A week end travelogue

Here is a travelogue from a week end trip, a result of a spur of the moment decision.  A rather sudden decision taken on Friday to visit a little known temple in Hemmaragala, near Nanjangud, but a powerful deity though. And so on Saturday, we are up at 5 a.m and hit the road by 6 a.m.  At half past six, we are still badly stuck in traffic, trying to hit the Mysore Road ! With the amount of chaotic traffic these days in Bangalore, fueled by the flyover and metro constructions, it looks as though we might soon have to ‘Fly Over’ to get from one place to another !!!!!! Finally we are on track, breakfast on the way.  And how do we know we are on track……Adu navigating from back seat using google maps ! Truly an amazing tool. Though we did stop and ask at a few places just to be sure, this was more or less good enough almost till our little known destination. As we cross Mandya, Anku finally understood what ploughing and 'hariyali' meant, but what’s the use, the exams are done with already J Should get the kids out more often I realized. Finally beating the heat and dust, we reach the temple which is usually crowded on weekends. But luckily for us, there wasn’t much of a crowd and we completed our darshan in relative peace and quiet. The deity, truly amazingly beautiful idol of Lord Krishna, supposedly 1000 odd years old. We have our lunch also at the temple and start back to Mysore.

In Mysore and found boarding by 2.30 p.m. Time for battery recharging for phones, cameras as well as ours J Down and out till about 4 p.m. At 4.30 p.m  after a light snack we head to Chamundi Hills. Truly a pleasant and serene drive uphill and the bird’s eye view of Mysore is worth a watch any day. Once again luckily, there was not much of a crowd and we finish our pooja and are out in a jiffy. As I am stepping out of the sanctum sanctorium with the pooja thali in my hand,  a monkey comes visting. I look at him approaching me and go ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE………’, but he tries to keep my attention by holding my duppatta !!!!!!!!  Suren picks up a coconut from the thali and scare it away. After a brief resistance, the fellow beats a hasty retreat realizing he is no match for Suren J Now I feel sorry for I realize he was only looking for food. I tell Suren, listen, this must be Hanuman……let’s at least feed him. We leave a banana and a coconut piece on the wall and he promptly happily picks it up. After a few quick snaps of Mahishasura, We proceed to the Nandi. More of click click!!!! And we finally head back down to Mysore. We reach the palace by 6.30 p.m to realize that it is closed by 5.30 p.m for public viewing, however there is a light and sound show scheduled for 7 p.m in front of the palace. For want of nothing much else to do, we buy tickets for the same and enter the palace grounds. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by the show. This was a slice of history under the moonlit sky, with a cool, gentle breeze blowing to add to the ambience.  The history of the Mysore kings and the palace was new to me since I had mostly known about it in bits and pieces only. But I was also a little disappointed in knowing that the architect of the palace was a Brit. Damn ! You just can’t take the Brits out of our history !!!! You don’t know whether to hate them or love them J The only thing I felt sorry here was for the foreign tourists. While buying tickets I noticed they were charged five times of what we Indians tourists pay. And to top it all, the show was in ‘Shuddha Kannada’ parts of which even my kids could not understand. They might have felt a little down I guess as would the tourists from other parts of the country who cannot follow Kannada. But a definite worth a watch. As they say the best was saved for the last, and the whole palace was illuminated at the end of the show. The collective ‘Ah……….’ that went off conveyed the awed feelings of the audience. Everybody got busy clicking away for eternity. I wish our schools would have light and sound shows to teach history to our kids, then perhaps they would remember more of it without much effort and would learn to appreciate it as well.

 Next day, we reach the zoo by 8.30 a.m. Anku by now is a little pissed off with her ‘shareless sister’. Wish I could add a few ‘Ankuisms’ to the Oxford dictionary  !!!!! We trudge in, all enthusiastic, our first stop the Giraffe enclosure and click away. Adu is finally happy to see someone ‘looking down’ at her J The giraffes didn’t seem much interested in us ……..so we move on and get to see a whole lot of birds. And lo behold suddenly we see that a white peacock is indeed happy to see us and puts up his best show….all feathers spread out and dancing……a delightful sight……….We move on to the Tiger enclosure and find one fellow there is also happy to see us around. He runs around, climbs on top of his den, jumps into his swimming pool and tries hanging from a branch as well J His friend looks on uninterestingly as if to say ‘What’s the big deal?’ In the mean time saw a few people around who I think were on the wrong side of the fence…..Despite umpteen big notices to the contrary,  I saw them trying all possible things to get a sleeping tiger to wake up……We move on past deers, elephants, snakes and other reptiles, leopards, cheetahs, bears and so on……..By now the I am on a half ‘sun stroke’, my legs refusing to move despite breaks in between. When we reached the hippos, they looked back at us gleefully from their pool and I wished I could jump in as well !!!!! Finally the ‘the end’ in sight and I literally dragged myself to the gate. By now a gleeful Suren asks ‘Oh, you look totally down, we have to head back to hotel so you can recover…but I thought you wanted to do some shopping, Never mind !!!!!’  Ok round one to you dear….but I will get you yet……on another week end trip J By 1 p.m we start back from Mysore and travel non-stop and make it to Bangalore by 4p.m.  Truly if someone had told me you could do/learn so much in two days, I wouldn’t have believed it !!!