After a long time....

Owing to reasons that I'm busy with work these days and a bit lazy :P, couldn't post any new stuff here. To wrap up, work as a researcher is rocking. Pretty happy to get into this line as my career. Seriously considering for studying further for a PhD.

In May, I have taken my aged parents to Chardham yatra pilgrimage in Uttarakhand. These are Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. Apart from these also visited Haridwar, Rishikesh, Pancha Prayaga. Had a great sense of satisfaction taking my parents to all these places as this yatra is considered to be toughest next only to Amarnath & Kailash Manasarovar. It was a terrific experience in the lap of Himalayas for 10 days. Will post in detail soon....

Enchanting TamilNadu

Having turned habitual to pilgrimages during my masters in Bangalore, I planned to visit great temples in central TamilNadu. Unlike other trips which I usually go alone or friends, I went with my Mother. She wanted to visit these for long time now.

It was a 4-day trip and places included:

SriRangam, Trichy, Jambukeswaram, Thanjavur, Thiruvayuir, Thirunallar, Kumbhakonam, Vaitheeswaran Koil, Chidambaram

We started by taking Chennai exp from Hyderabad on sept 11th and a connecting train from Chennai Egmore, Guruvayur exp and reached SriRangam on the next day around 1pm.

SriRangam:

World’s largest temple (until recently where Delhi’s SwamiNarayan temple broke this record) covering some hundreds of acres of land where most of the town resides in the walls (Prakarams ). Even the hotel where we stayed is inside 5^th prakaram out of 7 (??). After refreshing we proceeded to the temple. What a big temple it was, truly amazing. The temple tower (gaali gopuram) is the world’s largest and can be seen directly from RockFort hill, Trichy about 20kms away. SriRangam is most sacred place specially for Vaishnavites and tops the list of 108 Divya Desams (prominent places) where Tirupati lies somewhere between 2^nd and 4^th place.

This is abode of Sri RanganathaSwamy, Lord Vishnu in a sleeping position on AdiSesha, giant serpent. Auspicious Thread ceremony (upanayanam) was being performed to the deity on the day we went. So it was heavily crowded. However we got a splendid darshan of Him. Later, we proceeded to Sri Ranganayaki ammavari temple and thousand pillar mantapa.

Next destination was Jambukeswaram, around 10kms from SriRangam.

Jambukeswaram:

This is one of the Panchabhoota sthalas of Lord Shiva, signifying Water. Other being Kanchi-Earth, Tiruvannamali-Fire, SriKalahasti-Air, Chidambaram-Sky. In this trip, after visiting this & Chidambaram, I’ve covered all five in the list. J

Evening palanquin seva was going on when we entered the temple. The architecture was amazing with a direct view of sanctum sanctorum from a long distance. The Shiva Linga lies in water here. Later visited Sri Akhilandeswari devi temple. They say, this avatar of Devi is as powerful as Kamakshi of Kanchi, Meenakshi of Madurai, Visalaakshi of Varanasi.

Trichy:

Reached here as early as 5.30am. Infact SriRangam and Jambukeswaram are considered outskirts of Trichy city rather than nearby towns. Trichy is a wonderful city and I liked it better than Madurai. The Rockfort temple of Lord Ganesha is the most striking place here. After climbing around 500 steps we reached the peak and had nice darshan. View of the city is awesome from this peak. One can see the temple towers of SriRangam and Jambukeswaram from this place.

Later in the day, we moved to Thanjavur (Tanjore) around 100 kms from here. We passed through NIT campus on the way.

Thanjavur:

One of UNESCO’s world Heritage sites from India, Thanjavur’s Sri Brihadeeswara temple is distinctly splendid. The architecture of the temple is amazing. It is known that the shadow of the Gopuram never falls on the land.

Built by Chola dynasty emperors in around 12^th century,

this temple stands distinguishes itself as masterpiece of the works of great Indian kings. The Shiva Linga is too big and fills up the entire sanctum-sanctorum. Priests perform Abhishekam standing on the top a ladder. The bull (Nandi) is very huge here.

We missed visiting Saraswati mahal library, where digitization of ancient tamil and Sanskrit literature is going on, one of few such centers in India. Hope pictures speak more than my words for this temple.

Next destination, Thiruvayuir is around 12kms from Thanjavur.

Thiruvayuir:

This not-so-famous village has ancient temple of Lord Shiva and Saint Thyagaraja, the great carnatic classical singer’s Samadhi. I definitely did want to visit this temple for its significance. Temple of Sri Thyagaraja is very small with His Deity, lying on the banks of river Kaveri. Original idols of Lord Rama worshipped by Sri Thyagaraja in those days are still present there. We were told by the priest that Sri Thyagaraja’s Samadhi is present 100 feet directly under his idol and also 5^th generation of his family still resides in that village. Wanted to visit them to but couldn’t due to time constraints. Then we moved to Lord Shiva temple. I was shocked to see the state of this temple unlike Thanjavur temple just 15kms away. I didn’t understand why the Govt. officials didn’t develop this temple. There was a board outside asking for donations for providing day-long electricity to the temple as it has the same just for 2hrs in a day.

This temple is mentioned in the movie Aparichitudu / Anniyan where the actor and his family go for group concert on thyagaraja classics.

Then we proceeded to Thirunallar.

Thirunallar:

One of the famous sites for Lord Saneeswara temple, known for removing all sins of King Nala. This village is located around 10kms from Karaikal (Pondicherry UT). We planned accordingly so that we visit this shrine on Saturday evening. Milk & oil abhishekam was being performed when we visited the temple. Lord Shiva here is worshipped as Sri Dharbaranyeswara swamy.

This temple is shown in the Tamil/Telugu movie Shivaji too, where the actress is shown interrogated by the CBI.

After staying there that night, next day we proceeded to Kumbhakonam

Kumbhakonam:

This is world famous as “City of temples” consisting some hundreds of temples. We visited Rahu temple, Sri Saarangapani temple, Sri Kumbheswarar temple, Sri KodandaRama swamy temple etc. People say that it takes two days to visit all important temples here. I guess half of the city is covered by temples only. This city is base ground for important pilgrimage circuit called NavaGraha koil darshanam. Huge temples were constructed by emperors, one for each planet. So nine temples in all, where all are located in radius of 10-40kms from Kumbhakonam.

After lunch, we moved to our next destination Vaitheeswaran koil

Vaitheeswaran koil:

Lord Shiva here is considered as doctor that he cures all diseases. Hence the name. Unlike in any other temples in India, Lord is worshipped by salt and pepper. I’m unaware of reason behind this practice. This place is very much known for Nadi Jyothishyam, a form of horoscope reading where the astrologer asks only for our name and takes two thumb impressions. He then searches few old palm leaves (Taala patralu) and reads one by one and asks few questions. We should only answer yes/no. after few matches he finds the script which belongs to our horoscope. He then reads out the content in Tamil and explains us our horoscope. It was around 70% correct in my case.

Next, we moved to Chidambaram around 20kms from here.

Chidambaram:

One of the pancha bhoota sthalas, Lord Shiva is worshipped here in form of Akasam (Space). This temple has got many unique practices. Unlike any other Shiva temple in the world, there is no Linga here. He is worshipped as Lord Nataraja, the God of dance. His consort is Lordess SivaKami. So this place is world famous for south Indian classical dance Bharatanatyam. Also beside the idol of Nataraja, there is curtain which priests unveil. We find few gold leaves on the wall. They say Lord Shiva resides there in the form of space; signifying eternity and NOTHING.

They say there is a yantra on the wall that is worshipped. Another distinct feature is that abhishekam is not performed here to Lord Shiva, except for 6 times called MahaAbhisheka that is performed of idol of Nataraja, in the whole year one being on Maha Shivaratri. He is known as abhisheka-priya but its reverse case here. Luckily, we went on one of those six days where the priests were performing Maha Abhisheka with Vibhuti, some hundreds of litres of milk. Then the idols were beautifully decorated followed by Maha Mangala Harati. The whole event took about 4 hours from 8pm onwards.

Temple of Lord Vishnu in form of Sri Govindaraja Perumal, is situated just beside Lord Natarajar temple. This feature is very rare in Hindu temples. One can view the replica of this idol, if they watched Dasavataaram movie.

The priests here are from Deekshitar family who are few in number. Their dressing is very distinct. Until recently there was a protest for not allowing people to say their prayers (reciting some scripture) in Tamil where only Sanskrit was allowed.

Next day morning we started back to Chennai around 5 hours from here. Later boarded Chennai exp and returned to Hyderabad.

My picks from this trip: SRIRANGAM, THANJAVUR, CHIDAMBARAM.

MOZHI (Language)

The words spoken by the sky come as rain.
The words spoken by the rainbow come as colours.

The language of the wind , is it the sound or music.
The language of flower, is it the color or scent.
The language of sea, is it the waves or bubbles.
The language of love, is it the eyes or the essence of it.

Understand the language of heart, after all it doesn't need any words
- MOZHI

Trip To Madurai & Rameswaram - Part 1

This is the most unexpected journey of mine to date. Having decided during dinner at 9pm on Thursday 17 April '08, I packed my luggage and started alone by 10pm. I planned to visit famous pilgrimage sites Madurai and Rameswaram.


Luckily I got into an AC bus run by TN govt directly upto Madurai. This newly introduced bus was built by Prakash, probably to give competition to Volvo in Indian market. Most of the features of the coach was a mimic to its competitor except for air suspension which it loses to the latter.



Reached Madurai at around 8.30am. City is pretty ok. Also called temple City, this is world famous for Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple.

This temple believed to be built around 2500 yrs ago, was a nominee for new 7 wonders of the world owing to its great architecture. The symbol of the gopuram here is even used as logo for TN Govt. Checked-in a hotel nearby temple.





Unexpectedly there was annual festival called "ThiruKalyanam" going on that day. Its actually a 11 day fest held every year with the auspicious Kalyanam (marriage of Meenakshi amman and Sundareswarar swamy) on the 9th day. I felt lucky to be present there at this fest.




The temple was heavily crowded with head count of visitors crossing some lakhs. I wondered how much time it would take for me to have darshan. After an hour or so, I managed to get inside. What a huge temple it was !!! It is one of the biggest temples in India(along with Srirangam, Tiruvannamalai). First visited shrine of Sri Sundareswarar. Very much in accordance to the name, the deity was a pleasant sight.

Then moved to Sri Meenakshi amman shrine located next to this. The deity was too marvelous. Presence of parrot on right hand of the deity adds to its glory. Took special darshan ticket for 100 bucks and went ahead than the regular free darshan. After visting both the shrines, I made a point not to miss the famous Golden lotus pond located in the temple. It was too good.





After lunch, I proceeded to next destination Rameswaram around 165kms from Madurai.

Trip to Madurai & Rameswaram - Part 2

Started from Madurai at 2.30pm to Rameswaram. I was excited while we were approaching the famous Pamban bridge that connects Rameswaram island to Indian peninsula. This is a chain of the Palk Strait that separates India and SriLanka. Rail n road bridges were parallel but the one for rail is considered to be one of the best engineering marvels today in the world. The rail bridge has a section in between the length which can be lifted up for ships to pass beneath. But as I was going on bus, I couldn't feel that thrill. So I decided to return in a train.

Rameswaram is a small town mostly filled with sand :) Reached at 6.30pm. It took me more than an hour to take a room in a hotel. It seems they have order from Govt. not to allow single person for hotel accommodation. After producing my college ID card, I somehow managed to get one room in a hotel nearby the temple.

Rushed for darshan as it was temple closing time. It was very less crowded unlike Madurai. Had a very nice darshan of Sri Ramanathaswamy (one of the 12 jyothirlingas)and Parvatavardhini ammavaru. I was there about half n hour infront of the main deity while 1008 kalasa abhishekam was being performed. wat a splendid sight!!!

Brief history of the temple goes like this. Upon advice of Agastya maharshi to become free from Brahma hatya patakam, SriRama after killing Ravana, as the latter was a brahmin.This Siva lingam was made out of sand by Sita devi while Hanuman was sent to Kailasam for getting Linga from Lord Siva and he couldn't return on time. So this temple is famous for those who worship Siva or Vishnu. Next day morning I had another visit the temple at 5am where Mani darshanam is performed. It lasts only for an hour in the whole day. Pooja would be performed to a big Spatika Lingam, very rarely found.




After that I rushed to the sea to observe the sunrise. It takes 5min to reach the sea shore from the temple.Awesome sight.






Another important ritual at this place is bath at 108 thirthas/wells (currently around 22-25 operational). The guides there would draw water from the thirthas in small buckets and pour on you. This process is believed to relieve human from all sins. After this, I purchased Ganga water and presented there for abhishekam.






This temple architecture is also noteworthy. It houses India's longest
corridor with huge pillars on both sides.







Next destination was Dhanushkodi, native place of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. This area had peculiar geography. Land was present length wise, both left & right sides was nothing but sea.It was as very small village. Only sources of livelihood are fishing and sale of shells. From this place, one can view Jaffna peninsula of SriLanka.

So started back to Madurai at 4.30pm in Sethu express that runs till Madras. Till pamban, it was as if the train was moving on sand :P. The journey on Pamban bridge is the highlight exp in my whole journey. Train was moving dead slow. There were no supporting beams either side. It was awesome..

Reached Madurai by 8.30pm n boarded again TN AC bus to Bangalore at around 10.30pm that was coming from Kanyakumari which dropped me here by 9am.


Finally, readers kindly comment on these posts as I would be able to judge their quality and further improve.

List of favorite music tracks

Music is one of the ways I enjoy,as everyone else does, to get relaxed. Main constituents viz. lyrics and composition are very important to any one as such. Even if any of these is good, that bit becomes a hit. There are many who can't work literally without playing music in their machines. In countries like ours where plethora of languages exist, songs have different flavor varying on the language. Even then there are many common strings existing amongst them.

In my stay @ IIITB, I was exposed to songs and music of most of the languages. Recently, owing to the popular radio fm channels in Bengaluru, I made interest in few Kannada songs. They are truly awesome.

I list out here few of my favorite movie music tracks here (not an exhaustive list though :P) in the order Language (Song, Movie/Album) apart from Telugu, my native language which I would update later.

Tamizh:
Uyirin Uyire - Khakka Khakka
Aasai Aasai - Dhool
Lesa Lesa - Lesa Lesa
Malare Malare - S5 album
Vennilave - Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu

Kannada:
Ninnindale - Milana (terrific one)
Mungaru Maleye - Mungaru Male
O Gunavantha - Jothi Jothiyele
Minchagi - Gaalipata
Nee Amritadhare - Amrithadhare

Malayalam:
Oru murai - Manichitratazhu
Parayathe - Udayananu Tharam
Symphony - Devadhoodan
Ente Khalbile - Classmates

Hopefully I'l keep this post updating frequeuntly populating each category. Possibly I'll provide links so anyone can listen them online.

Meanwhile, enjoy maadi

Hell with this Bengaluru traffic

Yes, I mean it. Infact anyone who stays in Bengaluru agrees to it in a blink of an eye. I spend more than 3-4hrs daily for commuting between my college and office. Wish I could use this precious time for some other productive work. Non-regularized Traffic is very common issue in many other cities too these days.

Today I witnessed (rather I've been a victim) of yet another worst traffic jam. I boarded BMTC city bus from Marathalli to ITPL which I do usually, that stretches around 7kms. It took me total of 1.10 hrs to cover this distance !!! This was disgusting. The reason for this traffic jam was that people from one lane, having noticed no vehicles coming in opposite direction in adjacent lane, just jumped to that lane. This stream of vehicles included BMTC buses, company buses too apart from usual commuters. So at the next junction, there was a deadlock. No vehicle could move anywhere. Funniest thing at that moment was that few cab drivers were arguing on who went wrong. There was some foreigner who was happily shooting all this jam & fighting in his funky camcorder. I wonder they find everything interesting here. Somehow after a long gap of 1/2hr, some traffic was cleared and finally we resumed our journey.



Its foolish on our part when we forget basic traffic rules (infact common sense) for the sake of reaching our destination early. We are not only getting ourselves to trouble but creating havoc to others too. Just earning huge amounts and moving in posh vehicles doesn't have to make one a rule-breaker. Its responsibility of each one of us to ensure that we follow proper traffic guidelines and reach our place happily & most important SAFELY.