Thirunallar, located in Puducherry or earlier called Pondicherry, is a famous town known for Lord Shani and Shiva Temple. The temple has devotees visiting all round the year, especially on Saturdays and one has to wait for 3-4 hours in the queue to see the deity. It is believed as per Hindu myth, people who have their saade saati or Lord Shani's cycle going on, are advised to visit the temple to reduce or ward off the ill effects. It is said, Lord Nala Maharaja, got Moksha or salvation post visiting this temple.

Way to Nala Theertham

My first travel trip this year started whilst visiting Hyderabad city and the much appraised Lord Balaji of Chilkur, which is more often popular "Visa Balaji Temple" or "Visala Devudu" (in Telugu, it means, Visa granting God). It was a Monday morning, 10th Feb 2014, I changed 3 buses to see the lord and Hyderabad being unfriendly in terms of weather, around 40 degrees centigrade. Having traveled handful places, sometimes alone, this too was on my wishlist for a long time and the time had come to visit alone.

Shops at Chilkur, on the way to temple

Shops at Chilkur, on the way to temple

Entrance to the Balaji temple

Entrance to the temple

Balaji Temple Gopuram

I reached the temple around 12 noon and was taken by surprise to see the rush. The devotees have to leave behind their mobile phones and cameras, any other belongings if you wish, in the locker before entering the temple. You have to deposit a small fee, as less as Rs 5 or Rs 10 to obtain the locker. As I entered the temple, I made a struggle to enter the Garbha Gudi to see the idol. The boards display that the devotee should make a wish without closing the eyes. You would also notice that there is no Hundi here. Lakhs of people visit the temple everyday and make a single wish by making 11 rounds and once the wish is fulfilled, you have to visit the temple and make 108 rounds. The temple provides the printed sheets from 1 to 108. Remember to take a pen to strike off the number as you complete a round.

I was mesmerized seeing the Bhakti of the devotees, young and old, men and women, rich and poor, busy making rounds and chanting "Govinda Govinda" with the palms joined. The Lord does not demand anything except 108 rounds, not even a Hundi as you see in other temples.

Street side shop selling bangles

Shops on the way to the temple.

It is believed that, a decade ago, when the visas were being rejected by the US embassy, people would visit the temple and then there were no rejections at all. I would definitely visit this temple again for its ambiance and divinity, though its not for a Visa. :)

I was at Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh (which is now Seemandhra!) in April to visit a friend. Chittoor is a stop before Tirupati and 1 hour on road to Vellore, Tamil Nadu. The temperature here goes as high as 40 degree Centigrade during summer and frequent power cuts. The nearby places to visit are a few temples at Tirupati, Kanipkam Vinayaka Temple, ArdhaGiri Anjaneya and Mahalakshmi temple at Vellore.

Having less time and considering the climate, Kanipakam was the nearest place to visit from Chittoor which is 30 minutes on bus. On reaching the temple premises, we deposited the cell phones and cameras at the counter. Note that the phones and cameras are not allowed and you might end up paying huge fines if you take them along inside.

The temple has a pond or "sarovar" at the entrance where you can wash the feet before entering the temple and few people also float the "deepa" or light.

Entrance of Kanipakam Vinayaka Temple

We bought a quick Darshana ticket costing Rs 51 thinking that we will see the god in no time, but stood in the queue for a long time and finally the Darshana lasted only a few minutes as there were many devotees in the queue. The Ganesha idol is a small one which is believed to be emerged out of waters and keeps growing in size. The temple is vast and well-maintained. Many men and women shave their head once their wish is fulfilled and many young new married couples, still in their wedding attire, come to the temple to seek the Lord's blessings.

There are many shops at the temple premises selling the "malas" worn around the neck, Ganesha idols and what not.

Shops at the temple

Shops at the temple

 As we had traveled in the hot summer, we had the popular "goli soda" for Rs 10 which is sold everywhere.

Goli Soda

Goli Soda

Goli Soda

Fruit seller

Various items for display by the seller

I bought the Ganesha cards that easily fit in my wallet for Rs 5.

Kan-drusthi Ganapathi Card

Ganesha cards for sale Rs 5

Not to miss the bringing home a Ganesha idol made of stone.

Ganesha placed in the waters

Ganesha idols with the Rudraksha and Spatika mala

 Last but not the least, how could I miss the souvenir and bought this cute little Ganesh, with the "Spatika" and "Rudraksha" mala around the neck.

Ganesha in the water

If you're visiting Chittoor, Tirupati or Vellore, do not miss to visit Kanipakam and bow to Ganesha and seek his blessings.

During Dasara, on Saraswati Puja, I worshiped my divine Veena with the roses and Parijata. All reading materials, including books, pens and musical instruments are worshiped this day seeking the Goddess blessings for studies and learning.

It was a rainy day and P~ was back to from Horanadu that morning, still tired. Horanadu is 100 kms south-west of Chickmagalur district in Karnataka state. The holy place is known for Goddess Annapoorneshwari who is an incarnation of Goddess Parvati. In Kannada language, "Anna" means rice; "poorna" means full. Hence, Annapoorna known to be feeding without one being hungry until your tummy is full. :)

My friend, P~, narrated the hospitality one could receive at the Annapoorna Temple, the way the premises are maintained, lunch and breakfast served with hot steaming coffee, sleeping mats and blankets provided in the night, one would never want to come back. The crystal clear water at the hola (river) where visitors would bathe during the dawn.

The temple is never short of devotees coming from various parts of the state. Some pray with offerings they promised to the goddess when their mannat( or wish) come true.

Unlike, other holy place in the whole of India, "photography is prohibited" here, too. Huge boards in Kannada and English are hung in temple premises reminding - "You are not supposed to click here. Be it with a mobile phone or a soap box camera. You would never know the consequences." P~ narrated one such incidence which stunned me. A well-educated guy just came out of the sanctum, took his mobile phone, zoomed in and click!.
A security personnel, in his mid forties, noticed and came to him, "show me your mobile phone."
Guy: "huh? why?"
Security:"It looks good. I wanna see it once."
**Security sees the photo of the idol.**
"Sir, photography is prohibited here. You look well-educated, can't you read Kannada or English?"
Guy: Looks shocked.
"I was checking some sms on my mobile phone, it was clicked by mistake."
Security: Grabs the mobile phone from him and drops it into the huge HUNDI. ;)

The best offering the goddess would have received. :D

Now, guess who the loyal devotee is! ;)

© Manasa. All rights reserved.

I was on a two day vacation to Udupi, coastal Karnataka, located 60km from Mangalore and 415km from Bangalore.
May 16:
We started our journey along with ten more people at 7:30pm on Friday night via Tumkur, Shimoga to reach Udupi by 5:30am the next day. Though, we prayed we reach Tumkur at the earliest, it took us 2.5 hours due to the heavy traffic vehicles. Others at Tumkur had been eagerly waiting to occupy their seats in the tempo traveller(TT) and we had a mini-dinner during the journey. The TT had a TV and the little devils pestered the driver for a movie which ruined everyone's sleep :( Sometime later, everyone dozed off, except the driver and the TV was still ON.
May 17:
At 3am, the headlights conked off on the highway and made our journey pathetic. The driver could no longer take risk and drive, since Agumbe(Western Ghat section) was too near and too dangerous to drive without headlight. We reached Thirthahalli. The driver waited until the first rays of sun hit the earth and then started. By this time, I had slept off. Suddenly, I felt the chill air blowing my face and I opened my eyes to see what was happening. Oh My!!! Scenic beauty of Agumbe. Why are all beautiful places so dangerous, located so high and one has to take so much risk to relish the joy of a lifetime?? I took out my camera to capture from the window and the driver accelerated. I missed a beautiful shot :( Down the ghats, there were lush green fields, chill air, and I covered myself with a blanket.
At 9am, we reached Udupi, finally. It was a long and tiring journey. My knees and neck were aching as I moved them. As we occupied the rooms, I dropped my luggage thud on the floor and dozed off for a while.
Everyone got ready and reached the Sri Krishna Temple/Mutt. Udupi is famous for Lord Krishna Temple. There is an interesting story behind it: In the earlier days, only the upper caste people were allowed to enter the temple premise. A devotee named Kanakadasa who did not belong to the upper caste was forbidden to enter the temple and see the lord. His both the hands were tied to the pillar and he sings with utmost devotion. The lord, pleased with the devotion, turns the idol such that Kanaka dasa could catch a glimpse of him. Hence, the name Kanakana Kindi is given to the small opening on the wall.
The temple is well maintained. At the garba gudi(garba=main, gudi=temple), the chill air AC blows and I never wanted to leave the place. The idol of the Lord is small and yet attractive! Photography, inside main temple where the idol is, prohibited. I appreciate the devotees, including me, who obediently followed the rule and didn't dare to click :)
Bangalore's weather is so pleasant and chill that I am hardly hungry. While Udupi, on coastal Karnataka, brings sweat in a while.
It was noon time=lunch time. The Krishna Mutt are always on time, be it Pooja or serving lunch. At 12, we occupied ourselves in front of the huge plaintain leaf which are used during festivals or functions. We had chowki oota(Lunch) after thanking god for the food we eat. The food was delicious, yummy.... and I was virtually drooling over it :D I relished the jack fruit payasa for the first time and it was yumm...
Post lunch, we rested for 2 hours and headed to Pajaka, 10km from Udupi. One of the Acharyas-Madhwa acharya, the founder of Dwaita philosophy, was born and brought up at Pajaka. It has a temple and several stories of Acharya are told.
On the way, we visited the Durga Temple on the hill top of Kunjaragiri. The place is a shelter for several monkeys, too. The previous post, Monkey Business, was shot here.
May 18:
I woke up at 5:30am. Though, it was early, I was the last person to wake up and reach the temple. Never mind!
After the darshana(seeing), we visited the temples near by in Car Street. These temples are very old, spacious and well maintained. The area where the Eight Mutts are located is called: Car Street. Since I was very hungry, my mother and I went to a clean and popular restaurant, Mitra Samaj, and had delicious Udupi special sweet dish-Buns. Another famous Udupi dish is Patrode.
Post breakfast, a small nap, refreshed our-selves and back to temple. Again, the lunch was yummy and I was drooling over it. Ate my tummy was happy.....zzzzz. I woke up in the evening and got ready on time for the Brahma Ratostava. Wheew, what an event! Evening Aarti, fireworks, dhols, devotees pulling the huge chariot with their energy and I was clicking them all :D The chariot is pulled such that it crosses all the eight Mutts in a single round in Car Street. Few people believed that I was from some newspaper and asked if it would be published the next day ;-)
I set the camera in continuous mode and kept shooting whatever I could. Man, you don't get to see such events everyday and what for a camera meant? My mother who did not spot me for a long time from the beginning to end of the event got tensed and worried. She thought I might be lost as commonly seen in Hindi movies. All mothers are same. No matter I am a grown up and even if I reach her age, she would still treat me a kid :) Later, when she saw me, she was relieved and adviced me to stay with her.
Now, we packed our bags and took a short route to our destination.
May 19:
Back to concrete jungle.
More pics: here.

I visited the Veerabhadra temple at Lepakshi along with six shutterbugs. I had heard that Lepakshi is also famous for the saree prints.
Location:
Lepakshi, situated in Ananthapur District, is around 15km from Hindupur and 100km North from Bangalore. The route to Lepakshi is very bad, NH being a dusty bad road along a stretch of 20km+ in the midway.
Journey begins:
As planned before, we had an intention of reaching Lepakshi we started off at 5am, reached there only at 9:30. On the way, at Devanahalli, we were able to capture the sunrise. Due to the badly maintained National Highway, we were able to reach the temple at 9:30 which indeed is a long journey duration for 100km. While we had almost reached, on the way we had poori with saagoo and chutney as our breakfast at a small hotel.
History:

Jataayu meets Lord Rama in Aranya Kanda of Ramayana, when Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshmana are heading towards Panchvatee to stay there after visiting Agastya Muni. In fact Agastya Muni advised them to go and stay there.
Jataayu was a vulture and was Raja Dashratha's friend. He helped Rama by fighting Ravana when he was abducting Sita. While fighting with Ravana, Ravana cut his wings and he fell down helpless. He could not do anything more to Ravana since he couldn't fly any more. Lord Rama says,"Le, pakshi" (Le-get up, pakshi-bird in Telugu). Later he lost his life after telling the incident of abduction of Sita by Ravana to Rama.
Hence the name, Lepakshi.

The temple is considered to belong to the Viayanagar style of architecture. It is also believed that 'Virupanna', the treasurer of the Vijayanagar Kings, constructed the temple in the absence of the king and used the all the treasure while the king was away at Vijayanagar.
Later, when the construction was almost finished and it was being supervised, the king returned and found the treasure empty. The king ordered, as a punishment to this heinous crime, that he should be blinded.
Virupanna blinded himself by dashing against the wall and hence the name "Lepa-akshi", a village of the blinded eye.

At the temple:
Photography is allowed without any fee in the temple premise provided that its not used for commercial purpose. One finds pillars lined up including and without the roofs, mural paintings on the roof, Lord Ganesh, Lord Shiva with a big snake over his head, huge Basava(bull) .. and the amusing floating pillar which supports the ceiling. The carvings on each stone pillar had a unique story if carefully observed.
The pillars without the roof is the Kalyana Mantap and believed that Lord Shiva and Parvati were married here. You find thousands of carvings on the stone pillars like "Thula Bhara", "ladies looking into the mirror", "Lord Rama, Sita, Lakshmana", et cetera.

On the way to the temple, there's a huge Nandi which is considered to be monolith. Other monolith is Lord Shiva at the temple.
People say that we should enter the main temple to which Lord Virabhadra faces the entrace. Instead, side way entrance is recommended. Well, I don't know the reason for this!
Other places on the way:
At 2:30pm, we left the temple premise had snacks as our lunch since there are no good restaurants near-by. If you wish to have delicious lunch, then you should head towards Hindupur which is 15km from Lepakshi.
Later, we headed headed towards Sultanpet-British Cemetry and Pottery which are on the way. Nandi Hills was the other option. The impression I had of British Cemetry was that it was a very huge graveyard, as I had seen in a few English or Hindi movies. When I reached there, there were less than ten graves who were resting in peace :) The very first tomb was Queen Elizabeth followed by few others. The graves are two century old. I kinda liked it. It wasn't scray at all :)) In fact, they were friendly to us..

There is a pottery town next to the cemetry. Since it was already 5pm, due to low light, I was not able to capture pot making very well.
At 6:30pm, we left the place and headed to Namma Bengaluru. We had evening snacks at a hotel on the high way. I reached home at 9 in the night due to heavy traffic.
More pics: here

29th March:
I was here at Melukote, a month ago. I had heard a lot about Iyengar Puliyogare than the temple at Melkote/Melukote :) Melukote means Fort on the Top; Melu(top) Kote(Fort). Being born in Karnataka, I considered myself unlucky that I haven't visited most of the historic heritages here. Thanks to few of the fellow shutterbugs who planned to visit Melkote on a weekend. This time I went there as a traveller and photographer.
Journey begins: We, a group of 15-18 people, were supposed to meet at 6:00 am in the morning at common place. To be there by 5:30 or 6:00 am, I had to get up at 4:00 am atleast. For over 3-4 days, though I had fever, reached home earlier, prepared coffee and had a small nap. I was relaxed and woke up at 9:45pm for dinner and slept off after an hour. At 2:00am in the morning, I woke up and would stare at the time display of my mobile phone, now and then. I couldn't close my eyes to sleep and got up to check if I had packed the necessary stuffs like water bottle filled, memory card, batterries charged, and most important:wallet with money :)
At 5:40am, one of the shutterbugs picked me up. I'm thankful to him for the lift. We joined others at 5:55am. Few of them had come by car and most of them on their bikes. After saying "hello" and "hi" to a few of them present, we headed towards Mysore Road and then Mandya. Since we had started during early mornings hours, all of us were hungry and few had breakfast at Kamat, Mysore Road and few others at other places. Though Melkote is 150 kms from Bangalore, it tooks us 3 hours to reach the main temple by car. The road to Melkote from Mandya diversion is well-maintained. One could find the fresh greenery and fileds on both sides of the road, dhobis washing clothes, bullock cart... And don't be surprised to see them :)
At 9am, we reached Melkote. The first thing we notice is a Kalyani(Pond) where most people take bath before entering the temple. We entered the pond and captured the Mantap, pillars, the pond etc. Later, along with few others explored the streets and found many old houses. Yes, you may never find such simple spacious houses in this city! I did a lot of street photography and the locals welcomed us.
It was lunch time, we were searching for restaurant. Luckily, we found an Iyengar Chatra who offered us the lunch. We donated a considerable amount to them. Then we headed to Gopalarayas or Rayagopuras- The doorway-four tall pillars and no towers above it, is an incomplete architecture of the Hoysala dynasty. There are twin ponds next to Rayagopuras which are also called as sister ponds or akka-tangi ponds. The place is also famous for Dhanush Koti-Rock is the shape of an arrow. I couldn't visit Dhanush Koti due to time constraint.
Finally, we came back to the main temple. One has to climb around 400-500 stairs made of stone to reach. The main god worshipped is Yoga Narasimha / Chaluvanarayana swamy installed by Acharya Ramanuja. It is said that King Vishnuvardhana of Hoysala dynasty was a follower of Ramanujacharya. I went to the temple at 3pm which was closed and would open only at 5:30pm, I missed Iyengar Puliyogare and seeing the Lord :( Oh, I shouldn't be saying that! I hope I visit this place next time and click better snaps :)
If you are planning to visit Melkote, its worth it!

Have you ever been to a city where you find an idol of Hindu god/goddess in every nook and corner of the city? Where you find atleast 2-3 temples a lane? If not, visit the City of Temples: Madurai, known for the famous Meenakshi Temple.




Other places to see at Rameswaram are Dhanushkodi, Ramarpadam, Floating Stones, Rama Theertham, Lakshmana Theertham, Sita Theertham, Agni Theertham. Bridge is no longer visible.

One disadvantage is that we don't find any boards in Hindi or English. If you are well versed in Tamil, you can enjoy a lot. By the end of your journey or yaatra, one becomes familar with the words-thambi(brother) and amman koyil(Goddess Temple) :)