Why Madurai?

Two weeks before i went to Madurai.Its my 6th trip in 3 years to the holy city and 4th in the last 16 months. People ask me why i go to Madurai and what is special about the place. If i say i like the Madurai Meenakshi Temple then i don't think that gives the complete explanation about my fascination with Madurai. Whwen i went there in 2007 for first time i was so mesmerized by the beauty of the place that i forgot to take any photographs although i paid for the camera ticket. Then i wnet there in 2008 again and was disappointed to see the towers covered in scaffolding because of renovation works. For my next two visits also they were covered only and finally in last December when i went there i saw the Madurai temple Towers in all their glory shining with new paint and needless to say i was mesmerized and transfixed. During that visit i sat on the footpath next to the west tower in the night and life never looked more beautiful. The glory of the Madurai towers in the night is something that cannot be described and i decided then itself that i going to be back soon and last month when i went there i sat on the pavement again for one hour admiring the beauty. For people who never been to Madurai I can only say that if you are not going to visit it you are definitely missing something very important.

I am attaching some photographs of Madurai and although the quality may not be very good i feel its good enough to appreciate the beauty of the place.

A Memorable journey

In 2008 me and my friend kishore went to Vedadri Narasimha swamy temple. Its a beautiful place and there is a small temple for jwaala narasimha on a small hill. When we reached there a woman told us that there is another narasimha temple on a small hill nearby and the jwaala narasimha temple on vedadri and the other temple are connected by a tunnel. I tried to enter the tunnel but it was very narrow and i got claustrophobic. So we went there by road only. The temple is called Veera Narasimha swamy temple and its at a place called garudadri. When we went there the road and steps to the temple are not yet constructed and we had to walk on a 30 degree slope to reach the temple. Before we started walking an old woman was coming down the slope with some buckets to carry water and we found that she lives at the top in the temple and takes care of the temple. We told her that we will bring water and although it proved a tougher task than imagined (its a slope with very less foothold) we did it. Then we had a chat with the old woman and it was amazing. To start with she was living there for the past 5 years alone taking care of the temple and she must be at least 70 years old. That in itself would not have been amazing except for the fact that she is not an Indian. She told us that she is from Azerbaijan (ever heard of it?) joined a Harekrishna movement there and from there she came to India and then somebody told her that there is a Narasimha temple here and she came to take care of Swamy and stayed there. We were amazed because that place was lonely and on top of a small hill and at her age its a risk to stay at a place like that in one's own country and more so in a foreign country. She told that food and other things are brought to her once in a week by the sarpanch of the nearby village and apart from that she has few needs and spends her time in the temple with Narasimha swamy. All this conversation happened through signs, a bit of broken Hindi, English and a generous mix of Russian and we tried our best in English and Hindi and Hand signs to tell her about ourselves. We stayed there for about an hour and after giving away all we got in our pockets (ok we kept something for cab fare) we still felt that its grossly inadequate for her service and devotion. Honestly i don't think i will go to Bethlehem and stay there alone even if Jesus Christ calls me so its amazing what she was doing and we got nothing but huge respect for that woman.

Unfortunately i don't know whether she is still there or not but i still remember her and meeting her is one of the memorable moments in my journeys. Hoping that the brave woman stays healthy and happy where ever she is.

Sporting Disasters of the year (for me)

The year started promisingly enough with roger Federer winning the Australian Open and with Sachin in terrific form and from Jan - march i never imagined what sort of a horror show this year will turnout to be as far as my sporting heroes are concerned and there were no warning signs.
I was pretty happy that Schumacher returned to F1 although i didn't expect him to challenge for the title straight away. But when the F1 season started in March not only Schumi's Mercedes was off the pace but Schumi was regularly beaten by his team mate Nico Rosberg and i was shocked. Ultimately Schumacher wrote off the year and said that he is expecting that team and he will be competitive in 2011. That was the first shock.
Then Valentino Rossi who i backed to win this years title in Moto GP broke his leg and was sidelined effectively ending his campaign this year.
In May & June Roger Federer lost in French open QF to soderling ending his run of 23 consecutive Grand slam Semi Finals & again in Wimbledon to Beydrich there by ending his run of 7 consecutive finals in Wimbledon. As far as sporting disasters go Federer losing at Wimbledon to an unknown player is like a earthquake of magnitude 9 on Richter scale and needless to say it shook me completely.
But while Wimbledon was running as a sideshow because of football world cup i was pinning my hopes on Brazil to win the cup and they lost spectacularly to Holland in the QF thereby completing a disastrous year for my sporting heroes in this year till now.
There are some silver linings though in the return of Nadal and Sachin's awesome form but i am hoping that the second half of this year will turn out to be better than first half with Schumi winning some races and Fedex winning the US open.
(P.S. After Brazil lost i was rooting that Paraguay hoping that if they won Larissa Riquelme will keep her promise but they lost to Spain after a hard fought encounter. I guess by picking players and teams i am probably jinxing them. Hoping for a better second half)

What for?

Hi

This blog is to express my ideas and thoughts. I am a simple Indian who experiences a lot of elation and some frustration every day. I just wanted to share some of them with my friends and found a blog as useful. For the title of blog i choose "Pasyanti Jnyana chakshuha" simply because i wanted to keep a title from Bhagavad Gita and that sloka came to my mind (Utkraamantam Sthitam vapi bhugnyanam va gunanvitam Vimoodha nanu pasyanti pasyanti Jnyana chakshuha) which says that flight of soul from body is something which is observed by the wise men only and not by the foolish. I am not saying that i am wise but i am hoping that at least some of the people who are going to read this are and hopefully they will help me to acquire some of that wisdom. As i already mentioned this blog is to express my ideas and there may be some historical inaccuracies or factual errors in this. If you find any or many please forgive me. Thank you