Miniature Replica of Balaji Temple at Narayanpur

Everyone who visits India makes at least one visit to the temples or mosque. Spirituality is so strongly observed that even an atheist is confused. It is difficult to explain about the crowd standing in long queue for six hours just to get thirty seconds glimpse of the idol inside the temple, of offering garlands and coconuts which are recycled and resold at stalls outside the temple, of eating oily and sweet Prasad even though the health does not permit. To an atheist, temples are just architectural monuments to be enjoyed for their carvings on pillars and ceiling, but to a devotee, it’s a place where their prayers can be answered, it’s the place where they can find peace and compassion.

Whatever the reason, the temple devoted to Venkateswara at Tirumala is believed to be one of the richest pilgrimage center in India. The temple is visited by about 50,000 to 100,000 pilgrims daily, while on special occasions and festivals like the annual Brahmotsavam, the number of pilgrims shoots up to 500,000, making it the most-visited holy place in the world. The popularity of this temple is so high that they have made replica of this temple in different parts of India.

Image source 

 One such replica is in Narayanpur, near Pune. Not having the opportunity to visit the temple at Tirupati, I was curious to visit this place at Narayanpur.

We started from Pune early morning; it was warm and sunny day. Driving through the crowded traffic took a long time; we finally touch the express highway for a pleasant drive through vast fields spread for miles. The plants and trees on route were yellow and light green, family informed me that in rainy season the fields come alive, with lots of greenery and waterfalls on hills. It makes a pleasant drive.

After a long drive of more than 100 minutes, we finally drove through dirt part to reach the beautiful Balaji temple.

You are suddenly transferred to a different world as soon as you enter the gates. The lawns are manicured, the cleanliness is maintained, against the backdrop of the hills, the temple stand proud and prominent, mimicked in wood and painted in grey oil paint. The sculpted spire over the sanctum sanctorum is painted yellow to pay obeisance to the gold spire of Tirumala-Tirupati temple.

On special request from authorities, we were allowed to bring our car closer to the temple; we left our slippers in the car and walked on the red carpet into the temple. No photography is allowed and we were asked to deposit our gadgets with the security.

Inside the big iron carved gates, was a gold temple. Family informs me that it is exact replica of the original temple. Even the black stone and other building material have been brought from Tamil Nadu, The construction of the temple went on from 1996 to 2003. The prayers and procession also take place on festivals. The priests who perform the puja also hail from same families as those of the original temple. One of the most important offering in this temple, is the ‘Thulabharam’. In Thulabaram ritual, a devotee sits on a pan of a weighing balance and other pan is filled with materials greater than the weight of devotee. Devotees usually offer sugar, jiggery, holy basil leaves, banana, gold coins; this is mostly performed with newborn babies. We took ‘parikarma’ around the temple. There were carvings on the walls and paintings in bright colors on the ceiling. Deities were housed in small cubicles where people offered their prayers. At the end of the round, big size laddoo was distributed to every visitor.

We finished seeing the temple in 15 minutes, family tells me that they spend many hours doing parikarma at Tirupati, and they have to pay extra cash to cut short their queue or enter from the back entrance.

The unique ritual of tonsuring of ones head is also done here at temple premises and I did see many people donate their hair in exchange for the blessings of the Lord. The collected hair is publicly auctioned to international buyers from time to time for cosmetic use and hair extensions.

On our way back, the ride was picnic style, feasting on figs, guava,

mangoes

and of course bhel puri at the dhabbas.

The Oath Of Vayuputra

I could not go for the launch of this book at Peddar road, but had watched it on U-tube and was surprised to see the crowd that waited to enter the store. Never in my life have I seen a book launch of such magnitude. Amish said that during book launch of his first book, there were only his family members and few friends had been forced to attend the event, his wife had distributed the questions to be thrown at author during the book reading, but popularity of those two books had changed his status and now he was known as one of the most sought out writers.

I, like thousands others, was waiting eagerly for the third and final episode of Shiva Trilogy.

I had liked the first two parts too. I had written the review of ‘Immortals of Mehula’ and ‘Secrets of Nagas’ on my blog

At the end of part two of Shiva Trilogy, I was left with questions such as:

What evil is he talking about? How can we destroy evil when it does not exist by itself? Good and evil, two sides of the coin, he must visit Panchavati, the city of Nagas to know the secret.

Shiva did reach Panchavati, I had eagerly waited for evil to emerge, making wild guesses of putting face to the evil, was it really Nagas? If it was not Naga then who was evil?, Then suddenly it is revealed that Somras, the powerful magic potion, which was good at first, had turn to evil and it had to be destroyed. Then the journey to seek the help of Vayuputra began to put an end to evil by destroying people who would not stop using Somras.

The third part, however, did not excite me as much as the other two parts did. Maybe my expectations were too high.

However, I did like the narration of the last fight of Sati. This excerpt made me sit at the edge as I read through the pages of her final fight:

“Swuth didn’t approach Sati with both his curved swords. That would have been unfair according to the rules of Aten, since Sati had one sword hand. He held the sword forward in his hand. As he neared Sati, he started swinging the sword around, building it into a stunning circle of death just ahead of him, moving inexorably towards her. Even as Swuth’s sword whirred closer, Sati began to step back slowly. She suddenly thrust her sword forward quickly, deep into the ring of the circling blade of Swuth, inflicting a serious cut on the Egyptian’s shoulder. She pulled her sword back as rapidly, before Swuth’s circling blade could come back to deflect her sword. He’d never met anyone with the ability to penetrate his sword’s circle of death.”

The book title says ‘Oath of Vayuputra’ but what oath? And Vayuputra (isn’t that supposed to be Lord Hanuman) has less than 100 pages of fame.

The read is easy flow, so even though I had put away after reading 200 pages of more brutal war and long sea travelling, I did return back to finish the book. 

The book did have the elements of surprise, joy and pain.

Travel and Souvenirs

Many years ago, when I started travelling abroad, I noticed people buying things that they didn’t really need. I was brought up in a middle class home where we only shopped for things that we needed and nothing more. Therefore I was surprised when I saw people buying dozens of assorted key-chains as if they were free.

That was the first time I was introduced to the concept of souvenirs.

I learnt that people shop for souvenirs to bring back home the memories of the places that they visited and to give away mementos to their well-wishers too.

I used to love dolls, I had decided then that I would collect dolls from every country that I visited.

But this passion did not last long, because after traveling to many places, storing the dolls was an issue. There are many souvenirs I have collected over the years but most of them I have given them away. They attract me but the thought of storing puts me off.

Walking through the narrow streets of Ghana I came across this wooden carved figure and I couldn't resist buying

 trekking through the dirt path in the interiors of Tenerife in Spain, I came across a tiny shop that sold this metal lizard with a baby

 Then I was looking for table lamp and loved this hand painted shade with a carved metal stand when I saw it in Spain

masks always amuse me and this tiny wooden mask captured my attention

Over the years I have collected many souvenirs that have included books, artifacts, coins, key-chains, fridge magnets and many more.

It becomes easy to give as souvenir to friends, specially those who appreciate it.

I have tried many airlines but I like to travel in those flights that have good inflight shopping. Most of them have duty free stuff like perfumes, jewelry and drinks. But sometimes if you are lucky you might find rare things too, for example this ‘camel-tooth-pick’ souvenir that I had purchased during my travels to Dubai.

When the inflight shopping is interesting, then it is certainly much better activity than just sleeping and eating, no?

Women’s Day Tea Party

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8. The idea of celebrating this day is for recognizing the importance of women’s role in the society. It is an occasion to review how far they have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize for meaningful change.

And I got opportunity to unite and network with women this week end when I got an invitation from Rushina to attend her Tea party at her studio.

All I could feel was thrill, thrill, thrill!

At 4pm I arrived with my friend at APB cook studio. I am always impressed at this cook studio that has a large kitchen with 6 working stations. Plus there are shelves of products on sale that include sauces, jams and other food items, there are also food magazines and other interesting kitchen articles like apron, kitchen clocks that we may not find at other places.  

The room was filled with beautiful well-dressed ladies, all with their smart phone, ready to click the event. There was ample food and drinks to pamper the taste buds. There were bite size desserts from ‘Icing on Top’, mini cakes from ‘Piccoli Tortini’, sauces from ‘i2cook’ , wine from ‘Fratelli wines’, tea from ‘tea Trunk’. The evening was all about networking, sharing of ideas and communicating. I had an interesting conversation with Meeta who updated me on healthy eating.

The evening was packed with activities like sharing the skills and demonstration of recipes.

Akshola Honawar of ‘Runal Salon’ educated us on hair care telling us the importance of massage and spa.

This was followed by the reading of a book “Escape from Harem’ by Tanushree Poddar.

Next there was a discussion on adding prunes to our regular diet followed by demonstration of recipes with prune by Harsha Sabnani

Rushina demonstrated the recipe of stuffed mushrooms and chicken in orange juice and wine, which was tangy and sweet, an interesting combination.

The evening was lovely, made lots of new friends and yes, not to forget the gift hamper that had peanut butter, pitted prunes, a test tube bottle of tea leaves, fig jam and spicy Paan masala