Trip to Shravanabelagola

A job change has meant lesser time at home (or office :-)) to update the blog.

We visited shravanabelagola (SBG) last saturday on our way to hassan to attend a wedding. The journey was usual with breakfast packed for kids to be eaten during journey, kids' favourite movie songs playing on the car stereo (they also listened to 'gaalipata' songs {new kannada movie} and fell in love with them instantly), breakfast, snacks messing up the leather seats & flooring of the car and kids changing seats & moving between passenger & back seats about 7 or 8 times. First stop was kunigal to visit the stud farm at around 10:30. Thanks to my cousin Teju, we feel pretty privileged to have seen this farm a few times and it is a wonderfully maintained 200+ acres farm with some majestic breeds and their promising kids. teju showed us around the farm and kids saw a few animals - horses, dog, cat, monkeys, cows, rabbits. So many on that farm that nidhi mistook it to be a zoo and asked teju, where are the deer?

After breakfast for us and probably the best tea i've had in my life, we moved on and reached SBG at around 12:45 or so. I had visited SBG when I was a little older than what neha & nidhi are now and that is 25+ years back. I still had a vivid memory of seeing the monolith but had forgotten how hard it is to climb up & see that. or maybe my mom or one of my uncles would have carried me for a while. There are 590 stone steps to reach the top discounting the really small 30 odd steps on the rock slope near the summit. It was scorching hot summer afternoon and we felt it'll be a hard challenge to climb up with the kids. we were hoping that neha & nidhi would climb atleast 30% of the steps themselves and that would help us manage our energies well. what happened was pretty amazing. neha & nidhi started racing on the steps and we were following them closely behind to make sure they dont slip. after about 100 steps, we were panting and started taking stops to catch breath but not these two girls. they climbed up all the way themselves and took their only stop at around 400th step. that was the only time they felt they were tired. we forced them to stop once more cos we were exhausted by the 500th step or so and took longer to climb. Also the first 50 steps or so are pretty hot & cos burns on the feet. Cool breeze calms the heat on the steps higher in the array.

Once we reached the top and entered the temple premise, it was telepathy at work. I & veena did not plan or discuss it but we both moved away from the kids (about 20 ft away) and temporarily disowned them. and the reason for that was the anticipated embarassing situation. neha & nidhi saw the 59 feet monolith in awe for 2 or 3 seconds and then in chorus blurted out "shame shame poppy shame, all the monkeys know your name, maami" (maami is god in kids language). They got the queer look & smiles from the 20 odd people there who had braved the sun & climbed in mata mata madhyaana. We gave the same look as well (remember we did not know them temporarily)

SBG is a great place and you can feel the tranquility of the place and calmness in the temple. A nice place to meditate, great view of the flat fertlie lands around the hill and a nice exercise to climb up.
It was a day well spent.