BELUR TRIP

This trip was planned mainly by Appa and Amma(MIL & FIL) . They wanted to do Panchamrutha abhisheka for Lord Channakeshava. Appa and amma went to Belur on 18th itself and we all had to leave blr on 19th early morning. As Planned bellige bellige 4:30 yeddu ready aagi we picked up Sumukh (my nephew) and ended up starting from blr at 6AM…every one knows bcoz of whom :-)

Like my wife said my family went to belur in a highly fashioned Chuffer driven Ikon i.e ME..This was also my first long drive…….I never thought this would be so fascinating…..no breakfast and no coffee and nothing till we reach Belur……on the way few stops for peeing n nothing else J. We took NICE road and reached tumkur road in just abt 10 min’s as I crusied at 130 kmph and unfortunately the same old traffic jam in Tumkur Road. It took close to 1 hr to cover 2 kms and that too I had to drive on wrong lane taking lot of risk…I had to thank Big brother (Bus) who was driving in front of me and shielding me.

With lots of curse from the rest of the crowd coming form the other side. I reached Kunigal cross.

Kunigal Road was one more mess……it’s a very small word for the risk what I had to take while driving on that road……first the road is so narrow and the road being completely chipped with chisel J I felt I was driving on Lays…guess u know wat lies ahead of me. I anticipated kunigal to better than wat it was having heard of UB Kudre Laya (Breading and Training Ground for horses) and not to forget Kunigal Kere (lake) which is more or less heard from every kannadiga as a Janapada geethe….gothilla andre keli----moodal kunnigal kere, noodokondhu eyebogha, moodi barthane chandirama….rest please refer to Google search Thank You :-).

After this great experience the drive till Hassan was better with landscape being good and a pleasant weather adding much life to our drive and of course Rafi and Mukesh singing for us all the way one could not have asked for more. Till Hassan I was the most content son on earth with my parents enjoying the driving my nephew to asking me to speed on and my Son on Roop’s lap, Road being good weather giving the charm I was heart content.

Then we entered the City of Gowda’s…..what u guys are guessing is right ….Yours truly HASSAN. The roads are as bad as the owners of the city. I had a different expectation of Hassan all together only to be rain washed with in few seconds after entering the city. Yenappa yellige bandvi and yake bandhvi anisthu that too on the outskirts of the city. Just imagin the plight of people who travel daily. Hope their baks are better.

However this was short lived as we hit the Belur Road. This was the best stretch I drove other than our own NICE road. The entire strectch of Belur road of 20 odd kilometers had a beautiful canopy like the one we used to see on Nanda Road (Jayanagar). We reached Belur at about 9:45 AM. To cover 240 kms, I took close to 4 hrs. Not so bad for the first long drive. By gods grace every one were ok with out any back problem. We had a quick referesh at IB Belur. My Son enjoyed the lavish space at IB. We had Idli and coffee and had to march for the temple where we had given for Abhisheka.

It’s a delight to see Belur in rain. The true value for the Archtectural Marval is so very visible during rains. One u enter the Prangana of the temple the feeling what you get is out of the world. Every one should experience this at least once in their life time. With light drizzle and cool breeze blowing its simply marvalus to be there in such a place of my heritage. I don’t have words to describe how I felt when I was standing and looking around the temple. I will get back to this later.

We had given for Panchamrutha Abhisheka….hope u know wat is Panchamrutha…just kidding…..The idol of lord Channakeshva is 12 feet tall and to see the abhisheka standing at a distance of 10 feet is just amazing. It was a pleasure to watch the abhisheka. After Panchamrutha abhisheka since this is the idol of Mohini Avathara of Lord Vishnu the god will be decorated with Arishina (Turmaric powder). It’s a heavenly treat to be part of such a great holy occurrence. In kannada I can say Thiddi theedidha devru sadha kannige kattidha hage iruthe. Adhu yentha adhbutha …..Sorry I cant explain in English…..forgive me please…..
Check the pic to know how beautiful lord looks when he is decorated with Arishina.

Now comes the next wonder of the world…..Far more than the seven wonders…..Only one in a 100 million may get the opportunity like what Shreyas got….he was taken inside the Garbha gudi and he was made to touch the feet of lord Channakeshava. Very very lucky indeed. Next we went to Goddess Ranganayaki Temple. We gave goddess, sobalakki and offered our prayers. There too Shreyas got the special blessings from the godess by touching her feet. And you know what he asked…..Namma ammanige, namma appange erothara volle buddi kodappa…….I am sure my wife cant debate this :-).

Shreyas enjoyed the most once we started circling the temple. He did Ane banthondh aane by sitting on different elephant idols……and any god he sees he just could not stop doing namaskara……..Both his grand parents had the time of their life playing with him there……the prangana was so slippery still he wanted to walk in the rain and he did it…..he njoyed every bit it…….

U know what Shreyas checked his feet size with that of Kehava devru paada……I am not lieing…check the pic if u don’t trust me…….

I had my best buddy sumukh….he just could not stop asking questions on each and every step…..he was over moon on seeing the proceedings upclose and being part of it. He wants to make a design of Mantapa for his house like the one in the picture…….First step is already taken…pic is there check it out.....

He njoyed the most when Shreays and his one and only ever green Athe was wid him…..any questions athe was there to answer……

So lot of study was done on belur wid his athe….and few heart breaks while seeing the tarnished idols…. Will tell more when I write about Halebedu…..

We collected prasada and went to IB and had our lunch there…..Puliyogre, Belladha anna and Mosranna. Relaxed for a while and set for Halebeedu.

So from here on we had two cars…one for Appa and Amma, and other we all…..Shivu was driving the other car and I was driving my car. Appa came wid me and Roopa and Sumukha went with Amma. We can reach Halebedu either by a good road or by a bypass which is a bad road…..Shivu being expert driver who knows the place and being from chenraya patna…knowing that we have few patients on board took us in that bad road….thanks a ton for his forethought.

Halebedu was considered just for Shreyas and Sumuk. We wanted to show shreyas the Amba mami(Big Bull) & Sumukh the history of Hoysalas. This was the first time for sumuk and me. By the time we reached halebeedu shreyas was fast asleep after playing so much in Belur. Once we entered the halebeedu temple we could only see the destruction caused by Allaudin Khilji. Its really sad when u see Belur’s Beauty and come to Halebeedu to see the destruction. I felt it as Halu beedu instead of hale beedu. Its not just that the destruction of the temple but also our heritage. Not only is the destruction worrisome but also we can see the negligence of it.

My wife had warned Sumukh and me in advance about how it feels in halebeedu after visiting Belur. This came true when we saw it. The ones who destroyed the temple are barbarians……The way they have destroyed the temple is unimaginable….Its really hard to explain the destruction of such magnitude. You should have seen sumukhs reaction on seeing halebeedu. While feeling sad about this the only gud wat we saw was Shreays getting up and njoing the Amba Maami. As soon as he got up there was no stop on he doing namaskara to amba maami and showing that to his Thatha’s and aggi’s.

Then came the time to depart such a historical place. We started our return journey around 4:00PM. Sumukha went with Aggi and thatha in other car. Every one tired and slowly started dorwsing off one after the other….it was Kishor, Mukesh, Rafi and myself….even my slept off for some time…..(5 mins) J. Even I started feeling sleepy and then the hunt began for coffee….unfortunately I could not find even a single hotel or Dabha serving coffee…..Eventually I had to have T and survive……Between we shopped Cucumber near Hassas as its famus there…..and trust me u don’t find cucumber like that in Bangalore……

The worst phase of the trip started once I crossed Kunigal…..Its a stretch of around 25 kms and I had to drive in Dark…90% of the vehicles were using high beam and I could hardly see anything in the front…..In one place I could not notice a curve until it was too close and had to take sharp turn……. it was so hard that my dad started doing Japa so that we could reach home safe. Finally we reached Tumkur road and felt safe :-) …..In next few minutes we reached NICE road and by 8:30PM we reached home safe :-)

As this is my first non technical blog I find it really hard to write a blog like this.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this blog……