to analyze the answers to the question – “Why run an ultra”.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Before you read any further, let me warn you that this is a long blog post. So here’s the gist of the entire post:</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Bangalore Ultra 2010 - 37.5k category - DNF (Did Not Finish)</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Bangalore Ultra 2011 - 50k category - 5 hrs 31 mins.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Overall score => Bharath- 1: Bangalore Ultra-1.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Let me now continue with the Charles Dickens’ version of the post:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The Bangalore Ultra in 2010 humbled and beat me into submission (read sordid story <a href="http://bharathkumaran.blogspot.com/2010/11/vignettes-from-hessarghatta-ultra.html">here</a>). I realized that lack of training and preparation was what beat me and decided not to fall short on that account this time round.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> On race day, I reached Hessarghatta around 30 mins to start time and headed to the room of my friends who were staying at the ONV hotel near the start point. First shocker of the day: My racer kit was missing. Meaning even if I run the race, my timings would not be recorded. For some reason I remember being calm in that situation as I knew that running chip or no running chip, nothing was going to stop me from hitting the red trail that day. Rajesh or Chief as we like to call him picked up another backup racer kit and we ran to “Runners For Life” Organizer stall with 5 mins to start and programmed the running chip for the 50k run. Ended up at the start line just before flag off with no warm-up to speak of.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-i4kHfyDEr4LJBxmMP1sA6NojK0TxxMpjtAjzv_ZHk3kObPmSajEhKTEWwW-ZIM5GvjgAEI4y9jJ6yYI1Gisr0Z3P-LQ8UvNEOkdYdgusHp8WZpjIijU0NiqVJlvnXDU7uaOzgGInVpw/s1600/Bangalore+Ultra+2011+Start.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-i4kHfyDEr4LJBxmMP1sA6NojK0TxxMpjtAjzv_ZHk3kObPmSajEhKTEWwW-ZIM5GvjgAEI4y9jJ6yYI1Gisr0Z3P-LQ8UvNEOkdYdgusHp8WZpjIijU0NiqVJlvnXDU7uaOzgGInVpw/s400/Bangalore+Ultra+2011+Start.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Early morning start at Ultra</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The 50k and 37.5k categories were flagged off together. I initially ran with the lead group of the 37.5k runners. After around a km or so I realized that they were running too fast and I had to slow down. One of the toughest things for me is to let people overtake me because I am generally competitive when it comes to running, but this time I told myself that it was important to stick to my overall plan of running 50k in 5 hours. The trail was the toughest I had ever run on. I always had to keep an eye on the ground for fear of hitting either roots or getting my foot stuck in some rock. Add in some loose gravel here and there and you have a perfect recipe for a fall. Fortunately I fell only once during the run and knew how to fall to avoid injury.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I stopped at the third aid station and noticed that it was well stocked. I helped myself to a decent treat once in a while at these aid stations – peanut butter and bread, potato chips, oranges, bananas etc. The organizers even had common salt at the aid stations. A few runners take salt tablets once every 15 kms in such ultra-marathons to ensure that the salt level in their body does not drop drastically. But you do not get them in India, ergo substitution with common salt at the aid stations. Since I did not know what to expect for my first 50k run, I ensured that I ate more than required and was well hydrated. Considering my intake during the run, it’s surprising I did not gain weight at the end of the race. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4myDQb8b7F1IDW4HvX2XrxpbUahsPEm5YS1JWaTfEBAlGnI8egzZydC8NbQEfpfswsmbuY60v9NqI8TikCM2P01K-JiSVng9Z7sZo-sA5nyU3XWjVkRpgNYnjLoUel87mWSCzZRHcZU4/s1600/BangaloreUltra2011_12kMark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4myDQb8b7F1IDW4HvX2XrxpbUahsPEm5YS1JWaTfEBAlGnI8egzZydC8NbQEfpfswsmbuY60v9NqI8TikCM2P01K-JiSVng9Z7sZo-sA5nyU3XWjVkRpgNYnjLoUel87mWSCzZRHcZU4/s400/BangaloreUltra2011_12kMark.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Completing first loop of 12.5k</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> At around the 8k mark, an American woman cut across the trail and overtook me. Up until that point, only Athreya and Honda San, two accomplished ultra-runners, from the 50k category were ahead of me. Determined not to lose my position, I kept up with her and finally overtook her after two kms. Lizzie turned out to a determined runner as well and I ended up maintaining a decent pace just because I knew she was on my heels.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Before I could complete my first loop I ran across the 12.5k runners. Though I hate to be labeled an elitist, I really do not understand where or how a 12.5k run fits into an ultra-marathon. Is it the money? Most probably... The event organizer - RFL is after all a commercial organization that needs to make money to survive. Is it about encouraging new runners? Nah. I am not sure I would have stuck with the sport if I had started my running career in an event like Bangalore Ultra. Runs like these are, deep down, are about a certain degree of masochism though most would not admit it. We were there to see our rigorous training come to fruition, celebrate our strength and challenge our bodies. In a treacherous trail like this, the newbies are ones most likely to hurt themselves, either due to lack of knowledge or training or both.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9T1-qn2kuGCkSuSjPuxrWJew0Mp60aACfeImmgu9SRTO9p8KBi4MuMMxJ_GKQBGHRhZtwb_bJXigLRVRB_D-wcUUP5otVn2Ff3w7Xd-I12mTGBYgslfqGDsuUupdPHj5IwcarvSYqvG8/s1600/BangaloreUltra2011_Finish1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9T1-qn2kuGCkSuSjPuxrWJew0Mp60aACfeImmgu9SRTO9p8KBi4MuMMxJ_GKQBGHRhZtwb_bJXigLRVRB_D-wcUUP5otVn2Ff3w7Xd-I12mTGBYgslfqGDsuUupdPHj5IwcarvSYqvG8/s400/BangaloreUltra2011_Finish1.jpg" width="265" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Third Loop done. One more to go...</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I had slowed down at around the 32k mark. The American runner was long left behind. We had formed a partnership of sorts with one of us leading the way for a certain length of time. But she cramped up at around the 20k mark and asked me to move on. Met a lot of other runners that I interact with on a daily basis on the internet but hardly ever get a chance to meet.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> At around the 44k mark, I noticed Bhaskar Sharma overtake me. Though I did not know that point in time, he had just moved into the third place in the 50k category. Being my first run beyond Full Marathon distance of 42k, I don’t think I was in a position to chase down a runner who had been running ultra-marathons years before I had even started running. I was totally spent. The sun had come out and I was reduced to taking walking breaks more often than planned.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo6KPotqQ9uVwcZHYu0EHyaS9bDD84N-7prhmuwOU_TGv4Bgf5FwFG8tjg5HDDzjJr9AB0dOaGygVq2tB4heDuqGCQzkLasq4bViGnqP9EObZdmhNHpRdlGXrsIAw2ZCP8t1gqStJ2NqA/s1600/BangaloreUltra2011_Finish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo6KPotqQ9uVwcZHYu0EHyaS9bDD84N-7prhmuwOU_TGv4Bgf5FwFG8tjg5HDDzjJr9AB0dOaGygVq2tB4heDuqGCQzkLasq4bViGnqP9EObZdmhNHpRdlGXrsIAw2ZCP8t1gqStJ2NqA/s400/BangaloreUltra2011_Finish.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Mission accomplished. From left - Steve, Venkat, Me and Ashish</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> With just a km to go for completion, another runner, Srini, overtook me. I really could not understand where he found the energy from but he started putting in some decent pace. After the race, I caught up with him and only half-jokingly warned against overtaking with such a short distance left as it leaves one heart-broken. He laughed it off. Seeing Srini put in good pace this late in the race, I realized that however good your training level is, the desire to succeed is what drives you in the final miles. You need to run the second part with your heart not your strength because of you have very little of that left anyway. I finished my first ultra-marathon distance of 50k in 5 hours and 31 mins. It was undoubtedly the toughest thing I had ever done in my life. I realized what this race meant for me – Redemption. And it tasted sweet despite all the pain I was in.</span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-65591616263806737252011-10-05T23:03:00.000-07:002011-10-10T07:49:44.006-07:00The Villager Road Tax<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Loki worked from sun-up to sun-down on the two acre land he had managed to wrestle from his brothers after their father’s death. He had been saving for two years to buy a new motorbike but the rain gods had proven fickle and middle-men who bought his crops stingy and thieving. He was stuck with the rusty bike his father-in-law had given him on the eve of his wedding. His reverie was interrupted by a huge black car coming to a screeching halt trying to avoid a dog on the street. A bulky guy got out of the driver’s seat, checked his car tires, found them satisfactory and drove off leaving the mutilated body of the dog in the middle of the national highway. Sometimes goats and chickens owned by the villagers were victims of the high speed roads. Loki never understood the arrogance of city folks- trampling livestock with their cars and bikes, not in the least bothered about how it affected the livelihood of poor villagers. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Loki considered the recently built national highway a curse. It cut across the middle of the village making even crossing the road a hazard. Once the villagers had got together and paid a private contractor to build a speed bump at both the ends of the village. That helped until a few officials from highway development authority leveled the road again warning the village council against building such barriers. The council denied everything, claimed innocence and feigned outrage at the accusation.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> In the initial days after the road was built, villagers accepted any small compensation given to them by errant drivers for harming their livestock. But all this changed when Loki’s friend’s cow got mowed down by an SUV. Yogesh demanded an exorbitant amount and the entire village had gathered to argue with the driver and his wife. The villagers finally managed to extract more than their pound of flesh. Loki knew that the old cow had stopped producing milk a year ago. Yogesh could now buy a new jersey cow with what the driver ended up paying. The village council of course took a cut. The men had a good laugh about the entire incident that evening under the banyan tree. One of them called it the “road tax”. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> From that day, Loki stopped scolding his children when they let the chickens and goats out near the highway. He did not have to wait for too long for what he had secretly been hoping for but would not admit even to his wife. A couple in a two wheeler had crashed into a post trying to avoid his goat. Somehow the goat had managed to limp away without much injury. Loki’s first thought was that the couple were grievously injured. He did not want to rush onto the highway to demand payment for his goat only to find the couple dying or in need of help. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Meanwhile a few cyclists had stopped to check on the fallen couple. Why men ride cycles this far instead of using motorbikes, he had no idea. Masochists most likely, he concluded. The cyclists had managed to help the couple with water. Loki saw that the rider, though bleeding was now standing and about to climb on his motorbike and drive away. Fat chance he thought.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Loki managed to stop the couple from speeding away to a hospital and straight away demanded payment for his injured goat. The couple looked speechless and the cyclist decided to speak up for them “Let them first go to the hospital man, the guy is bleeding”. All Loki knew was that if he let the couple go now, he would never see them again; “No, now”, he insisted. He claimed that his livelihood had been ruined due to the loss of his goat. As if on cue, a lot of folks from the village were suddenly with him taking the same line. A few other cyclists and folks from a car had stopped as well and took the side of the couple. The villagers accused the cyclists of rowdyism while the cyclists insisted on taking the couple to a hospital. The cyclists also claimed that the goat was not injured at all. Words were bandied back and forth.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> Suddenly before Loki knew, the cyclist who had initially assisted the couple was coming at him angrily. Loki knew that there was no way the villagers would let a city-bred funnily clad cyclist beat him in their own place. One or two of his friends helped as they beat up the angry young man. Soon the rest of the villagers and cyclists managed to break up the brawl. Seeing bloodshed had the desired effect on the injured couple, they offered to pay up, just as Loki knew that they would. In parting, the beaten up cyclist calmly spoke up “One day I hope a car runs you over and there is nobody to help”. Loki pretended to not hear the cyclist. Neither did he care. His dream of a new motorbike had just got a little bit closer...<o:p></o:p></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-36764426546336362552011-10-04T06:28:00.000-07:002011-10-04T12:06:28.629-07:00Almost there - The Mysore Half Marathon 2011<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The clock showed 6:55 a.m., 10 minutes more than the scheduled start time of the Mysore Half Marathon 2011. All the runners were waiting patiently at the start line - The imposing Mysore palace. Okay, the “patiently” part was a lie. We had all warmed up for a 6:45 start but apparently Chief Guest Javagal Srinath does not mess with his 8 hour sleep cycle. We greeted him with a loud ‘boo’ when he finally ambled along to the start line. I was targeting a finish of 1 hr. 40 mins, which meant running faster than 5 min/km for 21 kms. My friend Bala from Bangalore was targeting 1 hr. 45 mins but he gamely agreed to run with me for the entire distance.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The elites simply took off as soon as the start gun went off. Not sure if it was the pace the elites set or our own stupidity, Bala and I decided to give them chase. Big Mistake. We ran the first two kms in around 8 mins, way faster than what I had planned. Any distance runner worth his salt would tell you that you should not run somebody else’s race. And here I was disobeying the most basic tenet of long distance running. I settled into a nice breathing pattern, slowed down and let Bala compete with the elites!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> My plan was to finish the first half of the race in 50 mins. But realized that I would get there about a minute or two early at our current pace. The route meandered into Kukkenahalli kere, the best running place in my beautiful hometown. We ran into the elites returning from the midway point. And the three in the lead were blazing. Their coach was on the sidelines and screaming at them to pick up pace. Hah! That is one coach I hope to avoid for the rest of my natural life. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> At around the 8k mark, the effects of chasing the elites caught up with Bala and I ran alongside him for the new few kms. My lace came untied twice and I wasted sometime getting it right. My hands were unsteady and my fist and jaw tightly clenched – a clear sign that I was trying too hard. Stopped for water at the 12k mark aid station. With little humidity and cool breeze, I decided that I could manage with only one stop for water. And that certainly helps.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qC9CbIA79f7dMqUmAxGD-8IVuG_ucsBrfaDI897YuJiuebgDf8-yRMJBKFjnF-PNYq553PwhODz0pJQnmv2G80Vrss5HfyCkBqJnmW0bFZUHBfZgtU44MicDLhmoP6YNHuSE3QEvDxI/s1600/Mysore+Half+Marathon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qC9CbIA79f7dMqUmAxGD-8IVuG_ucsBrfaDI897YuJiuebgDf8-yRMJBKFjnF-PNYq553PwhODz0pJQnmv2G80Vrss5HfyCkBqJnmW0bFZUHBfZgtU44MicDLhmoP6YNHuSE3QEvDxI/s640/Mysore+Half+Marathon.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Celebration Mysore Half Marathon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> I checked out my GPS watch and found that I had to run the last 8k in 39 mins to finish within my target of 1 hr. 40 mins. My usual running pace at that point in time was 5 mins/kms meaning 40 mins for 8 km. I just had to run a couple of kms faster. Sounds easier when I put it on paper but the second half had a few up-hills and increased traffic which meant that saving that one minute was not going to be easy. My mom had promised to come to the route to cheer me, but I missed her as well due to my decision to go for glory. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"> The final push never came. Somebody on the road shouted “Boss you are 28<sup>th</sup>… Run faster, so many people have gone ahead”. That brought a smile to my in spite of all the pain/pressure I had put myself in. Finished in 1 hr. 41 mins and Bala finished a couple of mins behind me. Missed my running season target by around 1 minute. Almost there but not there. Story of my running life really.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Soni Mathew finished in 1:09 mins and took 1<sup>st</sup> place in men’s division and Kavita Raut in 1:20 took 1<sup>st</sup> in the women’s division. As for me, I have time until the Auroville 2012 to reach my season target of 1 hr. 40 mins. With all the arrogance and confidence I can muster, I declare myself good enough for a 1:40 HM in the coming months. Only time will tell!</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522841452945028116.post-36556123534974137292011-09-20T00:30:00.000-07:002011-09-20T05:55:28.299-07:00Why I started running?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal">A few days ago I completed the Kaveri Trail Half Marathon in 1 hr 45 mins. During the run, I overtook quite a few slow, tired and struggling 10k runners with a smirk of superiority and disdain. I was running as per a plan and saw these slow runners on the narrow trail as an obstacle. After the race, it was time for introspection and I realized that there was no reason for me to look down upon these slower runners – after all I was once one of them. There is no better lesson in humility than to remember one’s own humble beginning. Let's rewind to around one and a half years and start from there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It had been four years since moving to Bangalore. Four years since I joined a start-up and realized that programming was something I enjoyed. As the years went by, the time I spent at work increased and so did my waistline. I told myself I was too busy to spare time for exercise. Gradually, I realized what I was all set to become - one more fat slob working in IT and heading into middle age working away my life and health 12 hours a day for six days a week. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was at this point in time that I saw an article in the newspaper regarding the Bangalore Sunfeast 10k run with Sachin Tendulkar exhorting the people of Bangalore to run. Somewhere it struck a chord. Never having run before, I immediately registered for the 6k majja run believing that a 10k was outside the realm of possibility. The very next day I put on my discarded running shoes and headed out to the park. I told myself that I could walk for a day if required since I had done a couple of treks the previous year. Yeah. A blatant lie if there ever was one! You got to lie to yourself sometimes and if it were a matter of mind such bravado might even have worked, but the body always speaks the truth. I could not run more than two rounds – all of 700 meters. It was simply too tiring.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I kept practicing just because I had already registered for the event and did not want to give up so easily. Come race-day, I ran those 6 kms stopping at every aid station to replenish myself. I struggled and my legs were sore but I managed to cross the finish line. I promised myself that the run was the first step of a long journey.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These days I run almost a half marathon a week. I have lost around 8 kgs since I started running, completed three full marathons, get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t run for more than a few days and am preparing for my first ultra marathon distance of 50k. But I will never forget what those SIX kilometers meant in the grand scheme of things.</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253145491300349023noreply@blogger.com2