Tirtha yatra along the Great American East Coast

Author: Aarabhi

Photographer: Vasistha

At a rest stop in Texas, first US trip with parents

My father-in-law stared at the brown ring of bread in his palm.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's a bagel Appa, a kind of bun. Here, they eat it with butter sometimes, for breakfast" I replied.
He sighed and bit into it determinedly.
I pulled a face at Vasistha.
We were at the Boston airport in USA on the layover of our flight to New Jersey; on our way to a short vacation along the east coast of USA.

The Trip:

The day Vashu got his onsite posting at Dallas, Texas, he had started planning for this trip. It had always been a dream for my hubby to show his parents at least one other country apart from our own. Once he married me, my parents naturally got included in the equation. So, here we were, 6 vegetarians. Hunting for a proper meal, reading labels and wondering if the Caesar dressing mentioned on the salad box had eggs in it or not.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It is awfully cliched these days. The whole "Niagara and east coast" trip. Every desi with a relative visiting him/her plans it. Almost like the tirtha-yatra of USA. Even though we planned the exact same trip, I simply do not understand the hype, that is Niagara falls. I mean, our own Jog falls, Athirapalli falls and plenty of others seem more breathtaking than it.

The Change in Plans:

At our cousin Sri Rama's place. A delightful time spent with his family. Shammi is in the grey T-shirt

"Hello Mama, Amami! Yepdi irkingo?" asked our cousin Shammi. We were 3 hours early due to our connecting flight being brought forward unexpectedly. He had most kindly taken a day off and was chauffeuring us to his home. 

"Wasn't that a Stop Sign we just passed?" asked Vasistha. 

Amused, Shammi replied: "It's ok Vasistha, the rules of the road are a little relaxed here in New Jersey."

Speeding was the only rule we had witnessed being broken in Dallas.Used as we were to the mostly strict adherence to traffic rules there, this was news for us. 

Spending a delightful night with his family (with the world's biggest chatterbox of a 3 year old) and after visiting another relative, Sri Rama; we discovered that my dad-in-law's foot ulcer had worsened overnight, he had a burning fever and was in no state to travel. He had been the most enthusiastic person in our little troupe and we were all quite sad. Seeing our long faces, he ribbed, "I am taking some much needed rest here. I'll enjoy a couple of days with the kids. You guys go ahead."

The Story of the Bathroom:

"The beauty in front of you is NOT the whi hou, I repeat, it's not the whi hou!" said Jerry.
The five of us were exploring with our guide Jerry (Take Tours) with a bus full of Chinese tourists.
The Chinese-American accent of Jerry, was largely unintelligible to our ears. His "building" sounded like "beauty", "white house" sounded like "whi hou" and the Chinese translation of the place-descriptions amusingly took twice as long as in English.

Independence Hall, Philadelphia

We almost just passed through Philadelphia; viewing just the Liberty Bell and the Independence Hall. The fun thing was using the first public bathroom in the USA (opposite the hall, said to have been the one George Washington used). Reading the board proclaiming this, my dad remarked: "These guys turn everything into a tourist hot spot! Really? A bathroom?"

Memorials and exhaustion:

The Capitol building, "The beauty in front of you is NOT the whi hou, I repeat, it's not the whi hou!"

The usual circuit of Washington D.C took us to the National Air and Space museum (our guide gave us such little time here that most of the museum just got a cursory look-see; just had time to stamp a souvenir coin and withdraw some much needed cash from the ATM), the Madame Tussaud's wax museum and the four major landmarks around the Washington monument: the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, the Supreme Court and the grounds around them (read Korean war veterans memorial and such).

With Abe Lincoln

Walking with the Beatles at the wax museum

Grecian Colonnade huggers, right out of a movie song

Behind the Lincoln Memorial

We had some fun taking pictures in front of the huge Grecian colonnades, but were mostly tired by the long walks these places required us to make. At the end of the day, footsore and mostly exhausted, the elders decided to take some much needed rest and Vasista and I set out to get the last of the pics around the Lincoln Memorial in the fading light of the day. The lake waters and the huge golden statues flanking the roadway behind the memorial were really mesmerizing.

Glass: Infinitely varied, Inexplicably beautiful:

Gorgeous Tulips

The second day saw us making a loooong journey by bus through green valleys. The tall trees were sadly lacking in flowers but were mysteriously shrouded in mists. They vividly reminded us of our Nilgiris. We were to visit the 60 year old Corning Museum of Glass.

My MIL Rajani with her favourite pieces

The museum was absolutely wonderful! The meager 2 hours (including the lunch time!) that we were allowed to spend there was nowhere near enough to really enjoy and appreciate the amazing glass artifact displays. From exquisite tulips (contemporary) to 3500 year old glass-wares, the museum has it all. THE favorite place for my mother-in-law whose love for color, glass and intricacy was thoroughly satisfied here. We barely had time to rush through the museum and see a quick hot glass show, where professional glass-makers blow molten glass into vases, bowls and other such pieces of art.

The glass making show at the Museum, mesmerizing molten glass

The Hype:

A view of the falls

Our next stop was the famous Niagara falls. Such hype has centered around this falls that our troupe felt quite a bit let down when we finally saw the falls! At the risk of repeating myself, I concure that it is beautiful, and wide, aand well maintained. But, to call it the best waterfall would be stretching it. After having seen the majesticness and lush greenery of our own Gagana Chukki-Bhara Chukki and the Jog falls during the monsoons; Niagara seemed ordinary enough to us. 

Still, we had come to visit it; so we did the usual touristy things-went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride and watched the short movie about the falls in the IMAX theater.

On board the Maid of the Mist

Had the first truly filling lunch of the entire trip at the small Punjabi mobile cart outside the Chinese mall. Since we all were starving and quite desperate for a proper vegetarian meal, the simple roti and dal were a heaven sent blessing.

The truly great thing was the lighted view of the falls in the evening. It was something worth seeing. Jerry had arranged for us to watch a cultural show- a dance and display about the American Indian people. Though the costumes were a little too garish (I suspect they were pandering to the crowd and not too authentic), this too was worth the pretty penny.

The Native Indian dance

Vivid blue of the St. Lawrence:

The last stop on this particular trip were the 1000 Islands. After making another long bus journey from Niagara to the jetty on the St. Lawrence river, we set off on an hour long cruise down the river, past the big mansions of reclusive billionaires. 

The stories of the Bolt castle, Skull and Bones society of the Deer Island and the alleged shortest International bridge made spicy little tales for us to carry home.

The story goes that George Charles Boldt was a billionaire hotelier of the eighteen hundreds who drew up plans to build a magnificent 6 story castle for his wife. But, her untimely death put a halt to the construction for nearly 75 years. The castle rebuilding restarted only in 1977. Quite a tale worthy of our Taj Mahal.

The Boldt Castle Yatch House, the actual Castle was hidden among trees and we couldn't get a good enough pic

Not much needs to be said about the elitist society of Skull and Bones (select students and alumni of Yale University) which Hollywood has immortalized in the movie "The Skulls". The summer retreat of this society is located here on Deer Island.

Alleged shortest bridge in the world- Zavikon Island

The Zavikon Island has two parts with the smaller Island allegedly being located in the USA and the larger one in Canada. This is a false but popular tale carried by most of the tourist guides (including our own). The Island is actually located entirely in Canada.

Our official photographer ;) against the backdrop of t vivid blue of St. Lawrence river

We enjoyed amazing vistas of the castles and the brisk breeze which set our clothes flying hither. The background of the vivid blue of the river made for some amazing portraits for our family.

A truly memorable experience for us all.

p.s. Before I came up with the current title for this post, I had considered using:
OK, TX for all the great memories... we see you (CT) & enjoy (NJ)... All my friends would envy (NY) us...
The most atrocious title ever! But I couldn't help it. I just had to put in all those state names in it; it was just too irresistible.
These are the states we visited in the USA:
OK- Oklahoma (of the clanking oil wells)
TX- Texas (of the blistering sun and flattest land I'd ever seen)
CT (my CU)- Connecticut (lovely state, of which we saw so little)
NJ- New Jersey (of the Indian-style driving)
NY- New York (of the weirdly clean and posh Chikpet feel)

How to send a FREE sms to any national/international number without the help of third party websites

source: asginformationtechnologies.com

source : theweek.com

How cool will it be, if you could send an email to a phone number?
Just imagine, you want to send an important information to your parents / friends. What you do ? Whatsapp? FB ? SMS ? Call ?
If the recipient doesn't have immediate access to internet, the only option is to SMS or call. And if they are not picking the call, then the only option left is to send an SMS; which will cost you. But, there is another better way, you can email this info to their mobile number.

We can send a mail to any phone and its FREE for many phone numbers (based on your service provider). When so many Indians are famous for the "missed calls", this option certainly beats that.

In the current market, many telecoms operators have 'free email to SMS gateways' which we can use to forward simple text emails to a mobile phone. In simple terms, you can drop an email to any phone number using the recipient's service provider's SMS Gateway.

How? Its simple. Just drop an email to <10 digit="" number="" phone="">@ServiceProvidersGateway

You just need to know your friend's phone number and the carrier (Eg. Airtel, Sprint) to start emailing to their mobile phone.
The table below lists a few free 'email to SMS gateways' for different carriers. You can use this as a quick reference for India, USA and International mobile numbers.

Eg:  
Airtel (Karnataka, India) number@airtelkk.com
919845n@airtelkk.com Karnataka Airtel
919895n@airtelkerala.com Kerala Airtel
9842n@airsms.com Tamil Nadu Aircel

T-Mobile [10-digit phone number]@tmomail.net
Example: 1234567890@tmomail.net

Verizon [10-digit phone number]@vtext.com
Example: 1234567890@vtext.com

Sprint PCS  [10-digit phone number]@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Example: 1234567890@messaging.sprintpcs.com

AT&T    [10-digit phone number]@txt.att.net
Example: 1234567890@txt.att.net

I have tested this for Sprint (US number) and for Airtel Karnataka (Indian number).

I sometimes use this method to inform myself about any new mails coming to my Gmail. I set my Google settings to forward any incoming mail to another email id. Of course, the other email id is my phone number@airtelkk.com. So, whenever I am travelling and I can't check my mails, I get an SMS with the subject and a brief message content to my phone !! Even you can be contacted any time, provided your phone has a signal.

Beware, your wife might misuse this for sending shopping lists, but on the plus side this costs nothing if she has internet access!!!

Ref Sites: 
        http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/email-to-sms/
        http://martinfitzpatrick.name/article/using-email-to-sms-gateways-to-send-free-sms

Bread Jamoon- The Reduce, Reuse and Recycle way

Bread Jamoon, simplest sweet, ready in just under 20 minutes.

Our friend moved to New Jersey.
Now, that statement is definitely not related to any recipe you say?
You would be so wrong about that.
See, what happened was that he couldn't carry all his stuff with him; so he left us with most of the contents of his fridge, which included a half-finished tin of Rasgullas.
My sweet-toothed hubby, +Vasistha kj finished off the half which was leftover, in just about 3 days.
That is to say, the rasgullas were finished. The syrup, on the other hand sat in our fridge for a couple of weeks more. It was too sweet to be eaten directly and I was too chicken to waste good food.
The second time I had to rearrange the fridge contents to make space for the veggies and the usual left-overs of the day, I was pretty frustrated with the whole process of take them out, put back in and repeat.
Seeing my plight Vashu said: "Do something with that sugar syrup. Either throw it or reuse it."
Hearing that, I rooted through my brain looking for some recipe. Voila! Something a long lost girlfriend once had done popped into my mind.

So, here's what I did:
Ingredients:
A sliced bread loaf (Sweet white bread, a bit firm would be best)
Leftover sugar syrup (Could be from rasgullas, jamoons or any bengali sweet), preferably a little thick
Vegetable or sunflower oil (tasteless oils work better, so that rules out groundnut oil)
Knife
Tissue paper
Method:
Cut the bread slices into squares (about 1 or 1.5 inches)
Heat sufficient oil in a shallow vessel till it starts smoking slightly.
Fry the bread slices in hot oil on low flame till they turn golden brown.
Spread out the fried bread squares on tissue paper to drain the excess oil.
Dunk the fried bread into the sugar syrup for a minute.
Serve hot or cold, tastes good anyway.
Simplest thing in the world! :) :)

Dubai, Mashallah!

World's tallest sky-scraper, The Burj Khalifa

Author & Photographer: +Aarabhi H R

"How do you wanna come to the US, via London or via Dubai?" asked my husband +vasista k.j .
"Do you have to ask? Of course London!" said I.

Being brought up on a literary diet of Famous Five, Sherlock Holmes, Pride & Prejudice and Harry Potter, no wonder the UK was my first choice. But, this particular dream was not destined to be fulfilled yet. The visa process for traveling into this country, even for a short layover of 23 hours between my flights proved to be both cumbersome and costly. Then we heard that Emirates gave us free transit visa and hotel bookings. So, Dubai it was.

Being more enamored of natural wonders than manmade ones, I did not have any special desire to see Dubai. It was, as I said my second choice. This not so flattering opinion was reinforced when I saw the bottom two floors of the Dubai International Airport. Huge glass and steel enclosed spaces, but not a body in sight. The utter absence of crowds was jarring, especially after the crowds in Bangalore. To be truthful, it was somewhat eerie.

One of the huge lobbies at the Dubai Airport. You can count the number of people on one hand.

I had heard a lot about this airport from my friends and from my husband who had seen it before. About how big it was, how posh, how hi-tech.... So naturally, my expectations were high. The airport did live up to its description. Lot of other people would've fallen in lust with it perhaps; but for me, it lacked a certain something. I could see huge sleek columns, vast marble lobbies, sparkling fountains and couture-feel styling in everything; from elevators and bathrooms to chair designs and signboards.
But, the most engaging of things, the human element was sorely lacking.

This impression did a back flip once I saw the duty-free area on the fourth and top-most floor. It was sparkling too, but it was also bursting with travelers. Totally my kind of a place. But, I was there at an unearthly hour of 2 in the morning, without any companions and jet lag riding on my heels. Not conducive to a pleasant romp of window shopping.

The Blue Mosque, in the Jumeriah District

But I did squeeze-in four hours of "The Sights" of Dubai. Courtesy of the Emirates, I could stay at the Hotel Copthorne (Great, yummy food) and was able to book a $30 tour from the Sun Tourists in the hotel lobby. My Indian guide, Nehru (Mumbaiwalla) did a good job. Clear, informative and no butler english. What more can a girl want? 

We started by cruising the  Jumeirah district of the city. These are beach side, residential properties where most of the population are foreigners (80%). Lovely, villa-type homes bordered neat streets. For a desert, Dubai is amazingly green. Nehru explained that 90% of Dubai's water is reclaimed from the Persian Gulf (salty, briny nightmare) and only 10% comes from rain and groundwater. Great water management.

Sky scrapers- here, there, everywhere!

Tall, twisted and sparkling structures covered in glass of all known shades and hues lined the sides of most of the streets of Dubai. The stations of the fully automated Dubai metro which circumnavigates the city-state are golden brown tubes twisting here and there and everywhere. Watching these sights I slowly went from "Ayyo! Ade boring buildings, swalpa yetra irbodu ashte..." to "Abba! yeshtu kashtapattu, yeshtu kammi time nalli, yenella yochane madi kattidarappa!" (How much hard work, time, effort and thinking has been put into these buildings!)

In front of The Burj Al Arab

The most publicized picture of Dubai, is that of the palm island which houses the famed Burj Al Arab (Shaped like the sail of a Ship) and the Atlantis hotel. These are actually artificial islands, smack dab inside the Persian Gulf. We traveled over the stem of the palm tree through the multi-million dollar apartment buildings via the fronds of the palm, which houses luxury villas of the kind dreams are made of; finally reaching the five-star Atlantis Hotel shaped like a series of arches (sort of apes the Hawa Mahal, if you ask me ;) ) after travelling through a kilometer-long, under-sea tunnel.

The Atlantis Hotel

Wonderful statues of Arabic people at the Dubai Museum

My favorite part was in old Dubai. Centuries-old buildings were beautifully restored and had wind towers (for pre-electricity air-conditioning). The 2 centuries old Dubai fort is compact, and has been converted into a museum. A traditional arabian souk and home are painstakingly recreated underneath the fort, in a series of winding passages. The nooks and crannies hold statues of arabic men, women and children, dressed in traditional costumes. The story of desert life is told in songs, text and recordings. A place worth visiting.

Gold bangles at the Gold Souk

Dubai Creek- a beautiful sight at night

The gold market, meena bazar (clothing and artwork from India and Pakistan) and spice souk were pit stops along the way to the Dubai creek which was the final stop.

This creek is the backwaters of the Gulf and divides Dubai into two halves. It is a beautiful sight by boat at night. All the hotels, shops and buildings lit-up and reflecting in the water. A fine end to a short look into modern Arabia.

An Evening in Tranquebar

Tanquebar Danish Fort

Author: Aarabhi

Photographer: Vasistha

“Shoot that one!” I cried.

“It just came out of the hole!”

“There are holes all over the place. OMG! I’m standing on one!” exclaimed Vashu and jumped away from the spot.

I could say we were shooting rabbits on a Danish estate, the location seemed foreign enough. But, I’d only be fooling you. We were in Tharangambadi on the Tamil Nadu coast where the late 17^th century Danish fort still stands tall.

Crab on the beach

We were shooting pictures of the multitude of crabs that had dug their homes in the beach beside the fort.  The tiny sand-colored crabs were swarming all over the beach and the fallen brick walls on the waterfront. They kept popping out of tiny holes in the sand and scaring the bejesus out of my dear husband, who kept trying and failing to get good shots of the tricky suckers.

Fallen brick walls

We had wandered down to the beach after spending nearly an hour of our time ogling the lovely fort and the small museum inside it. Built of mellow olive colored bricks, the fort stands three stories tall and is a testament to the geometric functionality of the people of Denmark.

Dungeons and funny cor ner bastions

Small, dark, dungeon like spaces are barely visible through arches in the main courtyard at the ground level, while funny shaped corner bastions peak over the rooflines, looking for all the world like the wizard caps straight out of a Harry Potter flick.

The cool dimly lit reception rooms inside the fort overlook the sea and now serve as the museum.

The upper courtyard at the first level wraps around the fort and holds the ancient canons placed strategically at frequent intervals. 

A lovely place for an evening’s outing.

Canon

Android Rooting- Many problems, one solution!

Author: Vasistha ( As told to Aarabhi)

Photographer: Google

Many problems, One solution- Rooting!

My niece Sameeksha ambled into our room and complained to me: "Vashu mama! This game is stuck; I can't go to the next level!" She then handed over my mobile to me and walked away in a huff.

Warning messages for "Low Memory" were blinking on the screen.  The internal memory was running lower than 20MB leaving me cursing my supposedly high-end LG android phone.

This memory problem kept bugging me and eating away at my thoughts. The only way I had of increasing the internal memory was to uninstall my favorite games and apps or clear the caches of most of the apps; hence losing all settings and stored passwords.

 "What's the point in having an android if it can't autopilot itself?" asked my friend. To answer his question I started digging. Apart from the temporary files mentioned above, what else was eating up my memory? How could I analyze the memory usage of the different sections of my phone? LG had also installed some apps like Bollywood and Newspaper which were utterly unnecessary. I couldn’t uninstall them nor move them to the SD card! How to get out of this vicious circle became the question of the day.

This was where the Android OS's specialty came into light. This OS is designed in such a way that we can do a lot of things and customize the phone according to our interests or lifestyle. To do most things on the android phone and to overcome problems of the memory sort, the only criteria required is to ROOT the phone. Of course, once the phone is rooted its warranty expires; but rooting will not harm the phone in any way unless you screw it up due to lack of knowledge.

 Just googling "how to root my phone" will get you about 43,500,000 results (0.17 seconds), many of which are good blogs detailing the process. Once the phone is rooted, what all can we do? The following are a few things that are possible:

1. Uninstall unwanted inbuilt APPs in the phone memory.

2. If you don't want to remove the app but move it to SD card instead, then, just uninstall the APP and download the APP from market. This time either it will directly be installed on SD card memory or you can move it to SD memory once installed using another APP called APP2SD (available in market)

3. You can take a backup of your preinstalled APPs or any APP installed on your phone. This is very useful when your phone crashes, or when you format the memory. You can even reinstall the APPs without downloading from the market again and again. This can be done by copying these APPs to your PC. This will also allow you to share the APPs across devices (to your Tablet or another smart device).

To take backup of system APPs (like bluetoothclient.apk, webbowser.apk, keyboard.apk etc), you'll have to use APPs like Titanium backup, Appsbackup etc. You have to give root permission for these APPs before you take backup.

Changing LCD density using rooting

4. If you want to see which portion of your phone is taking up how much memory, use APPs like "Storage Analyser" , it requires root permision to see entire phone and SD card memory usage in depth. If you are an APP developer or Inventor, you would be building APPS of your own. When you move them to your phone, a copy of the .apk file is moved to /data/local/tmp. To view this path you need root permisiion. Normal file browser will not show this path and files inside this folder. But Storage Analyser shows the exact path enabling you to delete or add files according to your preference.

A Glimpse of Pandavapura

Author: Aarabhi

Photographer: Vasistha

Doorway and Mantapam- Gopalaswamy Temple, Tonnur

My stories always begin with Vasistha, my husband. He is the spearhead, instigator and planner of any vacation/ outing in our family. This trip was no exception.

“Pandvapura” taluk in Mandya district of Karnataka is well known for its centuries old Srivaishnavite temples. We visited three of them, namely, the Gopalaswamy temple, the Nambhinarayanaswamy temple and the Yoga Narasimhaswamy temple.

Lush greenery of Pandavapura

Spread around the huge “Tonnur lake”, these temples nestle amidst the lush paddy fields characteristic of Mandya. The temples of Gopalaswamy and Nambhinarayanaswamy lie on either side of the main road leading into the village of Tonnur. 

The temple of Gopalaswamy, said to have been founded by none other than the most virtuous of the Pandava brothers, Dharmaraja; is built in the Chola style of architecture.

The state bird of Karnataka, the Indian Roller, sighted on the way 

The main diety, Sri Krishna is in his “Vishwa Ropa Darshana” pose. Standing eight feet tall and five feet wide, he has shanku (conch) in his left hand and chakra (wheel) in his right; also, one hand gives us the “Abhaya Hastha” while the other is fisted on his thigh. This is an unusual depiction of Sri Krishna and is not commonly seen in any temple. Sri Krishna is flanked by his consorts Sridevi and Bhoodevi. Krishna and Bhoodevi idols are full-bodied in the way of the Cholas as opposed to the nymph like, proportioned Hoysala style idol of Sridevi which seems to be a later addition.

Gopalaswamy temple

The temple courtyard

Another unique feature is the “Utsava Murthy”. Sri Krishna as Venugopala is in his "Tribhangi Nrithya" pose. Holding a flute to his lips with both hands, he has his left foot in the front (not the usual right foot). His chin, elbow and left toe are clearly aligned in a straight line, one below the other (Tribhangi Nrithya, i.e. thrice-bent pose).

After a peaceful darshan of this quiet temple (there were only two more devotees apart from our troupe), we crossed the road to the Nambhinarayanaswamy temple. Surprisingly, this temple has outer walls and pillars in the older chola style, while the sanctum sanctorum (Garbha Gruha) has intricately carved pillars of the newer Hoysala style.

Nambhinarayanaswamy temple

Standing ten feet tall, Narayanaswamy has 2 maces in his front hands. He also holds, shanku and chakra. Both temples have huge walled-in, well-paved courtyards. But the condition of the Lakshmi temple inside the Gopalaswamy temple courtyard is pitiful. All sorts of construction materials and implements are dumped inside the temple with garish wall of concrete built in the middle. Truly a sad state of a beautiful place.

Pitiful state of Lakshmi temple

The last temple, Yoga Narasimhaswamy is the most renowned of the three. This temple was restored from its dilapated state by the Sri Ramanujacharya. The main diety Yoganarasimha is small and compact- barely three feet tall. But, this does not distract us from its beauty or serenity.

Legend goes that this idol was founded by the demon King, Hiranyakashipu’s son, King Prahalada in the Kritha Yuga. The temple had turned to ruins by the time Jain king Bittideva reigned. The king’s daughter was possessed by an evil spirit and none could get rid of it. When Sri Ramanujacharya’s SriPada Theertham (Holy water obtained by washing his feet) was sprinkled on her, she was cured. In gratitude and influenced by the acharya’s teachings, the king converted to Srivaishnavism and took the name “Vishnuvardhana”. The King then rebuilt the temples around the lake. Angered by their king’s conversion, 1000 Jain scholars marched to the banks of the Tonnur lake; to the temple of Yoga Narasimhaswamy, where Sri Ramanujacharya was residing. The acharya managed to answer a thousand spiritual and philosophical quizzes by all the Jain scholars simultaneously. Since he is known as the incarnation of “Adishesha”, he was said to possess a thousand tongues like the divine serpent.

Sri Ramanuja’s idol in his “Adishesha” avatar is housed in a small space inside the temple. Snake hoods arch up behind his idol which itself has a face featured in a markedly snake-like way with narrow nose and mouth and deeply arching eyebrows over slanting eyes.

When the temple priest holds up a lamp to the idol’s face and to the snake markings on the belly, the resemblance to Adishesha is quite clearly apparent. The hands of the idol are in the yoga mudra and the feet are unusually clearly visible. An ancient drum fabled to be more than thousand years old is housed in a glass case beside the idol.

Frolicking in the huge Tonnur lake

After finishing all the darshans, it was time for some fun and games. So, we drove up to the Tonnur lake and splashed around in the water. Deep, vast and extremely windy; the lake is a popular picnic spot. The stairs around the lake were filled with tourists in bathing suits and frolicking children. We had a light lunch from our lunch boxes and drove back to Bangalore, to the hustle and bustle of our daily lives.

Art and Heritage at Venkatappa Art Gallery and Government Museum

Author: Aarabhi
Photographer: Vasistha

Government Museum

We are a travel crazy family, with my husband, Vasista as the Kapitan. Any travel news in the media first catches his eye. So, when The Hindu published an article about the Government Museum in Bangalore, his curiosity was piqued and he asked me if I would like to go there. Starting any trip very early in the day is our modus operandi. This time though, it wasn’t an option for us. This museum and the attached Venkatappa art gallery open at 10 am and close at 5. So, there we were at the stroke of 10 staring up at the colonial style building with cornices and Corinthian columns. Painted a bright red color, it stood out amongst its ultramodern neighbors like UB city.

The ultramodern UB City in contrast to the colonial Museum

The entry fee for the museum is a measly four rupees per head, but the plaque beside the ticket counter reads: “No tickets will be issued if there is a power failure”. This is because the tickets are electronic, like BMTC tickets. But, refusing people entry just because there is no power seems to be a typical apathetic behavior of a governmental institution. 

The museum houses an eclectic collection of megalithic pottery, jewelry, tools, weapons, and sculpture mostly found in and around Karnataka. There are also, paintings of different styles such as Mysore, Persian, Mughalai and Deccan.

A beautiful four spouted pot and painted clay beads from tombs long lost are noteworthy. Few artifacts of the Vijayanagar Empire such as ivory dice, and eerily symmetrical faces of mythological characters are also on display.

Vijayanagar Carvings

Sculpture

The famous Halmidi inscription circa 450 AD, renowned to be the oldest Kannada inscription is also housed here.

The first floor of the museum is a treat as it houses good paintings. Amazingly well preserved wooden idols of Narasimha, Hanuman and other gods can also be seen here. The most striking display is a series of Mysore style paintings of Ramayana. These painstakingly worked panels cover almost half a wall on this floor.


The annex building of the museum displays rock sculpture of gods and goddesses. The name boards of these idols are queer. The museum’s archeologists seem to have been in great doubt about their discoveries. Seeming to guess the identity of the idol they have excavated, the nameplate reads: “Goddess: 11^th century BC: Durga?” The next ones are even better: “Vaishnavi? Parvathi? Ganesh?” I felt like asking the gatekeeper: “What’s with these question marks?”

One more example of governmental apathy is the section displaying sculptures of the Vijayanagar Empire which are carelessly exposed to the elements. They are displayed in an open courtyard without even a canopy for rain protection!

Sculptures open to the elements!

In front of the Gallery

The adjoining Venkatappa art gallery is a feast for the eyes. There aren’t adjectives in this language which can describe what a person can experience from the art of Venkatappa.

Marble panels depicting mythological scenes are wonderfully realistic. The figures are embossed in a raised pattern on the marble and show the delineation and sinuous lines of the human form in loving detail. The sheer range of fine-art forms in which Venkatappa was proficient is mind boggling. He played musical instruments like the Veena, sculpted marble, painted in water colors and oils, designed and executed the interiors of Mysore Maharaja’s palace, the list is endless.

He was one of the best of his contemporaries in all the fields he touched. The displays in this gallery are living proof of his genius and a visit to view and enjoy them in an unforgettably uplifting experience. His water color depictions of Ooty in its many avatars: ‘during the monsoons’, ‘in the fall’, ‘moonrise on a hill’ are wonderful renditions that bring alive the ethereal quality of the Nilgiris.

A huge contrast to this beauty is the first floor of the gallery which houses modern art by many famous artists, including M F Hussain. My husband and I have never been big fans of this art form. The display put up here, at the gallery, just cemented our opinions. Maybe we lack the understanding ability of this particular art, but come on? A splash of 12 different colors on a canvas is called "Art"? My six year old niece can do that! It was a complete emotional letdown. Venkatappa's art enlightens, makes you think and brings you joy. Whereas this art gets a reaction of: "Huh! What's that thing on the wall?"

Author with a Nandi