in this far south there are such men who are lost to the shrill delectable beauty of the ghats..[part I]

steep;while scaling Ballala-Rayana-Durga. Chikkamagalooru district, Karnataka[dec6,2008]

It is here that you can hear the earth breath, smell the choicest of perfume and wonder at the vast expanse of the unspoilt Sahyadri. In the enormous district of Chikkamagalooru, Karnataka you get the perfect slice of the ghats and her forests and rivers, her men and their old temples, Gods, Goddesses and the still silence of their abodes. Unruffled by the bustle of IT but accessible from Bangalore are the pristine ranges of Kudremukh, a fort named BallalaRayanaDurga three hours and a half uphill the ghats, River Tunga kissing the age-old Sharada temple at Sringeri and the benevolent gaze of Shiva at Kalasa and Annapoorneshwari at Horanadu. The HanumanGundi falls and the water-snakes, Gangamoola the source of three rivers, the Mangalore state highway flanked on both sides with the densest of forests and the fragments of iron and mica of this rich land; these, for the intrepid traveler, makes Chikkamagalooru, a dream destination.

unconstrained; river Tunga kissing the steps from Sharadamma temple, Sringeri.[dec-7,2008]

Half way through the two days you may take to tour Chikkamagalooru, you might faint due to the sheer visual impact of a land so beautiful. And like what happened with the Kaveri you will be instantly hooked and decide that this is not the last time.

To the far south of India lies a storehouse of natural beauty. Sahyadri; which stretches from the base of Gujarat to the southern queen of Kanyakumari, it envelops many districts both huge and small; like Chikkamagalooru, Wayanad, Hassan, Shivamogga, Kottayam, Idukki, and Trivandrum.

Agumbe, Kodagu, Nilgiris, Chembra, Mudigere, Agasthyarkoodam all become ‘destination nexts’ for men who are enthralled by Chikkamagalooru.

Yes, there needs be men who size the south; men who love landscapes and languages.

In this far south there are such men who are lost to the shrill delectable beauty of the ghats.

On the trail of the sensuous enchantress of the bountiful south…..[part I]

Accessible from the city of Bangalore within a few hours of travel are many exotic locations caressed by the river Goddess Kaveri. It is in the southern districts of Karnataka, as she enters Tamil Nadu that she begins to take form, fullness and shape. Blessing the vast scapes of the deccan, she is indeed the sensuous enchantress of the south bringing fertility and life to the arable lands between the ghats.

As she unravels her bare bosom across Mandya, she is a delectable maiden flush with the waters of the Sahyadri. Just past the monsoon, her waters brim and dance down the falls of Shivanasamudram in Mandya and Hogennekal in Dharmapuri. While men around her fight in the name of language and spill her water in cold dispute, she maintains her naughty seduction and sways her hips through her bountiful basin.

hogannekal, Dharmapuri district, Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border.[Sept-20,2008]

shivanasamudram, Mandya district, Karnataka.[Sept-6,2008]

Her falls are famous and men flock to them, revel in the seasonal fullness and sing her praise.

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Rivers are our wealth. They bring the life-blood for our agriculture, they light our hydel-powered homes and they keep our traditions alive. They have seen men and their empires rise and fall, not once but many a time. And if we quarrel over their waters and waste their lay across the land, there will be none to blame as we thirst to death.

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After Hogannekal and Shivanasamudram, one can have a respite, sure. But when you are on the trail of the bringer of bliss, and when you have been seduced by the apsaras of the south, you cannot stop with Mandya and Dharmapuri. Deep down at Mettur she is restrained, and let loose again; she brings a verdant hue to the fields of Tanjavur and Tirichi, and finally merges into the Bay of the Bengal.

Not just that, her tresses at TalaKaveri excite you into the trail too, a trail of the sensuous enchantress of the bountiful south…..

And when the three religions climax in a warring orgy it will be here..

Russia is busy with her new wealth and power, with the Siberian oil fields and the Caucasus. China is emboldened by her visibility post the Beijing Olympics and is steaming ahead on the economy front. America has lost her war in Iraq and in the mountainous deserts of Afghanistan, and her banks – the fortresses of capitalism are crumbling down and bottlenecked. Europe is busy with clean energy, trade and tourism. Australia is still pre-dominantly uninhabited. Africa is battling disease, starvation, dictators and other third world troubles. Latin America is busy with soccer and sex.

Though bogged down by political entanglements and power struggles, floods and infrastructure constraints, disputes and shaky status-quos, the Indian subcontinent remains the only landmass with adequate representation from all three of the world’s greatest religions and enough idle time for the three religions to climax in their warring orgy. And if you have noticed it has begun.

Forcible conversions, murder of holy men – self-proclaimed and otherwise, blatant bombings, desecration of prayer-halls and churches, it has all begun in earnest. As these pick-up speed our landmass will become the Kurukshetra of religious antagonism, rife with war and plunder in the name of our shepherds, boiling with the burning fury of men who love their Gods.

Our soil will soak in blood, our rivers will be stained.

Some conspiracies are hatched with purpose. Some purposes last.

Do I see one or do I see many; Rasaleela.

Krishna is an iconic figure in Indian mythology. He was the master plotter in a conspiracy which has more than one invisible dimension. After all these years Arjuna is still the hero nonpareil, an example, an inspiration, a motivation, a someone to emulate.

The prima facie dimensions of the conspiracy are common sitting room discussions; Krishna’s critical moot points that aroused Arjuna from his eleventh hour gloom, Krishna’s complicity in burning the Khandava and the subsequent gifting of the Gandiva to Arjuna by Agni and Varuna, Krishna’s coy all along the exile. For sure he is a conspirator par excellence.

Let us not get into an argument on the truth of our great stories, whether something of those sorts occurred? It would kill the discussion.

That for now is a given.

Arjuna was made to travel the length and breadth of Bharathavarsha in Bharatha. First as a punishment for infringing Draupadi’s time with his brother; then as part of the exile; then an exile within the exile; and then countless post war forays into the Indian heartland. Even today through out the Indianscape one can hear stories related in the name of Arjuna; his deeds swell in surfeit. Countless instances have been deliberately inserted into the Bharatha to give ample space and time for Arjuna to have had been everywhere and anywhere. All other competition to our hero was compromised elsewhere and else-wise.

Now I wonder, was Krishna the real conspirator? Rather I would say, the men of the past ages who brought up this mega-epic; who penned these magnificent enriching stories; who narrated it down our lineage, they made up the conspiracy. They gave Arjuna the place in our stories, the time to have traversed the whole of our motherland. They made it possible for him to have become a part of every folklore.

Now I know that the temple town of Tripunithura and the legend surrounding the Poornathrayeesan is part of that conspiracy. That Arjuna descended the Deccan onto the western coastline of the sub-continent is no matter of chance, no routine goings –on of his time. The legend itself is a drama that baffles human imagination; let us keep that for another day.

For now, what matters is that Arjuna was made to carry that ‘vigraham’(idol) in his quiver, was assisted by Ganapati and was instrumental in fixing the place to keep the idol and ‘bring up’ the temple.

ha, That sweet whiff of carbon in my temple-town at night.

Walk along the by-ways of the Tripunithura temple-town at night and you can whiff the carbon in the air and say, “Yes, Arjuna was here some days ages and ages before. Yes he was right here then”. And you will swell with pride because the heroic stories of Arjuna shall echo from across the ages and lift your spirit.

Some conspiracies are hatched with purpose. Some purposes last. We owe a lot to our ancestors who gave us pitching moments in history, and people larger than life.