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...
Mumbai to Shirdi is a pilgrimage I have been fortunate to make a number of times in the recent past. The first time I visited Shirdi was with my mother, travelling in an ST ( Maharashtra State transport) bus, one of those rickety ones we see on the roads. The journey was nothing much to write about, except that we were sore, and every bone in our body was aching when we returned at last after a tedious journey which we had endured for the sole reason that we desperately wanted to have a darshan of Baba, a pleasure which we had yearned for till then. Yes, the pleasure of the Darshan (twice- one after waiting in a queue which seemed designed to test our patience and insistence on having darshan, and the second which was so quick, and so wonderful, it was surely a gift, or a prize for having endured all that we had, and coming out with flying colours) obliterated all that from our hearts and our minds. After that, Baba seems to have summoned us often and that too in all comforts, ...