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Temples of Kashi - The Kardameshwar temple

The absence of ancient Hindu structures in Kashi is something I have always lamented about. The shrines are certainly ancient, and that is something that has always attracted me to the city. However, I miss the beauty of the ancient structures that we see at other sites. This feeling is intensified when I see marble and concrete and tiles in temples that once would have been beautifully adorned with evocative sculptures, and worn by the passage of time, touched by the hands of seekers who came before. This time , this desire to see some remnants of an ancient Hindu structure in Kashi came true when I managed to visit the Kardameshwar Temple. The Kardameshwar temple is not one of the main temples in the city. It is part of the temples on the Pancha Kroshi yatra, a pilgrimage which takes one on a circumambulatory tour of the whole city. The temple is located on the outskirts of the city, on the western bank of a tank called the Kardama Kund. The Kardameshwar temple is one of the...
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White Browed Wagtail

Udaipur, being a city of lakes, naturally attracts a lot of birds. However, considering that we were visiting the city in peak summer, I had little hope of seeing any birds. We might have missed the rarer ones, but there was no dearth of birds, even in the scorching summer heat, thanks to all the water in the lakes! Here is the first in the series of birds we saw on our summer vacation to Mount Abu and Udaipur.....



The White Browed Wagtail.....

The Fateh Sagar Lake at Udaipur had groups of them all over the place, though we couldn't get nearer....


At the Nakki Lake at Mount Abu, there were a couple we managed to approach without scaring them away!





Thanks to the close look we managed, we now know how to distinguish between the White Browed Wagtail and the Oriental Magpie Robin! But more about that in another post!!

Did you know that the zoological name for this bird is Motacilla Maderasapatensis - and that the name comes from the city of Madras? 


More Bird-related posts from my blog...
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Location: Rajasthan, India

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