Skip to main content

Featured Post

Temples of Kashi - The Kardameshwar temple

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...
Post a Comment

Back from a monsoon break!

There is no better time to explore the Western Ghats than the monsoon, but we rarely get to go anywhere in the rains, thanks to the school schedule. This year, however, we struck lucky, with the school changing its term breaks, and giving us some bonus holidays in August! Which is why, you haven’t seen me online the last couple of weeks. Where did I go? Can you guess from this pic?




Yes folks, this is Jog Falls in Karnataka, a place which has been on top of my wish list for a long, long time!!!

With the recent happenings in our family, Shankar wasn’t able to join us, so I first thought of heading out alone, with just Samhith in tow. Then, on an impulse, I decided to drag my mother along, so, for those of you who haven’t met her yet, here she is, along with Samhith, whom most of you know well by now!



The main idea of going on this trip was to give Samhith and me a much needed break, since we aren’t really sure how much we will be able to travel this year, and it surely did that. As you can see from these pics, Samhith did have a wonderful time…


Whether it was playing on the Om beach at Gokarna…






Or making sand castles….



Travelling by passenger trains…



Or picking shells on the Varca beach at Goa…




Or soaking in the spirit of Goa….



And these were just a few of the many things we saw and did!!


This was one much needed vacation for us, and we enjoyed it to the hilt. It is now time for me to re-live all that enjoyment, sharing all of it, with all of you! So stay tuned and keep coming back! There is loads coming up, soon!!!!

Labels:

Comments

  1. Santosh BsSeptember 2, 2013 at 4:34 PM

    Quite a lot of places covered... and he's turning out to be a good poser :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. MridulaSeptember 2, 2013 at 4:38 PM

    It sounds like a good holiday. Waiting to hear more. And the water fall pics are so beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RenukaSeptember 2, 2013 at 5:29 PM

    Wow! What a lovely place! I want to visit it too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. R Niranjan DasSeptember 2, 2013 at 7:15 PM

    The first photo is awesome.

    http://rajniranjandas.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave a comment for me so that I will know you have been here....

Popular posts from this blog

Gokarna Part II – The Five Lingams

We continued our Gokarna trip by visiting four other Shiva temples in the vicinity, all connected to the same story of Gokarna. The story of Gokarna mentions the Mahabaleshwara Lingam as the one brought from Kailas by Ravana, and kept at this place on the ground by Ganesha. (See my earlier post- Gokarna – Pilgrimage and Pleasure). However, the story does not end here. It is believed that, in his anger, Ravana flung aside the materials which covered the lingam- the casket, its lid, the string around the lingam, and the cloth covering it. All these items became lingams as soon as they touched the ground. These four lingams, along with the main Mahabaleshwara lingam are collectively called the ‘ Panchalingams’ . These are: Mahabaleshwara – the main lingam Sajjeshwar – the casket carrying the lingam. This temple is about 35 Kms from Karwar, and is a 2 hour drive from Gokarna. Dhareshwar – the string covering the lingam. This temple is on NH17, about 45 Kms south of Gokarna. Gunavanteshw...
10 comments
Read more

Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
2 comments
Read more

Review of Executive Lounges at New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS)

During my recent trip to Uttarakhand , I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. We were passing through Delhi, but we had hardly any time in the city. On earlier visits when I have had to change trains/flights at Delhi, I have always arrived in the morning and left again at night, visiting relatives in between. This time, I was arriving in the city at night, and leaving again early in the morning. There was hardly any time to visit people. I would only have a couple of hours with them before I’d have to leave again. For the first time, we considered booking a hotel, but there again, we were hesitant about the actual hotels, the costs involved, and the logistics of getting from the airport to the railway station and then back again from the station to the airport.  That’s when we remembered reading something about a corporate-managed lounge at Delhi station. We soon figured out that we could book online and pay by the hour. Besides, we also learnt that there wasn’...
2 comments
Read more