Temples of South India | The Lost Lander

< 02-July-2012>

On one of usual walks at Sankey Tank.. there was this guy at the gate giving away handouts.. the groundnut(kadale-kai) hanging down the handout caught my attention and I stretched my hand out to get one…

Sri Sri Sadhguru Baba (Sorry.. I hadn’t heard of this name before.. my bad..!!) had his program on “Inner Engineering” sometime it read.. All this spirituality stuff is too much to take into my peanut sized brain.. But this fancy handout is the only reason that has inspired me to post this 😛

“Spirituality is belief in an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live. Spiritual practices are intended to develop an individual’s inner life. Spiritual experiences include being connected to a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; joining with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.”

Whoa….. that’s an extract from Wikipedia..

“If you do not get out of your shell, you’re just a nut”- This definitely makes sense…

#Update as on 15-may-2020

Someone who started small with this peanut marketing, is now one of the most influential persons in India and the world: Sri Jaggi Vasudev or fondly called as ‘Sadhguru’, the founder of the ‘Isha foundation’. Big milestones are achieved with small baby steps, indeed!

An iconic statue of Adiyogi Shiva’s bust (it holds the guiness record for being the largest bust sculpture) near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu is a ‘must go’ place on the list of those seeking spiritual cleansing.

For the adventure seekers, you can trek up the Velliangiri hills in the neighborhood while your spiritual accompanice can get enlightened at the Shiva temple atop, considered to be one of the holiest places in South India.

<11-Aug-2012>

After a lot of last minute hiccups, the planning of more than 3 months had finally materialised.. And there we were… At Allapuzha.

At 10.a.m we were on the stands looking out for a nice place which would give us a good view of the river. The 60^th Annual Nehru Boat Race was scheduled to start at 2.30.p.m. ‘The crowd had started to pour in from as early as 6.a.m., to get a good seat’, we were told.

Pam and I were sitting in the last row (We considered ourselves fortunate enough for getting chairs to sit).. Sam had ventured out of our stands to get some good photographs and to find a better corner seat for all of us.

Just then, this gang of 6 huge Malayali men dressed in their white Lungis came in and stood behind us.. They pushed our chairs forward so that they could accommodate a few more chairs on the already crammed podium. We barely had space to keep our legs and we were wondering what they were upto. Without knowing the language, we only ended up giving them some wild stares. Pam belted out a few words in Kannada.

Next thing we saw was: Each of these men placing biiig hand bags in between their legs, covered by their lungis and each- pulling out a bottle of local brew (the tags on the bottle indicated that it was pure-strong-local). They pulled out a glass from their bag and poured the drink and gulped it all down RAW in the blink of an eye (It was faster than that of one drinking water). And then… One of them started to utter something to us- From the fact that he had just finished a bottoms up and the tone of his speech, we knew for sure that we were being verbally abused. Although with my little knowledge of the language, I managed to understand a few swears, I instructed Pam not to react. We would surely be outnumbered by men there, in God’s own country. Like a call from God himself- Sam called us to inform us that he had found a better place for all of us to sit. We vacated the spot in the very same minute.

On the way, Pam walked upto a cop and said, “Those men in the last row there, are boozing; Each man is carrying at least a bottle which they are not supposed to possess in a public gathering”. The cop replied an apologetic “OK, OK Sir, We will look into it” and walked off as if Pam had just spoken to deaf ears.

We met Sam and just as we were narrating the scene to him- We saw 2 more men carrying handbags and settling down right beside us. And soon they pulled out a bottle each, bottoms up, gobbled up some minced beef and then started cheering at the water in front of them, where the race was yet to begin. Even before we reacted, Sam pointed at the platform onto our left. More than 10 men were repeating the same procedure- handbags covered by lungis- bottoms up- cheer out loud. And then we looked behind at the gallery- and we were like “What the F***…??”. Every lungi fellow had a glass in his hand..!!! And then we knew, the exact reason for getting such a vague response from that cop. The Policemen were clearly outnumbered by those drunkards and that seemed like quite a normal phenomenon to the cops to take any action. And we too quickly learnt to live with it..!! Soon, the crowd of drunkards increased and also the excitement.

And.. The boat race had a roaring start with a lot of frenzy and madness.. We too were at the peak of our excitement.. And suddenly this scuffle started between 2 groups. The next thing we saw was random people being thrown into the river by random people… Typical to any Indian movie, the cops gave a late entry. They arrived in speed boats and pulled out a couple of them from the water and sped away..

The below picture shows:

A hard core fan who watched the match sitting on a coconut tree from 10.a.m to 7.00.p.m.
A drunk fan standing on a pole and cheering for his team whose limbs finally gave way into the water after 5hrs.
Another bunch of fans seated in the gallery who are supporting themselves by holding onto the electric lines.