My travel column in FirstPost

I know I have been missing in action on this blog for a while now. I have been traveling loads and been so busy writing for a living (isn’t that great?!) that I have not had the time and energy to blog. Promise to rectify that soon.

For now, head to FirstPost and read my travel column – Wanderlust – it appears twice a month, so watch out for it. Also, please please share with me your ideas and suggestions for the column – interesting travel destinations, trends, websites. Thanks much in anticipation!

From my latest Wanderlust column on the beautiful city of Madurai –

Malayadhwaja Pandiya must have been a sad king. Fate had played a cruel trick on him. After years of being childless and spending days and nights in prayer, and pouring countless kilos of pure ghee in the sacrificial fire, he had been blessed with a daughter. Alas! A daughter who was a freak; she was born with three breasts. Just as the royal couple was torn between joy and despair, a voice from the heavens informed them that her abnormality would disappear as soon as she met her consort. The girl Meenakshi — the fish-eyed one — grew up into a beautiful princess who was finally won over by Lord Shiva and married him.

Read on…

From the streets of Orchha

Images from a walk in Orchha – no text needed…

An evening at Orchha

Orchha – some say it means the hidden kingdom, most don’t know it exists. A beautiful secret in the heart of India, Madhya Pradesh. I’ve just come back from ten days in Varanasi, Khajuraho and Orchha – each of them different, each of them stunning in its own way.

Image downloading and sorting is still work in progress. Postcards from Varanasi up here on facebook if you wish to have a dekko. And here, for now, golden images from my evening in Orchha – at the gorgeous Jahangir Mahal.

Visiting a Historic, and Hidden, Area of Mumbai

Khotachiwadi, a historic area of Mumbai, is like Platform 9 3/4 in the Harry Potter series: invisible to all but those who know exactly where it is or are determined to find it. The narrow lane leading into the wadi, or hamlet, does nothing to inspire confidence and, like Harry and his friends, you need to take a leap of faith and enter.

Read more about Khotachiwadi here – my first piece for the New York Times travel blog…

The whispering dome

The bunch of teenagers, cheerful in their bright shirts and floppy pants, step into the gallery and stand silent in awe for a few seconds. Just a few seconds. Then one of them shouts ‘ho’ at the top of his voice and the echo is heard all over the quiet monument. And then the cacophony begins; each of them shouting and hooting, thrilled to hear the sounds rebounding across the gallery. After some time, they finally leave, bored of this activity and I have the place to myself for a few minutes.

I remember hearing these noises earlier too when I was at ground level walking around the tombs, the entire area luminous from the golden light pouring in through the tall windows on either side. Looking up at the source of the noise, the dome appears to be a flower with its petals unfurled, the people leaning over the walls of the gallery mere specks.

The Gol Gumbaz (literally translated as Round Dome) in Bijapur, built in the mid 17th century is a memorial to Sultan Mohammad Adil Shah of the Adil Shahi dynasty. Its popular claim to fame is that the dome is the second largest in the world – after only St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The dome is unsupported by pillars, entirely held by the thick walls of the building, an architectural marvel. And at the base of the dome runs a circular pathway called the whispering gallery. A whisper on one side of the passage is said to be clearly heard on the other side.

However, visitors (as the ones seen earlier) seem to be more interested in hearing their loud voices bouncing off the walls than in testing that claim. It is a wonder that they have the energy to shout after having huffed and puffed their way seven stories up a fleet of narrow steps.

It is believed that the Sultan ordered the construction of his own tomb well before his death and oversaw the construction. It was planned in competition with the Ibrahim Rouza, his father’s (Ibrahim Adil Shah II) tomb, with its mosque mirroring the mausoleum. Interestingly, the Ibrahim Rouza is said to have been the inspiration for the Taj Mahal in Agra.

However, the Sultan could not directly compete with his father or even the elegance of the Ibrahim Rouza, and so he chose to outdo it in size. The Gol Gumbaz is therefore a magnificent structure, although plain in appearance since the Sultan died before the monument was completed. Now it houses the tombs of Mohammad Adil Shah, his wives (and mistress) and children. Walking in from the gate, the first structure visible is the Nakkar Khana (drum house) which appears to be a part of the Gol Gumbaz but is actually a museum displaying interesting artefacts from the region. The entire complex is maintained by the Architectural Survey of India (ASI) and is open from 6 a.m. – which is also the ideal time to visit – before the tourist buses and school excursions arrive.

Bijapur today is a non-descript town with a majority Muslim population but till the early 14th century, was a Hindu kingdom known as Vijayapura during the reign of the Chalukyas (some sources say the Devagiri Yadavs). There are several mosques and monuments scattered around the town, the most interesting of them being the Jama Masjid, the Ibrahim Rouza ad the Bara Kaman. Bijapur is easily accessed by a direct overnight train from Bangalore.

(Published in The India Tube)

Shekhawati: art in the open

Driving into Jhunjhunu one sunny morning, we come across Raju Guide at the busy intersection where we stop for directions. Raju recites a list of ‘sight-seeing’ options and proceeds to take over our lives for the rest of the day. He demurs when we discuss money – he is happy with “whatever we pay from our hearts”. Raju says he adopted that name since he wanted to be the “sabse best guide of India” – a tribute to Dev Anand’s character in the Hindi film ‘Guide’ (mild alarm bells are going off in my head, considering how that character finally turned out in the movie but I am raring to go haveli-hopping and ignore those). He begins our guided tour by declaring, “We get a lot of tourists but most of them are foreigners”.

I remember then the surprised look on the face of the shopkeeper from whom we had bought water bottles earlier that day. “What are you doing here?”, his bemused expression said, as he took in our eager faces, guidebooks and car parked under the tree with driver in tow. I find all this a tad strange – I had been expecting the area to be teeming with tourists, given that guidebooks proudly refer to the region as the ‘open-air art gallery’ of India’. I mull over this as we walk through the narrow lanes, awkwardly negotiating cows and camels and playing children, Raju ahead of us with a quick, confident stride.

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Read the rest of this piece here – Published in the June 2010 issue of the Go Air inflight magazine, Go-getter.

The stillness of history

Not far from Mysore, the Keshava temple at Somnathpur, built in the 13th century by the Hoysala dynasty, is the lesser known cousin of the more famous temples from the same era at Belur and Halebid. I was there on a Sunday morning and found that I had the temple to myself for almost an hour. No tourists, no vendors, no noise, only the quiet stillness of history. It is perhaps the cool smoothness of the soapstone, or the lazy breeze from the Cauvery nearby, but the premises of this temple are always cool, even in the heat of the day.

Situated on the banks of the river Cauvery, it is believed that this temple was built by Somnath, the general of the Hoysala army to commemorate his victory in war. At first glance, the Somnathpur temple seems slightly underwhelming, especially to those who have seen other grander South Indian temples. However, the beauty of the place slowly sinks in, as it did with me as I sat on the steps watching the leisurely trickle of visitors. Squat in shape and without a towering gopura, this temple is still every bit as intricate as the others; in fact, some would hold that Somnathpur has the best of the carvings among temples of this dynasty.

The carvings made of soapstone are truly exquisite, especially on the outer walls of the temple. The temple, according to the architectural norms of the Hoysala period, is believed to be a mini representation of their universe– and therefore, a wide variety of subjects, from gods and goddesses and scenes from the Hindu epics to animals, birds and warriors find a place on these walls.

The entire temple complex is on a star shaped platform with an open verandah in front that leads to a narrow platform adjoining the walls on both sides. The temple has three gopuras (towers) – each dedicated to and containing the sanctum (called garbha griha) of a different presiding deity – Venugopala, Keshava and Janardhana (although according to Hindu mythology, all three are different names and versions of Krishna, the popular cowherd god). And running in a continuous line throughout the perimeter of the temple at the bottom of the walls are images of elephants, horsemen and warriors, a reminder of the valour of the dynasty.

The kings of the Hoysala dynasty, apart from being brave warriors, were known to be patrons of art and culture, as well as tolerant towards other religions and beliefs. It is said that they built over 1500 temples in the course of the 300 years that they ruled, most of them were commissioned by the two kings Vishnuvardhan and Veera Bhallala. The royal emblem of this dynasty is that of a warrior striking a tiger. This emblem is also connected to the story of the name Hoysala – meaning ‘strike! Sala’ (a command issued by a teacher to his disciple) – Sala then went on to establish a new kingdom and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Published recently in The India Tube.

A day at Melkote

Melkote is a small temple town, just over 150 km – two hours drive – from Bangalore. It is home to a couple of Narasimha temples, a large Iyengar community and lip-smacking puliyogare (tamarind rice, for you unenlightened souls, but calling it that really takes away from the drop-dead spicy yumminess of it).

We’d heard that the temple closes by 1 and planned to get there early in the day. Weekend mornings being what they are and Bangalore traffic being what it is, not to mention having to stop for thatte idli at Bidadi on the way, it is well past noon when we reach Melkote. The temple, it turns out, is open till 2.30 p.m. or even later.

And then a quick walk around town, a puliyogare pit-stop and some photographs later, we head towards the Narasimha temple on top of the hill. There are no large restaurants in the town (or I am told, places to stay), but there are several eateries known as “mess” which offer delicious local food. The steps to the temple begin from near the water tank, known locally as the kalyani.

The banks of the kalyani are abuzz with activity; bangle-sellers and coconut-vendors, pilgrims and locals, women carrying their clothes for washing at the tank, young children running up to the camera with a smile and a pose.

The friends we are with huff and puff their way up the 300 odd steps; V and I sit on the steps and watch people. There is a cool breeze and a great view from where we are sitting. The old man near where we sit clangs on his metal plate every so often to attract the attention of passersby; he is offended when a group of women ignore him and give alms to the women sitting next to him. The kid with the little shruti box is busy playing; his mother chides him from across the steps and he absent-mindedly chants govinda, govinda even as he is eying the frisky goat, his playing companion.

Fathers are carrying their small children on their shoulders, the mark of Vishnu bright and shiny on both foreheads; the mothers can barely carry themselves up the steep steps. There is a doli lying neglected on one corner, meant for people who are too old or infirm to walk up. Nobody is using it though – it is as if being carried up equals a serious loss of brownie points in the eyes of the god siting in the temple on top of the hill.

Our friends join us and we head to the kalyani for some much-needed rest (heh!). That is when we meet Arun; Puneet Rajkumar devotee, body building ustaad, aspiring superstar, eager model – all of 12 years. He poses, and poses, and poses – alone, with friends, smiling, frowning, jumping. His friends squirm with the awkwardness of that age; Arun takes of his shirt, flexes his (non-existent) biceps and says, take a photo of my body. After each shot, he looks into the LCD and proudly says, HERO.

It is time to leave then and we head back into town, to the place of the original puliyogare halt. More puliyogare is consumed, as is curd rice and sakkare pongal. The lady at the cart tells her friends in the neighboring stall, these girls came in the morning, they liked my food so much, they have come again with their friends. Indeed, aunty.

The drive on the Mysore road, the several pit-stops for fuel (of the food variety) and the friendly folks of Melkote – definitely worth another visit soon.

(More photographs from Melkote here)

Stories in stone

The story of Hampi is the story of stone. You disagree? You think it is sacrilege to reduce the heady might and valour of the Vijayanagara kings to the passivity of stone? Stone – inanimate, indifferent and cold?

No, it is true. In Hampi, the stones tell you more interesting stories than your guide ever can (and believe me, the guides have some juicy ones up their sleeve). All you need is a wee bit knowledge and oodles of imagination. And nowhere are the stories more absorbing than at the Vitthala temple, perhaps because the large open courtyard space inside the (broken) temple walls allow you space to exercise that imagination.

This 15th century temple has faced more than its share of destruction from invaders over the years, as is evident from the broken main gopura and several pillars inside the complex. Now a UNESCO world heritage site, this temple dedicated to Vishnu is being preserved with great care by the authorities.

A pity, in some ways, since this means that the main mahamantapa has been cordoned off, and visitors are not allowed in. I was lucky the last time I visited Hampi when I could climb up the few steps and enter the mantapa. The outer walls and pillars are carved with intricate and never-ending patterns of dancing women and horses and elephants. However, the mantapa is a delight for more than just the lush carvings; it houses the musical pillars. Each of the 56 tall pillars that support the roof the mantapa emanates a musical note when tapped. Our guide arranges for one of the security guards to give our group a demo; sa re ga ma, guitar, jaltarang, he goes on.

Perhaps the most recognizable element of the temple complex is the stone chariot in the main courtyard, with wheels that can revolve even today, it is said. The other unmissable structure is the king’s balance, the Tulabharam on the way leading to the Tungabhadra, standing over 15 feet tall. It is here that the kings used to be weighed against grain or fruit, and on special occasions gold and gems, which would then be distributed to the poor.

A tip: Vitthala temple is right by the river; the most enjoyable way to reach the temple is by a short coracle ride from the ghats near Matunga hill or a walk by the river. The journey by road, in contrast is long and winding, and not half as interesting.

Future tense

In Shekhawati, the future looks at the past…

Update: or, the past and future look at each other, as Arun says in a comment. I have also changed the title of the post to ‘Future Tense’ as a nod to the deplorable state of many of the mansions / frescoes in Shekhawati.