Travelogue

A travelogue as part of my journey. Parshu, one of my dearest friend is one of those people who always has time on his hands.He is a very busy artist but he manages to squeeze in time for me is what I mean ;).  We just meet up for CTR dosa with less than five minutes of notice.Send a message - lo manga dosa?? and wallah . We just need to be jobless and in around the place to meet up for yummy dosa or coffee or pizza.

 So we decided to go on this bike trip.

It was confirmed( almost) the previous night to set out early in the morning before the traffic kicks in. Dawns are not me ! I made an effort to wake up and call him and he does not receive the call... and sends a message saying we are to leave at 8. Did I get the info wrong???

No!!! he calls to say lets leave at 9 and then at  10 ..while I was dressed in  adventure gear with shoes, hats, jackets and waiting for him to wake up at 7am..

So we met , for dosa again and we left Bangalore before 11 . He could not get his brothers' efficient  bike so we mounted on his old bike(sundari) with broken headlights and decided to reach Bangalore before dark.(We were kidding ourselves). Traffic traffic traffic.. so we managed to get off tumkur road and turned left past nelamanagala only at around 12. 

 aahhh another detail missing.. before 10 am he asked me to get my video camera.. we were to film his dance. My camera was not charged , his camera was not available so I had to take the wire with me and charge at all the small hotels and dhabas on the way . Crazy eh ???

where were we heading? I have no clue . He says KambadhaLLi .. and he has never taken this route before. He has always visited the place from Shravanbelgola. so we asked for directions. The bike does not move very fast , so we went as fast as we would go on Bangalore roads on a high way as well. He was singing, so I had no reason to crib. He was cracking pjs - so I had no reasons to complain . Did it start to rain? Thank heavens no! The bike did not have good breaks to handle slippery roads..We just laughed away while he spoke about a trillion things I could not hear through my helmet. I think I kept screaming ,' what did you say parshu?' and 'I cannot hear you'  throughout the journey.

Finally we managed to reach kambadhaLLi. We stopped for lunch in a small Dhaba on the way and the skies showerd while we charged the camera and ourselves with lunch. We would reach Kambadhalli ... Bhai yeh Kambad halli kya hain? Its a small village close to Nagamangala around 30 kms from mandya, home to a very old 2nd century Jain Basidi. An ideal place for a dance shoot. Quiet , serene and beautiful . We made it to this place on our Jataka Bandi(bullock cart) . It was  around four when we reached the place and I had less than ten minutes to decide location to film the video and he had less than 15 minutes to get ready with make-up, costume and choreography. We had less than one hour to shoot the whole thing and less than half hour battery time on my camera. We had to embark on our return journey at  five thirty because we did not have headlights that worked and Kambadhalli is atleast 30kms off the highway with absolutely no street lights. YAY!! This trip would not please professional film makers, artistes and people who plan things meticulously. This kind of journey is suitable only for eccentric morons who would enjoy every ounce of stupidity that life throws at them :)

It was beautiful... Time stood still. the weather was perfect. Very quiet. We time travelled to a different century  in the few minutes we had to spare . We managed to film the video with the available resources. We also had the priest of the Basidi included in the photo shoot and he was very particular to inform Parshu that he should marry only a Jain girl . Subtle but stern. A young man and a woman traveling together are either siblings or married in the eyes of the society . Any other relationship is simply not acceptable. It did not bother us and we simply acknowledge his intentions with a smile and started packing to head back home.

On our way back we decided to take the Mysore road because we would at least be traveling on roads that are well lit even if it got really dark and we convinced ourselves that we would cover 30 kilometers within two hours on our jet plane. Parshu also had some theory about the skies being brighter during summer because the suns rays fall directly over the tropic of cancer etc etc :). Geography is his forte :P

On our way we came across this small village called BAsiralu or was it BAsiraLa . I cannot remember because we went there almost a month ago . There are a lot of historical monuments around mysore and mandya region  many of which are not discovered and do not exist on the map of documented history and heritage. They are ruins.. part of the village structures sometimes shelter for cattle but timeless as always. 

We came across this old temple... He thought it was a JAin BAsidi as he spotted a Brahma Sthamba at the entrance but approaching it from a closer place filled us with awe. It was a beautiful Hoysala temple.. It was almost six when we managed to take some pictures at this magical place and decided to drive back. 

How we got back to Bangalore was quite a funny story but we made it. He drove continuously for many hours  in the dark. It was extremely tiring for him and we could take a break only when we reached mysore road. He was sleepy  and tired but he drove with extreme caution and we were back home safe.

It was a very special birthday gift.. THANKU parshu