Road Trip

We took an impromptu trip to Melukote yesterday.

Melukote is about 3.5 hours away, near Mandya, not far from Mysore. The roads were pretty good as one got into the interiors, better than what Yours Truly is used to in Bangalore or Madras. The weather was really awesome, about the right temperature with the sun as if jousting with the clouds for viewing the sights below. 

It was a perfect day for someone to catch a few new sights for sure!!

Got to see some real villages, not the 'halli' type one sees around Bangalore these days. As the car motored its way up and down the winding hilly roads with quite a bit of green all around, Ananya had her usual quota of questions. This time the one question that stayed in my mind was,

'Appa are the Buffaloes that we saw really small elephants without trunks?'

The drive reminded one about some of the sights we saw last summer in Kerala and less touristy to boot! Glad to see that these places seem to have access to a school, even the little hamlets along the road. Not much traffic other than a few motor bikes and buses chugging along with the odd bullock cart thrown in.

We finally reached Melukote, a town steeped in traditions and culture based on history and mythology.  We parked the car at the bottom of the steps leading up to the hilltop temple.  Off we went climbing and once we reached the top, the views from the Narasimhar temple on the hill were awesome.

One never ceases to wonder about what kind of vision and people it took to build such magnificent edifices up so high in those days! Aneesh had his thought-for-the-day while we were up here.This time it was

 'Appa, how did the goats get up the hill into the temple?'

On the way back, we saw the temple Pushkarini - Kalyani - which was a very pretty sight. The pond was in the middle of a quadrangle, the sides of which were corridors with very artistically crafted pillars. Mandapams.  Not so welcoming amongst all of the old world charm around was the sight of a few tourist buses serving food to people, which explained the heaps of garbage one got to see.

We then reached the main 'attraction' in Melukote, the Vishnu temple, which seems to have quite a bit of history and mythology associated with it.

As we entered the temple, we were greeted with music.  It reminded one of a typical South Indian wedding. Turned out to be a birthday! Folks were celebrating Sri Ramanujar's Birthday. The temple itself, if one took the time to look around, was filled with figurines and artifacts with workmanship that were clearly indicative of the passion and the attention to detail paid by those many, many anonymous artisans.

There were a few pillars the visuals of which linger on in one's mind. They seemed to have what looked like balconies made of fine string around them! If one could close their eyes for a second, imagine a base of Vanaras holding up the pillar, a 2nd layer with the afore-mentioned balconies, a 3rd layer of more human-like figures and a 4th layer of Lord Vishnu. Throw in a few artistic, imaginative flowery designs that boggled the mind. You get the idea! Quite incredible considering this was the type of view available to anyone interested, in any number of permutations and combinations, from all 4 sides of these pillars! Of course, there were many that seemed to have felt the effects of father time or the brutal hands of people who shouldn't have had any business being there to begin with.

Then it was decision time being around 1.30 pm and all... To eat or not to eat. To not, was the final decision.

Our 'Sarathy' then suggested that SravanaBelagola was only 30 kms away and was worth a visit. The verdict was reached pretty quickly and off we left on a jaunt to see one of the largest statues carved out of a single piece of rock. The roads this time seemed even more remote with nary a sight of other visitors or other travelers. The greenery was a sight to behold, especially for someone coming from the concrete jungles of Bangalore. Imagine a bit of the English country side with coconut palms thrown in and there you have it! After all we were near lands watered by the Cauvery.

As we neared the town, we could see the head of the statue of Gomateswara from afar, as though lording over all the nearby hills and villages. Once inside the town, we saw a magnificent temple pond in the middle of the town. Soon off we were climbing up the steps. About 600 of them this time as Ananya announced at the end of the climb.  Once on top we were, yet again, greeted by fantastic views!

The entrance to what seemed like a small fort on top, had shrines to the Jain Thirthankaras. In line with the fact that Hindu kings seemed to have had quite an influence on this place, there were also many Hindu gods and goddesses. We also saw quite a few inscriptions some of which appeared to be in Tamil.

The ambience reminded me about the Jain temples of Girnar in Gujarat although I remember those as being more elaborate and on a larger scale. And that one had many, many more steps to climb too!

But the main agenda item was Gomateshwara. One could see his head jutting above the walls. A phenomenal piece of work!  Soon it was time to clamber down the steps and bid adieu to a place that was in the vicinity of what is said to have been Chandragupta Maurya's final resting place.

Our first visual of Bahubali was greeted by a plaintive sounding Aneesh asking the question 'Amma why is this Omachi shame shame?'. I don’t recall any of us answering his question. Kids have a way of not mincing words for sure.

While we may have had more questions than answers, overall a mighty fine way to spend an early summer's day.