Bhoganandishwara Temple, Nandi Hills, Bangalore

This Saturday morning, we packed up some stuff and headed out for Bhoganandishwara temple. The temple is located in the foothills of a famous tourist destination "Nandi Hills" at the outskirts of bangalore City. As you passover the bangalore international airport and stretch over devanhalli, this temple lies in the serene and calm surrounding of Nandi village.

 Starting early was a good option and also exciting was the fact that our 3.5 months old daughter was to make her first outing with us this day. Hence we were stacked with anxiety and also thrilled about the same. We could only start by  7:30 am, due to all household chores and managed to reached the temple by 9 am. From the main road, once you take left for Nandi hills, you need to continue on the same road, till you reach a T-junction where lot of small hotels and shops are located. It should not be a problem identifying this T-junction since thats the only one in the whole area. If you take left from here, you would head towards Nandi Hills but for the bhoganandishwara temple you have to take right. The temple is approx 5-6 kms from here.The roads are great and luckily the weather was great on this day as well. It had been raining and have been overcast in bangalore for almost 2 weeks now, and i was almost sure of getting some washed out photos, but the sunny morning gave great hopes.

(Name etched in stone at the entrance)

(lush Lawn outside)

  The temple entrance is a huge gate which gave us initial glimpse of the huge lawn area to both the side. The walls corroded, with lush grass on one side with beautifully maintained ferns at the corners. This looks like an ideal setting for shooting a documentary. Lot of maintenance work seems to be happening here, which is encouraging enough. We move in taking shots around and reading about the place. At the entrance of the temple, there was a beautiful set of huge circular stone wheels on one side and a cart of wood being prepared on the others. There are ample trees though the campus and the wind was blowing past the leaves making beautiful sound. We could hear the birds chirping and amazingly, your hearing abilities start to catch these sweet sounds, whenever you break your city life routine and come out to a countryside like this. We were already feeling very relaxed and the environment was adding to it.

 (Serene Place)

 Though the time was not very early for a saturday morning, there were no visitors here. We were the first ones to enter the temple. A security gaurd greeted us on the main gate and asked us to do the darshanas. Buying the tickets, we took some photos and then finished darshans of lord shiva and other deities of the temple.

(Beautiful carvings on the wall)

      The first impression was of a very beautiful, extremely clean temple which is a marvel in the history books. Bhoginandishwara temple stands tall for more than 1000 years now and has amazingly rich cultural connect. You can read lot more stuff about this temple online or the priests should be able to give you insight. We thoroughly enjoyed small conversations with them. Built in dravidian style, it has a set of mantapas, with each having history tied to them. The most famous being the "Vasantha Mantapa", which if is to be believed, is where Shiva and parvathi got married.

(Main Mantap in the inner sanctum)

The sanctum of the temple which is exactly in the middle, comes from the chola dynasty and is more than 1000 years old. The gopuras, as you would notice were built by the vijayanagara empire. The most interesting part was the maintenance of the place, the silence around and the carvings in the stones. The combination of these three factors was just intoxicating. We moved around and then came across an opening through which we entered into the pond area. this is a huge pond with three entrances and chautaris on all its side. The view was beautiful here and we spent sometime here.

(Gopuram)

(The famous pond)

 Finally, we came out, spent some moments in the outside lawn and then started back to bangalore. Here are some facts/details about this trip and leaving you with some photos. Do share your experiences if you have been here or do write to me if you need more details on visiting this place. An exciting day all in all.
Distance: From Tippasandra, bangalore to Temple-Up & Down:125 Kms
Road Condition: great Roads through out the journey.
Direction: Catch the nandi hills route, from the T-junction take right and 5-6 kms thereafter is the temple.

1. No videography or stand photography(using tripods/monopads) is allowed.
2. If starting early you should club visit to this temple with nandi hills trip.
3. In case you stop in the village, the kids/some people are in habit of chasing you and asking for some money. I personally don't think they should be entertained since this just sets a very wrong trend for others as well.

Pottery Town revisited

This Saturday was the day when i had to go out. Few of my friends, and especially om had dropped by couple of times in less than a months time to check if i had stopped writing for any reasons. Essentially, i was busy in hand-over from my old job to new one and a little tight schedule spending time with my daughter, hence i was not shooting much or traveling.

 Cutting the chase, had been wanting to visit Pottery town for sometime now. The beauty of this place is the chance to experiment and amazing number of combinations of those clay figures, let you never run of of options.  You can keep coming back to this place and find nothing but the same old earthen clay pots, cups and various other items and yet go back with different perspectives in your shots, everytime.

 

I just wanted to get some time off my routine life and spend on some creative stuff, and this was it. the weather was cloudy and typical June morning with drizzling cloudy cold environment, which makes driving down to any part a heavenly experience. we cruised through to Pottery town, which is just near the Cox town and spent sometime clicking through. we also went to the house of a potter and spent some quality clicks capturing the majestic phenomenon of making clay items on their electric wheel. Leaving you with some shots from the morning. 

Do share your experiences, if you ahve been there!! it might be that you plan to visit it or you have been an avid visitor and a fan of this place, do share how have you felt about it.

Brick Kiln-'Bhattha'-a round up of where bricks are made

This trip how was special. I became a father and oodles of work at home kept me all occupied. On one side, when it was joy of welcoming our daughter in our family, a long list of relatives and family friends coming over kept us all busy. On the last day of my stay at home, i could not resist going out for a while to unwind and probably take some photos. Dad and myself buckled up and moved towards a clicking destination. People who are from Nabha or near by, would Know a village called "Thuhi" and we took the Thuhi Road. The road was beautiful lit with the trees covering all parts of it and even during the afternoon, it looked like early morning.

Soon, we sighted a "Bhattha", nothing but a Brick kiln on the sidelines of the road. A quick glimpse confirmed that dad & i were in agreement to shoot at this place. We pulled over to this place. The place looked absolutely deserted rite now with not much activity. Miles and miles of land all around with yellow Sarson sowed and coming out. In the middle, this brick kiln, standing tall with no populace.

The first glimpses made me feel as if the place has been rendered useless, though it took just a min for "Ramesh", a skinny lad to appear out of his cemented room built on one corner. He was partially surprised and partially confused for what were we doing there. As we made our intentions clear, photographing this area didn't excite him further and he wanted to speak to the owner and also wanted us to get permission before we clicked there. In another ten mins we were on our way, taking a guided tour from Ramesh of how this process of making bricks works and how this huge place is managed.

This place was looking like so, since it was still few months away from when the huge dianasour-like monument breathes fire. Ramesh told that this place is just in process of getting ready and in another 4 months, it would be ready to setup all bricks and start to bake them. All the mud and the open area would be actually well padded with soft clay and then bricks would be layered down there. the walls which are visible are actually going to act as an insulator and stages of keeping the temperature maintained.

To actually understand how this works, the analogy i can think off is of a grid or a matrix. all the rows and columns of the matrix are actually created first. they all are padded with soft clay and this takes few months to complete. This process starts from the middle and then carries on towards outside. the insulated walls are then closed and clay bricks are started to put on. The labor then closes them with sand on the top as a layer.

As this process finishes in 6 months time, the fire is lit in. There are few, around 6 small gates towards the outer ends, which help in suck little air and the chimney, is which actually builds the temperature. the insulators(outer walls), not only help in maintaining the temperature but also doesn't let the fire to spread outside and hence equal temperature makes those red bricks.

It was great talking to labor there who work on daily wages. One set of labors tend to keep spreading the sand layer on the top whereas, i saw one team was working on the outer insulator wall. The first layer around the chimney was in place and the team of jhujar singh was laying sand on those. if you notice the patterns in the bricks here, the set of three bricks each tells you that there is a opening there. after the sand is all layered, the top brick is lifted up which gives you opening to the matrix below and they fill up coal in these openings and maintain temperature through out the bhatti.

Chitradurga Trip

DOWNLOAD THE e-STORY VERSION AT END OF THIS STORY

It had been sometime, since i was thinking of going out but work at office and something or the other at home kept me tied over the weekends. My teammate, Gopinath hails from a sleepy town "Chitradurga" and he has talked about his place a number of times. Seeing some photos from another fellow friend, kept acting as fuel to fire and on a proposal to visit Chitradurga, i could not turn down.

Reaching Chitradurga: Chitradurga lies in Karnataka approx 200 Kms from Bangalore. it lies on the Bangalore-Pune National Highway and not to mention, the roads are beautiful. There are few trains available from Bangalore and the buses are numerous to reach in. I read at Chitradurga that there is a bus every 15 mins to Bangalore. Amazingly good connectivity!

Places to See: Chitradurga, as the name says is famous for its Huge Fort and numerous temples situated in its vicinities. it also is an excellent place for mountaineering some peaks in the fort. Other attractions include Chandravalli Caves, Vanivilas Dam(lies in town "Hiyur").

We boarded the 00:30  bus from majestic and the conductor told me it would be around 5 as the bus reaches Chitradurga. This was an AC bus and amazingly fast. Th driver drove it in every way he could and we felt fortunate to get down all well. he reached CHitradurga at 4 itself :0)

We took rest at gopis place and a yummy breakfast was on the cards. We waiting and the food was every bit worth the wait. Soon it was time to leave and we were already yearning to go out. First target was Chitradurga fort, which is the most famous of the destinations.

The auto rickshaw took us there in a jiffy and the first impressions, were that the fort appeared to be huge. We bought tickets and saw some more crowd around this place. The good part is the fort has been maintained well and it has all those small typical 'incredible India' stones placed everywhere with the details of the places written on them. it was so useful. those stones even give you directions to different areas in the fort. All in all a great trip in this sleepy small town. Leaving you with a set of photos. Do share how did you like those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Do Download the e-story format of this blog here. Please share your comments if you like this!

Chitra Sante Exhibit-31st Jan, 2010

We are going to Chitra Sante on 31st Jan, 2010 after a great experience last year. Do visit us at our stall there!

KR Flower Market- A Morning

 A Man Looks on, as i took this shot. This was a hotel just next to the mosque...The morning Scene gave a very natural look on this man of someone who just woke up and the glimpse of the mosque made it quite appealing to my eyes. That's the motivation to click this shot.(KR Market, Bangalore)

India is a country of different faiths and religions. Temples, mosques and churches are nothing but epitome of faith and emotions. Different religious places are named on various saints and different offerings are offered to each one of them. One of the mosques at KR Market where people tie Locks to the mosque gate as an offering for fulfilling their desire and they come an open them up as their wish gets fulfilled. (KR Market, Bangalore)

Street photography is not only enticing that you click real life, but also because you get to meet so many different characters on the street, you get near the way they live their life and how they conduct their business. Most of the people work in hardship but still continue to enjoy and spread smiles. Its only business which counts in the markets rather than origin or caste or religion!(KR Market, Bangalore)

It was interesting chatting with these two old men. they both are care takers of this mosque in the KR market and were just chatting around early morning when i reached. The flower seller was unpacking her recently arrived flowers from Tamilnadu and it was great talking to them. They asked me what these photos were for!! and i smile, clicked and sat with them and continued talking!!(KR Market, Bangalore)

When people smile and keep talking it doesn't mean they are always happy and having fun. Life in india has made us all tough and apart from day to day hardships, we have learn to smile in every up and Down. As this guy finished talking to me, i was wondering how come people are so happy with so little!! As i kept looking at him, there was a moment when this shot came up and later i could feel and see the intensity of his face and the hardships of life.(KR Market, Bangalore)

A book store housing variety of magazines on sale!! (KR Market, Bangalore)

Flowers travel in from different parts and all converge to this market early morning. A young boy waits for their helpers to arrive to get delivery of flowers.(KR Market, Bangalore)

Wow, Fresh, color and huge!! But How much do we sell it for!!(KR Market, Bangalore)

Interiors of the KR market which not only houses flower shops dealing in tons and tons of fragrance and color, but there are stores for buying everything to anything related to Puja and all of these work in wholesales as well! (KR Market, Bangalore)

 

Interiors of the KR market give you a sense of extremely serious business and the volume side of this flower story. A shopkeeper waits for business to start, early morning (KR Market, Bangalore)

 

Business is good and there is enough for everyone. In the center of the market, is a huge hall where all the flower sellers settle down. There is a huge mount on the their top with a building with 4-5 floors and this huge tennis court spaced porch makes it a very dramatic location. An experience in itself to be around!(KR Market, Bangalore)