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
The Summer of 2015 was a memorable vacation. We set out on a trip which took us across the country, starting from Tadoba in Maharashtra to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, and finally, Kanyakumari in Tamilnadu. This was the trip I literally travelled all the way from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean! The trip lasted all through the month of May, but the resulting posts kept me occupied for the rest of the year. I completed the series just before the year ended, and here is a look at the whole journey.... first, through my attempt at Storifying the series.... and with links to all the individual posts...
- The Himachal Series
- The Southern Jaunt
- Our Tirunelveli Temple Run
- Part 1: Introduction and Nellaiappar Temple
- Part 2: Valliyoor, Thirukkurungudi, Kalakkad, Athalanallur
- Part 3: Thiruppudaimarudhur
- Part 4: Sorimuthu Ayyanar Kovil, Mannarkovil, Tenkasi, Kuttralam
- Part 5: Nava Tirupati
- Part 6: Tiruchendur
- Part 7: Nava Kailasam
- Part 8: Karungulam
- Part 9: Sankarankovil
- Part 10: Some Temples around Sankarankovil and thoughts on our disappearing heritage
- Part 11: Kazhugumalai
Nice trip!! and good photos!!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Aravind!
DeleteThere are so many great stories and snaps just in your condensed version! I'm looking forward to the detailed blog posts. As I was looking through your pictures there were a lot of dramatic skies with all the rain you encountered. I know it was probably dismaying to have to deal with the bad weather, but it made for some beautiful photo compositions. And your sister-in-law's gardens are absolutely gorgeous! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Natalie!!! and yes, the rains were actually welcome... we expected it to be burning hot, and the rains ensured that the weather was perfect!
DeleteWonderful teaser. Look forward to those lovely stories. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Niranjan!!!
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