Western Ghatts with Mom

Inception
Well, it all started because of SGN. He described the beauty of Kollur Mookambiga and the idea for Sringeri came from YL amma. She was the one who suggested I go to Sankara matt, that lazy Sunday and the Vivekacudamani (it took me quite some time, to get the pronunciation right).

I was supposed to have gone with SGN on the weekend before summer placements, but it got canceled because of prasna with his guruji. And last weekend, my section folks were going unfortunately to Wayanad. If I had not gone this April, I could have gone with my friends now and had a galla time. Ok back to this weekend.

The trip
So how unplanned can one get for a trip? I was asking my roomie S, our hostel office uncle, couple of friends, Udipi seniors and at last, I decided, enough of this planning and left on the spur of the moment to majestic, without even looking at the bus timings in net. Mom could not cut office on Thursday for the KSTDC tour. I reached majestic at 5:45 and booked tickets till Sringeri and return tickets from Murudeswar for 23 November. Nothing else planned. The bus was supposed to leave at 8:45 and we had 3 hours. So I took an auto and went to ISKCON to kill time. It was the 5th time I was going, and it was the 3rd for mom and we were already bored with ISKCON. I could never sense the vibrations theere that i could feel in a small temple like Gavi Gangadhar temple.

Sringeri
So we took the ordinary bus to Sringeri and the road was so riddled with potholes at places. Somehow, both mom and I agreed that it was actually good for body, since the bus actually threw us up and down and since we were lying down, it actually, really helped me a lot. I had no pains of bus travel the next day. I dreamt of Shanmu’s mom who metamorphosed into my 5th class Saroja ma’m. I was half asleep and dreamt of sunrise.

We reached the temple around 6 am. From outside, it didn’t look like a temple at all. Some tin fences and a reception office. We were searching for a place to take bath and found the temple accommodation. The guy out there directed us to go to the temple reception. We took on the nearby lodge but there was no one there at the reception. So we walked back to the temple reception and found that reception guy, gave rooms only for those who had contacts. So we had to walk back and tried the lodges out there once more and later, we decided to walk to the other lodge a little bit far away and found the place was yucky and the charge of 450 disproportionate for the place. So we again made a first round and took bath in the free place. It was not so neat, not so disgusting as well. Water stopped while I was till brushing my teeth and came only after I had finished my bath. I found, I had forgot to pack my chudidhar pants and had to roam about in my grey jeans and sweat pants. Mom was not feeling good about this whole thing. There was no place to keep our luggage as well and we had to take it inside the temple, where it was clearly said, the temple is not responsible for the luggage. We left it at one sannidhi and took on to seeing all other temples.

Sringeri Temple
The best part was the unpainted Vidyasankara temple. The whole place permeated some kind of radiance that transported you to another plane. It felt so divine there. And we moved to the rivulet and found such big big black fishes which jostled against each other to gobble the little pori and biscuit that people threw. Man, I kept watching those fishes. It was as if the whole river was black with moss, which turned out to be these big black fishes. Mom said, it looked as if these fishes were bound by some promise.

Once we finished our darshan, we went out had breakfast at a place next to Maruthi bhavan, where the idlies were horrible and I left mom there to check out the bus timings to Kollur. We had the option to go to Horanadu, but I thought it would be overkill to tax mom. Besides my ex roomie had said, that the temple was not all that great. But yes’day my senior SB was saying, Horanadu beckoned him, it was such a beautiful place. And then I felt, yes, we should have gone there. So after making the enquiries, I dragged mom back to the temple where we crossed the bridge and went to the ashram were people came dressed in panchakajams and madisaar with lots of fruits for some pooja. I sat there, trying to read lalitha, and found I was soon distracted with the way people dressed and by the sexy legs of maamis walking like demure Japanese ladies clad in kimono. Think, it was not my praaptham to see Bharathi swamigal. I could have sat for almost an hour in that meditation hall kind of thing and found myself walking away, few minutes before Bharathi swamigal came in. There was big line of people waiting to see the seer. Guys were asked to remove their shirt by the security. I was amused to find “Beware of Snakes” instead of the usual warning. I wanted to see a snake. There were two elephants, undecorated. Mom said, they had so many scars because the mahouts had poked them with metal hooks, which I was not able to spot. We had our lunch at hotel in the first floor, which was again horrible and boarded the bus to Udipi.

Kollur Mookambiga Temple
The trip back to Udipi was nauseating somehow, with the bad road and the ghatts. I tried on lie on mom’s lap and it was a great relief when we alighted at Udipi. I wanted to see the temple here but found a Kollur bus was about to start. We sat in the first seat and after a long time, I found myself enjoying the way, in which the driver overtook and sped by, instead of experiencing heart attacks with every sudden brake. We reached Kollur around 7 pm and we found a room right in the bus stand for a mere Rs. 60 a night. It was spacious, clean and really good. We took bath and had a peaceful darshan and had dinner in the temple. Hot food and decent one on banana leaf for annadhanam. We returned to the room and I collapsed till 7 am. Mom was ready by the time, I woke up. We had apples first thing in the morning and again went back to the temple. I dragged mom to see the place, where Sugi was apparently swept down the shabernika river, when she was 18 months old. I sometimes wonder, whether this is linked to the fact that this is her last janma. The temple was crowded and we finished darshan.

Kodachadri
After temple, we found a jeep waiting to go to kodachadri, which just required 2 more people. We were told it was 150 per head and we were charged 175. We sat in the front seat along with the driver. We had a mallu family behind us and there was a wailing kid uphill. Downhill, it sang songs and that was good.

Once we reached a small brook, the driver got down and opened the jeep front windshield or whatever you call that and fresh cold breeze caressed us. Mom was instantly transformed. She exclaimed, hey look water. Hey look at this and that. I was glad for those moments. I really wonder how the guy drove the jeep. It was fabulous though. The view was awesome. I kept wondering, how come, there was so much of water logged between the mountains; it was like a river meandering between the mountains. Or is the water simply floating between these hilltops. At kodachadri, we walked up to ganesha cave, where Shankaracharya was supposed to have reached Kollur crawling through that cave. There was an 11 yr old Praveen who gave me a hand and acted the guide. Right at the beginning, mom stopped and said, no more, it took so much of cajoling to get mom up to the ganesha temple and later when the driver came to know, that we went only till the Ganesha cave, he was laughing that we missed the main parvatheswar 10 minutes further up. Well whatever, the view till ganesha temple was too good. The shadow of the clouds falling on the green hill tops, the strong gust of cool breeze, lush greenery all around, I felt like a bird flying high.

Bainoor-Bhatkal
It was 2 pm, when we came back to kollur busstand and the driver suggested Arya bhavan hotel, which served mallu lunch, that was too good compared to what we had been eating all this long. The moment, we came back to bus stand, there was bus starting for Bainoor. It was hot by then. At Bainoor, we took a van to Bhatkal. Who invented this thing - jam packed? It should be van packed. The last time, I traveled in such a van was in cognizant 1st year. The vans were later abolished following few kids’ deaths. There were 5 in the front, 4 in the middle and 5 behind, 3-4 next to the driver. We took another van to Murudeswar where, we sat near next to the driver.

Murudeswar
Murudeswar was good. It was not like going to temple, it was more like going to a beach. I quickly finished darshan to play in the sea water. We took on to the boat and missed sun set by matter of few minutes. It got dark so soon. Mom wanted to reach the water and found that water was not reachable since the boat parted water. It was the last trip and the boat was going to all other boats and the guys clambered to this big boat one by one. I felt, what if these guys were pirates and took on to knife and demanded money in the middle of the sea. Leave my paranoia. The guys were just jumping and shouting after a hard day’s work. Mom was in a hurry to board the bus at 7:30 pm. So at 7 pm, we moved away from the water and ate hot tasty parotta and green peas kurma in Bharath Bhavan which the auto guy suggested as pure veg hotel. He dropped us in a dark place stating that this was the bus stand. There was no current and it was pitch dark, past 7:30 and I was worried thinking, I had missed the bus. I tried calling up ksrtc customer service no. given behind the ticket, but no one answered. It was small bus stand, and I was wondering, whether the autowallah had dropped us at the right place. Luckily I found, there were other guys who were going to Blore waiting for the same Rajahamsa. That bus came close to 8 pm and we boarded it. Later it developed some problem with the crankshaft and with great difficulty, the driver got us till Shimoga at 2 am. After waiting for almost an hour, we got another bus and reached hostel at 9:30 am. Temple wise Shringeri was the best, convenience wise Kollur, but scenary wise Kodachadri beat them all. Back to studies now. Got test tomorrow.