Snaps from the real India :)

This is a set of pictures that I simply love. These are snaps of the real India - an India that sounds and feels real unlike the metros.

Below is a white lotus pond -


A water tank next to the Nallur temple - far removed from any urban activity.

A bountiful harvest season visible on the roadsides -



Banana plantations all along the Cauvery -

Muthupettai

We went on a boating trip at Muthupettai. This is a non-descript town on the shores of Tamilnadu and 1.5 hours drive from Tanjore. The sea enters the land around this place and forms a lagoon and the Koratai River drains into this lagoon. The lagoon is surrounded by a forest called the Anathiyathi forest and the land around this place is also marshy. The only means of transportation is a motorized fiber boat. The place is a santuary to migratory birds and the best season to visit this place is during November through February.

The ride started from the banks of the river and we slowly reached the lagoon and then the ocean was visible to us in its full breathtaking view. I could sense a lump down my throat when I saw the ocean and being surrounded all around by just water and not another soul (other than those on the small boat that we were in) in sight. What a lovely boat ride that was - for a full two hours - but for the sun and the kids that were with us, we could have spent the entire day going up and down that vast expanse of water (not that I relish the sea - but it truly was an awesome sight).

The Palace at Tanjore

When we started off towards the palace, we imagined grand palatial buildings with gardens and huge hallways decorated with paintings and other articles used by the rajahs of the Maratha -Bhonsle dynasty. But little did we realize what a huge disappointment it was to be. The palace was anything but posh. It did not appear to be the residence of a King or a Prince. It looked too middle-class like. Cement floors, non-descript walls and the articles on display were anything but expensive. I felt that the Rajah probably lived a life poorer than we do today.

But then I cannot discount everything about the palace. There were some good spots too as can be seen in the photos here. The paintings on the walls of the Nayak's Durbar or in the courtyard were wonderful pieces of art. It is but a sad state of affairs that some of these paintings are lost or are on the verge of being destroyed due to poor maintenance.



The palace also included a museum where one could see statues made of stone and bronze dating as far back as the 6th century AD. One interesting aspect that I could notice was that most of the stone statues belonged to the period 6-9/10 century while the bronze statue works belonged to the 10-13 century AD period. The statue of the Nataraja in bronze, made in the 12th century AD looks exactly the same as it does even today and is an amazing work of art.

The statue of Ganesha (Vinayakar) in the picture here belongs to the 9 Century AD.

Kal Anai

No trip to the Cauvery delta is complete if one does not visit the grand Kal Anai. It was even impossible for me to imagine that the Grand Anicut was built way back in the 2nd century and is still in use. It is the oldest water diversion project in the world that is still in use. When dam construction is being toted as a huge project today with all the mechanization involved in the construction process, wonder how long, and how many years, and how many people it would have taken to construct this massive structure across the Cauvery in the 2nd century AD?

Karikala Peruvalathan, whose leg was scorched in a fire when he was a young man, was also known to be a fearless warrior and a staunch shaivite. He is one of the architects of the chola dynasty which rose to even higher levels during the reign of Raja Raja Chozhan.

Tanjore Trip

I was able to take sometime off and go on a vacation after a long time. And this time, we decided go down South to Tanjore where my sister and BIL live with their son. It was a journey that will probably be termed as one of my best ever. We got to see places - temples, palaces (?), rivers, dams, lagoons, the countryside, etc. All in a matter of 6 hectic days.

I hope you will enjoy these snaps.

The snap above is that of a model of the Tanjore Big Temple. Unfortunately, I ran out of space on my digital camera the day we visited the Tanjore Big Temple. I did not want to miss out on this, so got to snap at least the model of this temple built by the great Raja Raja Chozha.