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Odisha Part 2 - Puri: The Experience of Jagannath

The temple of Jagannath at Puri is one of the four most important temples across India. Sometimes called the Char Dham – Badrinath in the north, Rameswaram in the South, Dwarka in the west, and Puri in the east – these temples mark four corners of our country, and each of these temples has a connection to Adi Shankara. He is said to have travelled to each of them, thus marking a sacred geography of India, long before the country actually existed. Among these 4 temples, 3 are dedicated to Lord Vishnu, while only Rameswaram is dedicated to Lord Shiva, though the lingam there is said to have been installed by Rama. Further, Shankara set up Mutts at 3 of these sites (or very close to these sites, like at Badrinath, where the mutt is at Joshimutt), while the mutt in the south is at Sringeri in Karnataka, quite a distance away from Rameswaram. Coming back to the topic, I have visited Rameswaram most often, Badrinath during my childhood, and Dwaraka a few times, but Puri had stayed out of re...
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Memories of bangs and scares.....

I have been tagged by Sujata  and the rules of the photo tag are:
1. Open your first photo folder.
2. Scroll to the 10th photo.
3. Post the photo on your blog and tell the story behind it and
4. Tag people to do the same.

So here is mine…….




This one is certainly not one of my better shots, and the only excuse I can offer is that I was just learning to use my new digital camera. My sister-in-law had come to Bombay for Diwali and we had headed off to Shirdi for the Diwali holidays. All of us wanted a break and a proper vacation, something which Shirdi does not offer, and decided to head to Bordi…..you can read about our trip here.

Anyway, there we were, on Diwali…….. on a beach drier than anything we had ever seen, and Sandhya and Shankar headed off to find fire crackers. Samhith was thrilled at the idea, but once we began, he was so scared that he refused to participate, and huddled behind us in fear!!! I am not too fond of crackers either, and I occupied myself taking photos of Shankar trying to induce Samhith to set off at least one cracker while the others enjoyed themselves……..


Of course, that was two years back…. Today, it’s another story with Samhith looking forward to lighting crackers by himself this year!!!! Of course, none of us like the ones which make a big bang, and enjoy setting off only the simple ones like flowerpots and Bhoomi chakras….

Now, here’s the part where I get to read about others’ memories……

I tag T&S , Lakshmi, Sankara, Aaarti,Patricia and Srivats….

Looking forward to reading your posts…..


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Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 30, 2009 at 10:17 PM

    oh.. thank you Anu... this one is really easy.. I'll do it instantly for sure!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. sriOctober 1, 2009 at 12:12 PM

    Oh nostalgic :) yeah bang ones are bit of head ach :) U tagged me ;) would do it sometime

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownOctober 4, 2009 at 12:08 PM

    It is very difficult for me to work with photo tags, but I will see if I can come up with something in my next post since my current post is already up today. I won't be tagging others but I will surely try and cross reference you in my next post Anu.

    ReplyDelete
  4. GlennisOctober 4, 2009 at 12:29 PM

    An interesting picture that tells a story.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anuradha ShankarOctober 4, 2009 at 1:15 PM

    @ Patricia: shall look forward to reading yours....

    @ Srivats : Hey, you should have some interesitng pics now.. make it the first folder of your europe trip....

    T&S : no problem...... just wondered what pics you would come up with....

    @ Glennis : yes, every photo has a story to tell...interesting... isnt it??

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aarti BadamikarOctober 16, 2009 at 4:44 PM

    this is so cool anu!! damn nice!! :)

    ReplyDelete

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