Places impact you for a variety of reasons. And the same place impacts different people in different ways. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual experiences, where every single person’s experience is unique. And personally, every spiritual experience is unique, the same person can have different deeply spiritual experiences at different places, at different times. This thought has emerged because of my own experiences over the years, but especially so this year, with different and unique experiences at various places I have visited recently. I began this year with a visit to Baroda (Vadodara) with friends. It was meant to be a relaxed trip, a touristy trip, with our sons. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, but the highlight of that trip was a visit to the Lakulisha temple at Pavagadh. It was the iconography of the temple that I connected with, and I spent a few hours simply lost in the details of the figures carved around the temple. There was an indefinable connect with
My last few posts have been about my trip to Kumbhalgarh, and I have written in detail, probably more than required, about my experiences there. I felt that my posts were much too long to qualify as a travelogue, and be of use to people who might like to visit the places I have mentioned. I am, therefore making a fresh effort to write about my trip, this time in brief, giving the relevant details, but nothing more. I hope this literary effort is of use to all of you. Nestled among the mighty Aravallis are many forts of the Rajputs, each one greater than the other, each one relating a story of its own, a story which is part history, part legend, but which gives each of these forts its own unique identity. The Kumbhalgarh fort in Rajasmand district of Rajasthan is one such fort which has its own story to tell. Kumbhalgarh Fort Kumbhalgarh is about 90 km from both, Udaipur as well as Falna. We took the Ranakpur express from Mumbai to Falna, and a cab from the Falna station to Kumbhalgar