Driving to the Deccan, part 1

The national highways, thanks to Vajpayee's Golden Quadrangle project, are actually quite cool. Even though you got to pay a toll every 70km or so, it is well worth the money. Except when you are driving through Orissa, where you wonder which moron is in-charge of the construction work and why the road keeps alternating sides abruptly. The state charges an Rs 800 "state entry" fee to boot. Like a monopolistic old diseased prostitute harassing some military platoon in a desert with no option but to pay. And even where the roads were proper 4-lanes, for some inexplicable reason, not just motorbikes but even trucks regularly came at us on the wrong side at full-speed. Thankfully, the weather was pleasant throughout.

Anyhow, Puri itself was quite nice. Pity I didn't get the chance to enjoy the famous beaches, my stomach chose those two days to revolt in style. However, I did visit the famous temple there, and even touched the statues of Jagannath and his consort and whoever else they have idolised in there. Had it not been for morbid curiosity, it was a bit much for my irreverent soul, especially the bits where I had to walk from the footwear stall to the temple, barefoot on the road which had everything from spittle to plastic waste to dung to whatever else you can imagine decorating the typical Indian small town street. Inside the temple however, the religious fervour hit me like a hammer on the head. Seriously, I am sure most of you have never been pushed by a frail 80-year old woman half your height with the force of a rampaging elephant in heat. More than the push, its the surprise that throws you across the room. Thankfully for me, there was no space in the room in question to be moved an inch anywhere, let alone be thrown across it. Anyway, I was glad to be out and be done, and I think my relieved face at the moment led my mom to mistakenly believe that I had just enjoyed myself. And three days later, I had to throw a royal fit to make her believe otherwise. The upshot: I kept my word and visited Tirupati with them and have now extricated myself from all future temple visits, unless my soul is stirred with religious awakening. Frankly, I had rather castrate myself.

The Konark Sun Temple though, now that is something to actually admire. The construction itself was bizarrely intelligent for its time, and the carvings spectacular. The informative guide gave two reasons for the multitude of erotic carvings. One, the association with fertility. Two, more importantly, 1200 male artisans working for 12 years without the permission to leave the compound. Anyway, read more about the temple's architecture if you can, interesting stuff.

Tirupati and Tirumala, what strange places. Entire towns come around solely on the basis of a temple that is probably THE richest religious body in the world. Their famous laddu is now being copyrighted, and I have to admit, it does taste quite good. Apparently, on especially auspicious days, devotees queue for more than 2-3 days to pay homage. We, with a special pass obtained from the head priest himself, on a most ordinary day, had to wait for about 4 hours. The arrangements to take care of the pilgrims though are rather extensive and impressive.

What intrigued me beyond comprehension about both these temples I went to is this: most people get to see the idols themselves from a distance of 25-30 metres, if not more, and for barely 3-4 seconds, if that. And yet, and yet there is the madness I mentioned in the example of the 80-year old frail elephant woman. I wonder how often kids get trampled there...

Vizag is a nice city, hills on one side, sea on the other. Clean too, and civil people, unlike most of north India. We drove to Borra caves, apparently the longest natural cave in the country. Quite breathtaking, at least to me. Sadly, I couldn't get on camera any of the huge bat colonies that make patches of the roof their home. Of course, someone managed to convert a stalagmite in a remote corner of the cave in to a Shivlingam and I was quite disappointed when I followed a stream of people to that corner without having first inquired what it was. Also visited a place called Thotla Konda in Vizag which turned out to be the site of a 2000 year old huge Buddhist monastery. On a hill overlooking the sea. Breathtaking view, those monks at least chose a good site.