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2023 - The Year That Was

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
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Vijaya Dasami 2009

After the nine nights and days of navaratri, the festival culminated with Dusshera, or Vijaya Dashami. For us, the highlight of the day was our visit to the Fine Arts Society, Chembur for Guru Vandana and Vidyarambham – where we pay our respects to our teacher and begin a new year of musical education, or rather, Samhith does, progressing from the junior music level to senior this year…..

I complete this series of festival blogs with my photographs of the Fine Arts Kolu, one of the best in this area….

Here is the main Kolu..






This is the side decoration – this time, Tirupati, with a cave underneath…. I couldn’t get more details about this since everyone was tied up with the Vijaya Dashami celebrations…..

















Here are some detailed shots of the dolls….






















Well, thats all for this year, folks.... Shall be back with something new... till, then, keep reading my blog and suggest topics for me to write about!!!!


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Comments

  1. DollySeptember 29, 2009 at 12:53 PM

    Your pictures are beautiful, and thank you for sharing your Navaratri with us. Days have flown by so quick. Did you go to see burning of the Ravan ceremony?

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  2. Anuradha ShankarSeptember 29, 2009 at 12:58 PM

    @ Lost Wanderer : THanks a lot.. its been a pleasure...
    No, I wasnt able to go for the ramleela. since i was home waiting for some last-day visitors...
    this year, wasnt even able to take in the Durga Puja, since had to be at home,,,

    ReplyDelete
  3. A journey called LifeSeptember 29, 2009 at 4:04 PM

    wow .. nice grand finale to a very interesting and nice series.. ur insipiring

    ReplyDelete
  4. MridulaSeptember 29, 2009 at 8:26 PM

    Just an extensive and beautiful arrangement. Hope your son had a lot of fun.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anuradha ShankarSeptember 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM

    @ A journey called Life : Thanks a lot..... had a wonderful time sharing all that i saw around me..

    @ Mridula : yes, samhith really enjoyed himself..... especially noticing which were the new ones and what we could do next time!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. SoulSpaceSeptember 30, 2009 at 7:21 AM

    I enjoy the passion yu bring to your writing and how yu present it to your readers, it comes directly from yr soul..thanks...and thanks for leaving comments on my blog too...
    BTw..I am learning a lot from yr blogs..am trying to emulate it..hahah

    ReplyDelete
  7. chitraSeptember 30, 2009 at 8:58 PM

    Good pictures there Anu. Hope you and son enjoyed nav. well

    ReplyDelete
  8. sriOctober 1, 2009 at 1:15 PM

    You did best by writing about so many things about golu, decorations and wonderful pictures you have taken all along! 10 days of hard work, plus blog writing must have tired u down! Kudos anu! my wishes to everyone at ur famil and special wishes to samhith as he would get a day off on vijayadasami from reading :)

    ReplyDelete

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