The city of Kashi is filled with temples, big and small, old and new. There are temples at every corner, and you never know where you will stumble upon a small shrine. There are idols beneath what remains of trees (there are hardly any trees any more within the core area of the city), there are saffron covered forms resembling deities which seem attached to walls, an especially incongruous sight when the idol itself appears to be old, while the wall is evidently new…. And there are surprisingly large temples rising from what appear to be a bunch of houses. The city is sometimes colloquially said to be as old as time, and some of the shrines and temples are said to date back to times unknown, at least the deity itself, if not the structure. Not much remains of the ancient structures anyway. The city has seen more than its fair share of good and bad times. It has seen the heights of grandeur, and the lows brought about by destruction. The city that exists today has grown so haphaza...
Samhith says he is not afraid of anything...... Anything, except cats and dogs, especially when they enter our building, taking advantage of the grilled door carelessly left open. The frequency of such uninvited visits recently increased, to the extent that a cat tried to gain entry inside one of the houses, leading to a lot of amusement (and of course a lot of shouting and shooing and all kinds of activities). Finally, each visitor to our building was sternly told to make sure that they closed the door and didn't allow the cat to enter. The cat however, was one resourceful female (like all females!) and she gained entry somehow into one of the unoccupied houses on the ground floor, and hid in the cupboard to bring forth a litter of kittens. Now, Samhith is certainly not scared of them. On the contrary, he wants to pay them a visit everyday! I had my camera with me (incidentally, to take pics of our Ganesha leaving) and he insisted that I take pics of the new family.... So, here they are... the resourceful mom and her kittens.....


Anu I am not sure if my first comment went through. But the cat family makes a pretty picture.
ReplyDeletethe kittens are so kitty :)
ReplyDeleteVery cute indeed!
ReplyDeleteThat lake is in a Ganesh temple in Borivli.
@Mridula: thanks...
ReplyDelete@Aarti: nice description :)
@Arti: thanks.. the immersion was really well organised there....
Nice Blog! Well most of your content and image is original and informative. /many thanks for sharing this, cheers.
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