Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it……

Every year we end up planning to visit India in July, during the monsoon season because of dependency with school holidays. I love rainy season, but don’t like to be imprisoned inside 4 walls. Would love to walk in rain without an umbrella and eat pani puri. This time we wanted to take our parents and vanish somewhere.  Our first idea was to visit Kerala. When we called up our driver brother, he suggested that kerala is not a good idea because of flu season and H1N1 which had broken few months back. He suggested us to explore north karnataka, and we immediately agreed, even though I don’t like visiting places which has more manmade things compared to nature. But after the trip, I really felt, it was worth. For the first time in my life, I was looking at manmade things with whole hearted appreciation.

Our first stop was at Chitradurga. We reached there at night and had booked accommodation in hotel Mayura Yatrinivas. We had planned to visit the fort early morning. Weather was cool and beautiful. Even though I had seen pictures of Chitradurga, had not expected that the fort and the temple complexes inside the fort were so gigantic. I totally fell in love with this place immediately and ended up climbing up the fort exploring places twice on the same day. It was worth the unbearable knee pain which got escalated. But thinking about the people who built and lived with the fear of invasion by enemies during those times made me feel, in front of their efforts and sacrifices, our momentary pain is nothing.

Hampi:

Our 2nd place of visit was Hampi. I don’t think I have any words to express the feelings I felt while visiting Hampi, badami and pattadakallu. I really wonder how someone can be so distructive that one can think of damaging the beautiful architectural marvels which can only make one feel appreciative. I really wonder how they lifted all those big stones and built up such wonders! Also hearing the history made me think, is this really true? How can we get back to the Glory again? I will let the pictures speak.

 

Musical pillars(Hampi):

Badami:

Pattadakallu:

For the first time, I was enjoying the man made wonders with lot of respect and appreciation in my heart. For the first time, the architecture did not give me a feeling that nature was spoiled. But, the destruction of man made wonders by intolerants made me heavy hearted and sad. There is no worship in most of the temples as the idols are broken. Still, for me, the god was visible everywhere, in the efforts of the artists in sculpting the architecture. I would like to visit the place again with lot more time and look at each piece and understand the idea and efforts of the artists who created these wonders. And next time, I want to go there with bicycle, and not commute with car.

Posting this blog almost a year after our trip, with one more lesson learnt. We had concerns while planning this trip if parents would be able to cope up with the exhaustion of travel. But we had really good time when we actually made it happen. And year after year, as their strength and health gets deteriorated, we feel, it was good we made this trip with them, else we would not have got one more chance.