My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
Walking up the steep path to the Edakkal Caves, I stopped for a while to catch my breath, and leaned against this huge rock - one of many such along the path.
"Amma, it looks like a face" said Samhith, and I wondered what he was talking about. It was only when I heaved myself up that I was struck by the look of the rock I had been leaning against! It did look like a face.... in fact, to me, it looked a bit like a gorilla! A throwback to the ancestors who left their mark behind on the caves? What do you think?
Yes it certainly looks like a face, not of a gorilla to me but more like a Buddhist monk.
ReplyDeleteHmm.. it does look like a face. A mummified face to be precise to my rather overactive imagination ;)
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