Hampi.... the silent marvel !

Hampi and Jog, the two famous  iconic things in karnataka state. It's been six years since I am in this state and I had not  visited both, but always wanted to. In order to materialize that we set forth to Hampi last weekend. Myself,two of my roomies and another friend who was a last minute entry, got into the rajahamsa from Udupi to Hospet on saturday night.
   Reached at Hospet KSRTC bus stand around 7 in the morning, and from there itself we got the bus to Hampi. From that moment everything was different, There were red heads, blondes, blacks and mandarin people in the bus along with us Indians in that bus, giving a sense of a distant place.After a splendid view of boulders and some ruins,we reached Hampi bus stop in 20 minutes. Hampi Bazaar is adjacent to the bus stop. Going somewhere as a pack of guys has its own advantages, we can wander like lost souls without any planning. The minute there is a girl in the pack, we need to be more responsible and to some extend we require some planning. 
    So we bunch of boys saw a comfort station at Hampi bazaar and got ready from there to explore Hampi- cheap and best! The eateries at Hampi bazaar are nothing fancy and all look like greasy spoons but, most of them serve delicious food. We gorged on some hot idlis and pooris. The uncle at the hotel lead us to a place where we could hire bikes/ cycles etc. We chose two kinetic honda  plus 2 liter fuel for each, Totally it came up to Rs 540/- .We bought a map from a local book store and set forth to Hampi. Time was 8:30 AM IST. Weather was sunny and no dark clouds.
       Hampi was a part of Kishkinda and the capital of the Vijayanagara empire. These empire was build by two brothers in-order to resist the Muslim invaders in India that time, and for that reason Vijayanagara is famous for its artileries and defence mechanisms. Hampi is filled with a number of temples, but these were not exactly places of worship as commonly misunderstood. All the structures were build at strategic points with speed and elegance. Most of the temples, various types of craftsmen like goldsmiths, weavers, architects used to work and stay, and the deity was installed as a part of the hindu culture. Exuberant architecture in Hampi range from monolithic ganeshas to ganeshas inscribed on small Ivory pieces. You can find a lot of influence of Ramayana on the inscribing on the temples and palaces. Interestingly other epics are not much protrusive in Hampi. 
      Most of the people start their Hampi exploration from Virupaksha temple, But in the spirit of riding Kinetics after a very long time, we pushed Virupaksha to the end. We started from kadlekalu ganesha to queen's bath to Zanana enclosure to Vittala temple to the tungabhadra river to the monolithic bull and finally to Virupaksha temple. In between we came back to Hampi bazaar to have one of the most delicious lunch. Out of the 38 places shown in map we could cover only 21 places in our limited time of one day. But it was worth the trip.
      Hampi altogether has a different feel from other historic sites. People are very friendly, A huge crowd of foreign tourists etc to name a few. But most of all when you ride or walk through Hampi, you get the feeling of lost in some other world in some other century, and this exactly is the reason why Hampi is different. Throughout Hampi you can see a scarred empire,which was build with care but but could not stay up against the ferocity and fierceness of the wars. Standing on ruins one can actually imagine the feel of pride and the blood shed followed that. The buildings and stone structures which fell in defeat to the war are marvel to watch, as I told earlier the way you get lost in another world.
    The hotels at Hampi bazaar had another surprise to offer when we dropped in for tea in the evening. That was the time we had a proper look at the menu. Menu had items from Europe, Americas, middle east even from Vietnam. We gorged on one of the best pancakes, and few other special delicacies.
     
 Whatever is remaining in Hampi is well preserved. Lots of description about the history and importance of the places are placed all over as shown in the picture beside. But the heavy iron ore mining activities in the neighboring Bellary district posses a big threat to the feeble ruins.


     To enjoy Hampi you do not need to be a history buff, what you need is a love for traveling and some imagination.


     I have fallen in love with Hampi, it has many stories to tell and I will go there again to hear them all. We returned back Sunday night back to Udupi, all exhausted but content and glad and took back a lot of memories.....

'World No Tobacco Day' and some thoughts

       May 31, 2010 started with the onset of monsoons in South India. I fought with myself and the usual Monday blues to wake up from my bed to a cloudy, windy, drizzling and fresh day. Apart from this it was a normal day or I thought so.   When I went over the online versions of few of my favorite dailies, I came to know this day every year is observed as the “World No Tobacco Day”. Many of my friends’ face flashed in my mind who classify as, non smokers, passive smokers, casual smokers, ‘Smoke only while drinking’ smokers, chain smokers and  underage smokers.  Most of them do not have any health issues, but all agree to a reduced stamina levels. 

        Among the many faces flashed in my mind, there is this particular one who I can never forget. Ananya (fake name to protect identity) was a part of us six friends from childhood, two girls and four guys. We were neighbors and almost of same age,Ananya being the eldest by a year. Most of my cherished memories from those days are connected with these friends. May be we bonded that early we all still remain in touch as good old friends.

        Fast forward few years, after 10th Ananya moved on to Coimbatore for further studies, in a year we all moved away to different places and until mobile phones came up with cheap call rates, we remained detached to each other. 

         Since we were neighbors we all knew where is everyone. With time and new atmosphere all changed and we felt we became smarter and better. Almost all had started smoking and drinking during their degree days. So did Ananya, thanks to her metro town education. It was hard to accept Ananya smoking initially, but got used to it as we came to know more and more in the smoking league.

         Good times flew and came the good news that Ananya is fixed with some IT guy and that time I was doing my second sem,engineering. Ananya's marriage was a beautiful event, The new couple glittered and we old friends had a wonderful time. Things went on again. Ananya moved on to Bangalore,got a job and started a family there. We went on with our careers in mind but all kept in touch with each other.

        Time passed,it was somewhere during July or August and I was about to move to my seventh sem. We all were in Calicut for our semester breaks, Ananya was also there...  we came to know about the tragic news. Ananya had been sent home by her husband's family. Their marriage was on the rocks, She told us that she could never give birth to a child. She had become permanently infertile. Her in laws were upset with this news. Detailed check ups on Anaya revealed her smoking played with some hormones in her leading to such a condition. She was totally devastated and we were so extremely upset. I had read somewhere," the biggest dream of a woman will be to give birth to her child". I felt so bad for thinking she was deprived of that dream and her failed marriage. Most disappointing days of us friends passed like that.

      Ananya's fate could be a rare case, but it made me discourage all women and underage smokers from smoking. Whenever I see a friend especially a girl, smoking, I persuade her to give up smoking for a better life and stronger hopes, because I feel what happened to Ananya should not happen to anyone else. I do not know anyone other than Darrel Winfield-The original Marlboro man who died due to smoking, but I can never support smoking, I hope you also never support smoking....

      Maybe gods wish or some good luck. Ananya did not go through a divorce, During the counselling before divorce, her husband and his family had a change of mind, they accepted her back. After a year they adopted a child. Now they both and their baby girl live happily in this beautiful world..... 

     

           My dear friends........ Quit smoking for a better life!!!

Starting troubles

And when my very creative best friend started blogging. I felt I also should start, and on a spontaneous energy burst or a random thought, here I am creating a blog account followed by writing my first blog. Hold on but how do I write a blog... Should go and ask my grandfather;no he does not blog, but he has been writing diary since decades and he may be able to help out. On second thoughts, my grandfather writes daily a page of diary about what happened that day in his life,under the corresponding date, I guess I don't want to follow on that line. Maybe I will write once in a month or so on a spontaneous energy burst like this one which added a blogging ID and a web address(well almost) to my kitty.

So sitting here on a lazy afternoon, watching my colleague having a good snore on his desk diagonally opposite to my cubicle.. and keeping my baby steps into the blogging world and thinking fondly about my grandfather, i decide let the first blog post be for the family and about the family,for family is a prime criteria and consideration

Well my family, let me start with the boss, my dad... goals set... track set... aiming high.... and like others, my dad is my biggest hero. He is slogging in the middle east for the past 25+ years and I can say aloud that each heartbeat,each muscle, each blood drop in my body is sponsored by the Saudi riyals, the Kuwait dinars and now the Qatar riyal. Of course now I am earning and surviving on that. My mother has been asking him to come down and settle down for years, recently even I joined the brigade with my mother. But father is not sure he always tells next time quitting for sure, problem is next time never happens.

I have the same feeling for my mother, what everyone else feel about their mothers. My mom is the world's best mom. Sigh I miss her always, her voice, food, or even the mere presence around makes me happy. She is a housewife, father was away and she bought me and my sis up, so I guess more bonding with my sis and mom for me compared to dad. What I want is them to be together wherever be it India or Qatar. But mother cannot go now due to my sister's maternity issues.

Talking about my sister, who married the love of her life, my brother in law whom I couldn't accept initially but gradually won the family' heart. A charmer. She was my punching bag, my hatred, every bad word I knew, till I got my maturity and understood family values. Life taught me that blood is thicker than water and she is my most beloved sweetheart this day.

Along with that my granny,grandfather makes the package complete. I feel relationship with grands are so special, will never get that amount of affection from anywhere else. Love them both.

To complete the package I have cousins (1st,2nd,3rd etc) and a flock of uncles and aunts.... Looks like a happy family.... Yes it is one happy family, of-course we do have our tragedies and sorrows and hardships and tough-times even now... But all keeps us moving and time takes care of everything.

So I complete my first blog over a period of three hours. Feels good... maybe in due time I get better topics and writing improves.. Love and care.....

Peace out