Whenever we have zoomed past the Nice road on the way to Mysore, we would come across these huge idols, high up on the mountain and always wondered which temple is it, which is the approach road and how on earth people ever managed to climb all the way to the top. Even though it always fascinated me, either because of the urgency to move on or due to the absence of the visible approach road, we have always bypassed it. Until today.
Let me deviate a bit here from my sojourn story. There are people, there are participants, and then there are organizers. For any trip, tour or outing you will always find enthusiastic participants. But what is lacking is the leaders who can organize, motivate people to participate, encourage them to get involved and most important, arrange food and conveyance. Some may be willing to come, others may be willing to help the organizer, but we need that one person who will take all the lead. With the average age of the colleagues in the office not being sweet sixteen anymore, we may have glamorous looking faces on the tour and on camera, but off the flash, there are a lot complaining knees,legs and backs!
Fortunately for us there is one lady, L Lalitha, my colleague who is a master in taking the lead and organizing Anything and Everything! Bless her soul! I really appreciate her ingenuity. She can turn any situation into a great opportunity worth enjoying. So when another colleague invited us for
her housewarming ceremony in Happy Valley, off Mysore/Kengeri road, Lalitha grabbed the opportunity and by evening not only a vehicle was ready at the gate, but even hot coffee and snacks were served before we boarded the vehicle!
So this is how we came to visit the beautiful Shanmukha temple in Rajarajeshwari Nagar about which I was gushing at the beginning. Yes, I gush when I visit certain places. Be it Kaadu Malleshwara temple in Malleswaram, Anjaneya temple at Ragigudda, Ramakrishna Ashram in Basavanagudi and parks and resorts which have nature in abundance – a pleasure closest to my heart. It thrills me and elevates my mood. There is so much positivity in nature!
This temple is extremely beautiful, very well designed and maintained on an elevated platform with very comfortable steps.With due apologies to all those temple trustees, let me express my opinion that in majority of the temples, the management, the authorities think they are engineers, just because they know that a building can be built by keeping bricks on one another and binding them with cement! Unfortunately Ragigudda has been robbed lately of its beauty by fixing innumerable barricades,which according to me were totally unwarranted. So when one visits a temple or a building,one can immediately make out the involvement of an architect.
This temple has a stamp of a very smart architect, because there is a beautiful temple of Shiva, a blissful ambiance, an anthill in concrete moulds which looks extremely natural and beautiful. I remember how in the film OMG, milk being shown going down the drain in the name of abhisheka, but here you pour the milk in a steel drum on the top,and it cleanly flows down through a pipe, showering on Shiva in a dimly lit – only with diyas - giving the Linga a silver marble hue. The image has since remained in my mind ever since!
Beyond Shiva temple, on climbing some more steps, is the Shanmukha temple, built in a hexagon shape, a beautiful window on each side of the sanctum sanatorium giving a glimpse of the deity inside. The inner walls all around the big temple are beautifully adorned with statues and books.
Because it's located on an elevated platform with open space all around it,
and since we visited at dusk, we could see a beautiful sky line, first with both sun and moon adorning the sky at the same time and then the Bangalore skyline being lit up with hordes of lights. A sight totally worth beholding!!!
And then it was time to visit yet another newly built beautiful Omkareshwara temple near JSS college,where Dwadasha lingas have been elegantly ensconced in small temples inside one big complex. An evening totally worth spent, which was rounded with a sumptuous meal at my colleague's house.
I know we all will cherish this experience for a long time to come and when in future we reminisce and look back at the days spent with colleagues, this experience will have a special place in our memory.
And for those of you readers, if you haven't visited this place yet,you have really missed visiting a great place in namma Bengaluru!!!
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