Big Banyans near Mysore and Bangalore – Personal Photo Album Part 15

Prologue

My post on the great banyan trees in the Mysore University campus in Manasagangothri a year ago [see: Post 25 (May 2011)], drew enthusiastic attention from many netizens of Mysore, including some who actually performed the walking tour of the campus suggested therein.  I had stated that the great tree shown in picture 13 ‘takes the second rank among a list of heritage trees identified in the city and its neighborhood’.  Many people wanted to know which was the one ranked first, though obviously it was not part of the university campus.  The answer is provided in this sequel to my earlier post.  But, before doing so, I want to delve into some very unpleasant and disturbing developments for nature lovers taking place in the campuses of Manasagangothri and the neighboring Karnataka State Open University (KSOU).

Legalized Vandalism

One reason for the salubrious environment of the Mysore University Manasagangothri campus has been the rich vegetation and greenery, interspersed with large open spaces, including the banyan trees I have alluded to.  Several locations are distinctive for their dense formations of trees that had grown unfettered by human activity ever since the campus was created.  Perhaps the best such formation had come up in the northeast part of the campus, adjoining the Mysore-Hunsur highway, opposite the KSOU.  It was quite a dense formation with no pathways inside where one felt like being surrounded by a cozy little forest.  Now most of it has been reduced to rubble in the name of campus development, with a number of ugly buildings under construction, thoroughly destroying the beauty of the place.  The following pair of pictures of a portion of the same place, the first one taken eight years ago and the second just a fortnight ago, tell their own story.  Why this kolaveri ji…?  Surely there were other less environmentally damaging places within the sprawling university campus for such constructions without having to destroy so much of pristine nature.

[As in my previous albums, all pictures are in high resolution and can be blown up to their full size by clicking on a picture and opening it in a separate window]

Also uprooted mercilessly is a row of banyans lining one side of the road opposite the KSOU main building to clear space for the new constructions.  It is pyrrhic consolation for me that I had photographed these trees (for example, see picture 12 in my post on the banyans of Manasagangothri) before they were felled.  Some of the remains of this massacre are still lying scattered and uncleared at the construction site.  They don’t even seem to deserve a decent disposal.  I couldn’t believe that so much of legalized vandalism had occurred so speedily in the name of development.  In my earlier post I had said, “The mindless felling of trees resorted to in the name of ‘development’ should be regarded as a crime against humanity”.  I continue to hold such a view, but who is to identify the criminals and how to bring them to justice?

It is irrelevant for what purpose and who is constructing these concrete and steel monstrosities at the expense of unsullied nature?  What matters is that the destruction has been carried out in utter disregard of any sane voices that may have been raised against it (I am not even aware if any voices were indeed raised) and people who matter have carried out this outrageous rape of the micro ecosystem.  The way they seem to have got away with it, one wonders how long it will be before the other locations come under the bulldozers.

Let me now get back on track to the main purpose of this writing and take the readers on a photographic tour of two marvelous gifts of nature to a largely undeserving humankind.

The Big Banyan near Mysore

Here is a full view of the gigantic top-ranked banyan tree in the neighborhood of Mysore, located about 8 km from the city on the road to T’Narsipur, a short distance beyond the famous Lalith Mahal palace hotel on the outskirts of the city.

I took this picture one brilliantly sunny evening a few months ago when I visited it with my constant companion Chiranjeevi who also shares my interest in nature.  To encompass the whole of the tree I had to move back a considerable distance unobstructed, which was luckily possible.  The next picture shows the tree at close range, with Chiranjeevi on the left and an old gentleman who introduced himself to us as Mr Chikkamadaiah, the owner of the land on which the tree lies and the protector of the tree itself.  The wooden signboard carrying the bilingual description “Heritage Tree-1, Devara Aalada Mara” on the right also gives out this information.

The signboard standing on the left in effect says that visitors are in the presence of God Muneswara and should not approach the little improvised temple (not seen in any of my pictures) to its right with their footwear on!  This may not be entirely out of blind belief.  It also appears to be his psychological ploy to protect the place against vandalism from people who are fortunately often swayed by such considerations, as also to raise some funds for the upkeep of the place, incidentally ensuring a small return as well on his investment.  The excellent condition of the tree and the quality of upkeep of the place testify to the success of this strategy.

The next picture shows a very long horizontal branch jutting out of the tree threateningly towards the camera, with the protector under it.  Banyan trees are well known for such spectacular and bizarre features.

The next picture is a close-up of the lower part of the tree showing a large number of horizontal outgrowths all around, with bright sunlight accentuating these features.

The following picture captures the tree from another angle and a distance somewhat half way between the previous one and the first shot showing the whole of the tree.  The two visitors and the omnipresent protector in the picture give an idea of how big the trunk itself is.  It also captures the distinctively large and fresh glossy leaves of the tree from close range at the upper right and elsewhere.

I like the next picture taken by Chiranjeevi at his insistence as much for the rich detail seen in soft direct sunlight in a late evening sky as for showing me in unusually favourable light on, what is for me, the wrong side of the camera.

My last picture of this marvelous gift of nature, which the ‘protector’ chose to call God’s banyan tree, shows a small part of the tree highlighting some of its dense foliage seen at upper right, something that often goes unnoticed amidst the more spectacular bare trunks and branches that are also seen in the picture at lower left.

The Big Banyan near Bangalore

Called the Dodda Alada Mara in Kannada, meaning the Big Banyan Tree, this is a major tourist attraction of international standing, located about 30 km from Bangalore, about 8 km off the Bangalore-Mysore highway, and is one of the largest of its kind in the country.  Its location can be easily ascertained from a Google map.  It is reachable by an excellent road which runs all the way to the ISRO Deep Space Network facility at Byalalu, a few kilometres beyond the tree complex and even visible from that location. 

Spread over an area of 3-4 acres, the Big Banyan Tree certainly doesn’t appear to be a single tree or even derived from one.  Instead, it appears to be a large cluster of closely spaced individual trees, all appearing to be independent of each other, but in reality all derived from just one over a period of what may be several centuries.  In contrast, the tree near Mysore is one gigantic single tree.

When I visited the place last month for this photo album, the area immediately surrounding the cordoned off enclosure was incredibly filthy and spoilt, with garbage strewn all around, apparently because of some senseless partying the previous evening.  I am suppressing a strong temptation to present a picture of this utter chaos here.  Things were considerably better inside, though there was plenty of telltale evidence of the happenings of the previous evening even here.  My first picture shows a view to the right of the arched entrance showing four signboards giving some information about the place and a list of prohibited activities inside.  Unlike the Mysore tree, it was impossible for me to capture this big banyan tree complex in its entirety.  There was no building or structure nearby tall enough to give such a view.

The caretaker inside showed me the location of the mother tree that had apparently given rise to all the secondary and tertiary trees.  He told me that it had decayed and fallen off some years ago.  Here is a picture of what is left of it now:

Here is a spectacular view of a part of the interior, with emphasis on the long horizontal branch which is so long and heavy as to require a man-made prop to hold it in place as can be seen at lower left.

The following is another view of the same region, from a different angle, showing the prop closer and more prominently.  The immense bulk of the horizontal branch stands out vividly.

The next two pictures highlight how the laterally spreading prop roots dropping down from any fully grown tree are assisted by some thoughtful human intervention to dig down into the ground through cylindrical columns of soil held in place within metal meshes or otherwise and watered frequently.  This is how what may have been just one tree a long time ago has multiplied itself into quite a large number now, and will continue the process in future as well.  Three instances of these are clearly seen in each picture.

Vandalism is a favourite human pastime, especially where historic sites and remnants of the past are concerned.  I could see plenty of evidence of this here.  The following picture shows evidence of a particularly vicious act of vandalism on the huge tree trunk at the left. These hieroglyphics must have been carved long ago, when people were supposedly more civilized, as a legacy for posterity when the trunk was young and at an accessible height, for I cannot think of anyone today taking the trouble to climb so high and inflict such wounds.  One can’t help noticing how beautiful overall the sight still is despite these ugly scars.

A place like this is a natural attraction for solitude or quiet company as is evident in the following picture exuding great serenity:

Banyans are noted for their grotesquely twisted branches and trunks and the following two pictures highlight samples of these:

For the most part the enclosure containing the great cluster of banyans pictured here is well maintained, with paved pathways for leisurely strolls.  The next picture is illustrative of this.

No such prominent place in the tourist map of the country goes without the ubiquitous temple to whose resident deity all good things in the place are ascribed.  Here is the temple housing God Muneswara in a proper building, unlike the one near Mysore which was an ingenious improvisation, cut into the tree trunk itself.  However, the designers and builders of this temple never seem to have thought about the aesthetic and architectural aspects of it in a natural setting like the fabulous banyan tree complex.

Just minutes before this picture was taken I had observed an old, rustic and distraught woman in rags and tears loudly and vehemently pouring out her grief on some personal problems, and beseeching Lord Muneswara’s intervention.  It was too touching for me to capture with my camera.

Tailpiece

Referring to the great banyan tree (picture number 20) in the Sericulture department of the University of Mysore in my earlier blog, I had pointed out how a rubber tyre stuck up in the tree spoiled the beauty of it and constituted a mindless human handiwork.  One of my knowledgeable and learned readers wrote to me to say that, “The tyre in the last photo may be the remnant of the exhibition material used during the golden jubilee … I remember to have seen a giant model of the silk worm somewhere there…”  Of course he was trying to give an explanation for what I had observed, not a justification.  If the model of the silk worm had been subsequently removed and not the rubber tyre, I am afraid it amounts to an even greater act of mindlessness, neglect, and disregard.

Down Memory Lane – The Old Man and his Thosai Eatery

[With my ophthalmic ordeals continuing without a significant improvement in sight in the immediate future, and my unwillingness to put my blog on hold indefinitely, I have been thinking of some ‘soft’ themes to write about without too much ocular strain.  Someone very close to me suggested rather light heartedly that I try my hand at fiction, perhaps a short story. I considered science fiction but dismissed it as contrary to my penchant for factual accuracy and evidence based conclusions. However, the idea of a short story was indeed attractive if it was also true and drawn from real life, as in my earlier posts under the ‘angels’ and ‘devils’ labels.  The short true story narrated here is the result of these thoughts.]

Penang is a large and picturesque island forming part of Malaysia in the Southeast Asian region.  It is a major tourist attraction, with long stretches of beautiful sandy beaches attracting visitors and locals alike.  I lived there for about ten weeks during the summer of 1982, exactly three decades ago, on a ‘secondment’ to the Regional Centre for Education in Science and Mathematics (RECSAM), courtesy of the Unesco and the Indian government.  There were two others like me, one from Sri Lanka, and the other a lady from Pakistan, and we had stuck up a close friendship.  The centre had an excellent campus, with a large guest house serving the international community, mainly from the Southeast Asian nations.

The population of Malaysia is a mix of native Malays, often called bumiputras, ethnic Chinese, and a small minority of Tamil speaking immigrants of Indian origin.  While the ratio of the Malays to Chinese is about 3:1 overall, the ratio was nearly reversed in Penang.  While the Chinese largely formed the prosperous business community, the economically much weaker Tamils mostly made up the labour class.  The bumiputras generally held the seats of administrative power and enjoyed special benefits.

Being a strict vegetarian and a teetotaler, I had apprehensions about Penang being the right kind of place for my gastronomic habits.  These came true on the very day of my arrival there when I discovered that the mess attached to the institution served no item of food that was wholly vegetarian!  Incidentally, this was the only place I ever visited where my vegetarianism was tested to its limits of endurance.  When I mentioned my predicament to the institute’s administrative officer the next day, he was very understanding but expressed his helplessness in the matter, suggesting that I should opt out of the institute’s mess and explore a few nearby hotels or restaurants.  My expectations rose when I found a modest looking open air restaurant very close by and positively delighted when approached simultaneously by two Tamilian looking servers whom I could talk to in their own language and ask for the menu.  Incidentally, I have a passable knowledge of spoken Tamil, sufficient for most mundane purposes.   They greeted me warmly and were equally delighted to talk to me.  I told them how I was new to the place and what I was looking for.  When I told them I had come from India, one of them wanted to know whether I belonged to Madras or Bombay, the only two places he had heard about back in his ancestral home country.  Mysore and Bangalore made no sense to him.  He was disappointed with my vegetarianism and brought me down to earth with the information that I would be wasting my time if I looked for anything purely vegetarian in the island except in one place which was a very long way away and could perhaps be visited only during my weekends.  He gave me directions as to how I could reach there by going to the main city bus stand and taking another bus there.  He helpfully suggested that if I couldn’t compromise on my vegetarianism I could look for a variety of fruits, fruit juices, milk and other dairy products, raw vegetables, as well as wholesome bread and butter all available in a nearby supermarket.  In any case this was my Plan B and I had to fall back on it for most of the rest of my stay in Penang.  Before I thanked and left them for the supermarket, one of them very hesitantly gave me another piece of helpful information.  As it turned out, this true story of mine is woven around his information and what followed thereafter.

One of my Tamil acquaintances in the open-air restaurant had told me that if I walked about two kilometres down the main road towards the city centre, I would find a small eatery housed in a hut and run by a poor old Tamilian gentleman.  He said that it was easy to locate because of its run-down condition amidst far better surroundings and the small handwritten sign board hung up in front just saying ‘Thosai’ in English (In India, especially in the southern region, this very popular food item is generally known as ‘dosai’ or ‘dosa’ or ‘dose’, a pancake like preparation made from a thick fermented rice paste and lightly fried in vegetable oil on a frying pan).  He cautioned me that the place might be very disappointing to me because of its poor up-keep, but the food itself would be tolerable and purely vegetarian.  This is where I was headed one evening a few days later, as much out of curiosity as with the craving for some homely food.

Thanks to the precise directions I had received, there was no difficulty in locating the old man’s ‘thosai’ eatery.  The small chalk written signboard was there to see alright, but only because I was looking for it.  It could otherwise have gone unnoticed.  In just one crudely handwritten word the inmate was trying to say that the popular food item was available inside if anyone wanted to try it.  The hut was in a highly dilapidated condition, with a narrow door-less entrance, mud walls, mud flooring, and thatched roofing and could have been swept away by any ordinary gale which mercifully it might never have experienced.  In a poorly lit interior It took me a while to notice anything, but things began to take shape soon enough.  I could see the old man hunched up on a stool at a corner with his feet up, looking at nothing in particular.  He looked highly disheveled with a clump of unkempt grey hair, ill at ease and apparently suffering from several geriatric problems, including a bit of stuttering and obviously poor vision.  He looked a great deal older than what he actually may have been, about seventy.  Befitting the hot and humid climate of the place, he was shirtless and wearing a rather dirty looking white lungi folded half way up in a style reminiscent of people in coastal Tamilnadu.  Opposite to him were some cooking utensils and a gas stove on a table the lower part of which doubled up as a storehouse.  Next to the entrance there was just a wooden bench that could accommodate three or four customers at a time, with no table for keeping anything on.  The hut also appeared to be the old man’s home as I could make out from a thin roll of bedding standing up against the corner behind the stool he sat on.

Noticing my presence, the old man got up and stood in front of me without saying anything, apparently awaiting my order for his thosai.  He did not appear to be seeing me as clearly as I was seeing him and I might have appeared to him little different from other people who came to his place.  I was in no hurry to place my order, occupied as I was in trying to absorb all that my eyes perceived, and wanting to know something about him and his circumstances first.  I tried to lighten the atmosphere by telling him pleasantly where I hailed from and how I had learnt about him and his eatery and asked him what he could offer me to eat.  In a rather incoherent and testy voice he told me that he prepared nothing but thosais as the board at the entrance implied.  Seeing him in no mood for any pleasant conversation, I ordered two thosais and asked him what I could eat them with.  Thosais are generally eaten with some chutney or masala curry or even pickles.  He said that all he could give me was some watery parappu, which was the name for what in northern India is generally known as dhal. He switched on his stove, went through with his routine and soon my thosais were ready.  He gave them in a metal plate, with the parappu spread over the thosais.  I realized that I could consume the stuff only by holding the plate in one hand and using the fingers of my other hand to eat the food in small lumps as is traditionally done in south Indian homes and in most places back home.  A table would have made the task easy, but it was like asking for the moon.  The food was certainly tolerable and quite clean, but with hardly any spice normally associated with such preparations.  I ate leisurely, not giving up on my attempts to strike up a conversation and learn more about the old man and his background.  It took me quite a while to break through the social barrier he had erected around himself.

 

From my leisurely and friendly attitude the old man seemed to realize that I was a different sort of customer, not the type from the labour class who cared only for a quick mouthful at a highly affordable price and minded only their own affairs.  His stiff demeanor began to ease up and he started responding to some of my questions.  His stuttering voice, a strange accent, and an incoherent language all made it very difficult for me to understand what he was saying and keep the conversation going.  He rambled and digressed a lot and ignored some of my probing questions completely.  I have tried here to put together whatever I was able to make out about this extraordinary human being.  It is indeed a poignant story.

Born to immigrant parents who had come to Malaya from Tamilnadu as indentured rubber plantation labourers, he had no education of any kind and was a total illiterate.  Labour was all he had learnt to do right from his childhood.  Life was not too bad in his early years and he even raised a small family.  But he was soon a victim of circumstances and his simple world of work started collapsing around him.  He lost his family when he really needed it most and there were no relations or friends to care for him.  He soon became a destitute and learnt to cook out of sheer necessity.  Then he got the idea of opening an eatery for other labourers to earn a livelihood for himself and for his very survival.  He chose the present place because of some construction work in the neighborhood which could promote his endeavour.   He built the hut himself and a number of other huts had also come up around it.  Apparently all were illegal, but nobody seemed to have bothered anybody on this score.  While other huts were transformed to regular concrete and steel structures because their owners had prospered with their respective enterprises, the old man of this narrative barely managed to hold on to whatever he had built up because of failing health and declining customer interest.  Initially his eatery was offering chapattis, idlys and tea in addition to the more popular thosais and had a boy to assist him with the service.  However, as the customer turnout declined, a chain reaction set in and he had to reduce the number of items to just one and do away with the boy’s service as well.  Thereafter, it was downhill for him all the way and he seemed to have hit the bottom when I met him even as the country was travelling uphill on the road to economic prosperity.

There are a lot of things I could not find out about the old man and his sea of troubles.  In particular, I couldn’t get out of him how he lost everything and everybody around him and ended up as a destitute.  I could not also find out how, despite his poor physical condition, he was managing to prepare the thosai mix and get the indispensable water for all his operations and personal needs.  Of course there was no electricity in the hut.  It is remarkable that he continued to stand on his own feet rather than take to begging or other means as many in such situations tend to do.

After I was done with the leisurely eating and the conversation it was time for me to leave.  When I asked my host how much I owed him he mentioned a ridiculously low amount, obviously the same that he would charge others.  I took out a large denomination currency note from my wallet and handed it to him.  He looked at it and said he never carried adequate change for such a large amount and was about to go out and get the change from a nearby shop.  When I asked him not to bother and keep the change, he was incredulous and looked very hesitant to do so.  Then he sized me up, decided that I was not the usual type of customer he served, said as much to me, and agreed very gratefully to keep the change.  We parted company in a very different mood from the one we started out with.

I visited the poor old man and his eatery again a couple of weeks later.  He had no difficulty recognizing me and set out to prepare two dosais for me without waiting for my order.  Despite his enthusiastic reception of me, I couldn’t help noticing that he looked even more run down and ill than during my first visit.  I did strike up another laboured conversation with him, but this time nothing new emerged and I did not intend to probe too deeply into his painful past.  He declined to take any payment from me saying that I had already paid him handsomely earlier, but I persuaded him to accept a much smaller amount than last time.  I also advised him to get his vision tested in the local government run hospital, assuring him that such service is free to people like him, as would be any follow up treatment that may become necessary.  He didn’t seem to take the idea seriously.  I should have realized that he was in no condition whatever to act on my advice.  Before leaving him I said I would visit him one last time before I left Penang for my home.  Little did I anticipate that there was to be no such meeting.

As promised, I went to see the old man a week before I was to leave Penang for good.  When I entered the hut, I was shocked to see it completely empty and abandoned.  My immediate reaction was to assume that he had shifted to another location, but this looked extremely unlikely in view of his dire circumstances and his poor physical condition.  I had to find out why.  I approached one of the neighboring shopkeepers and posed my question which could only be in English.  Luckily he could understand me and told me in broken English that the old man was found dead in his hut a few days ago and that the municipal authorities had arranged for the cremation of the body and taken away all his meagre belongings.  He looked puzzled that someone like me should be enquiring about the old man, not having the faintest idea of the bond that had developed between us.  It was one of the saddest days in my life.  I left the place with silent tears in my eyes (something that is repeating even as I give finishing touches to this story), and the abiding memory of a destitute and dying old man who had unwittingly upheld the lofty principle of dignity of labour till his very last breath.

  

Resplendent Ruins of an Extinct Empire – Personal Photo Album Part 14

[I had prepared this post for uploading before going into a major surgery to save whatever sight I was left with in my left eye after a development last year.  While awaiting the outcome of the surgery, which can be known only after several weeks, I had a major shock with my right eye apparently following suit, but it now appears that the damage is much less than originally feared despite the highly disturbing nature of the symptoms.  I hope to regain a reasonable degree of normalcy in a couple of months and carry on with my work as usual.  I also hope that one of my major hobbies doesn’t suffer the same fate as the extinct empire I have written about here.]

Preamble

There is always something poignant about any civilization that, having had a sustained and glorious past, finds itself slowly or rapidly on the decline and eventually ends up in ruins, to be remembered only as a historical curiosity.  This is what any visitor to Rome or Athens is bound to notice, a city full of relics of a bygone era, punctuated by the rise and fall of a mighty empire, one of the cradles of ancient civilization.  Similar is the case with Hampi in south-central India, once the epicenter of the thriving Vijayanagar Empire, now a heap of ruins desperately striving to survive even as a tourist attraction under Unesco protection as a World Heritage Site.

The Vijayanagar Empire, founded on the banks of the river Tungabhadra in 1336 by two brothers popularly called Hakka and Bukka, believed to be commanders in the army of the Hoysala Empire, lasted over three hundred years.  The ruins of Hampi are the best known signposts of this empire which reached its pinnacle of glory during the rule of the great Krishnadevaraya (1509-1529), marked by widespread support to the arts, architecture, literature, painting and music, and distinguished by the presence of the legendary Tenali Ramakrishna, the resident court scholar and wit around whom some of the most illuminating stories have been woven.  The decline of the empire started after Krishnadevaraya’s glittering reign and the beginning of its end was marked by the military defeat of its then ruler at the hands of the marauding Deccan sultanates in 1565.

Despite the efforts of conservation groups bolstered by Unesco’s support and the archaeology department’s own protective measures, Hampi generally presents a sorry picture.  Like most of its neighborhood, It is located in a rather desolate environment in rocky terrain with sparse vegetation, Hospet being the closest town and well connected to most other places by road and railway.  Unfettered illegal mining and quarrying activity in nearby places, with its massive impact on the district’s ecology as a whole, is threatening to denude the Hampi ruins further.

I have visited Hampi on numerous occasions; one of the most memorable was in February 1980 when I watched the great total solar eclipse on the 16th  afternoon from the nearby Tungabhadra dam site.  My last visit during which the pictures of this album were taken was on a brilliantly beautiful and sunny day on 28 November 2005.

 

Hampi, a Heritage of Ruins

Here is a Google Earth view encompassing most of the ruins of Hampi spread over quite a large area surrounding the Tungabhadra River.  It requires a whole day to explore, especially if one takes to doing so by leisurely walk, which is indeed the best way to see the ruins.  By the way, the description ‘ruins’ is not applicable to all the places and structures; some of them are in a good state of preservation even now.  Most of the places of interest are concentrated in the lower left quarter of the picture as well as to the right of the upper part.  The pathways are very clearly identifiable and negotiable.

[As in my previous albums, all pictures are in high resolution and can be blown up to their full size by clicking on a picture and opening it in a separate window]

As with most places of historical interest in the subcontinent, the most glaringly noticeable structure is a temple with its tall and stately gopuram, the Virupaksha Temple whose complex is captured in the next picture from the nearby Matunga hill.  The desolate open space in the foreground and the hilly terrain in the background serve to highlight the overall character of Hampi.

The next picture gives a zoomed-in view of the Virupaksha temple with its typical Dravidian style architecture.  The sculpted figures are best seen in their rich detail when the picture is blown up to its full size.

The next picture from the Matunga hill shows two distinctly different types of temples, the traditional type to the far right and the more prominent one to the left which is reminiscent of the temple architecture seen in Orissa.  They belong to a small group called the Hemakuta temples on the Matunga hill.  The short sturdy granite pillar visible in the foreground here is also seen in the first picture, indicating that they were shot in diametrically different directions.

The next picture shows a short, well maintained pathway leading up to a temple housing a stone statue of Lord Ganesha housed under a pillared enclosure.  The first of the three signboards seen on the left, erected by the Archaeology department, shows a map of Hampi and the second gives a brief description of the idol of Ganesha.  The water tank seen to the left of the temple was being used to water the lawns, a useful device though not a pretty sight.  The well maintained lawn is a feature repeated in several other places in Hampi.

The stone Ganesha idol, for some obscure reason called the Sasive Kalu (mustard Seed) Ganesha, in the pillared enclosure is shown in full in the next picture.  It is at the foot of the Hemakuta hill.  Nearby (not shown here) is another large statue of Ganesha called Kadale Kalu Ganesha.

The next picture presents the contrasting views of a well maintained lawn and greenery in the foreground against the backdrop of a massive rocky structure appearing to be propped up by some huge natural boulders.

The following picture is a head-on view of the Virupaksha Temple seen in two earlier pictures.  If Hampi is the epicenter of the Vijayanagar Empire, this temple can be said to be the epicenter of Hampi. The road leading to it is spoiled by ugly and disorderly shops and stalls on both sides, something that is inescapable in most such places in the country and deliberately avoided in this picture.

Slightly out of the way, one of the largest and best known stone monuments in Hampi is the statue of Ugranarasimha shown in the next picture, with telltale evidence of some of the destruction wrought on it.  I didn’t find any better shot of this in my album and luckily my presence in it doesn’t seem to detract too much from this fabled statue.  If anything, it serves to highlight the structure in its true perspective.

One of the more spectacular edifices of nature in the rock-strewn ruins of the empire is a huge natural archway formed by two gigantic boulders shown in the following picture.

The next picture is a harmony of contrasts, with the neat man-made rows of sculptured figures on a stone monument on the left, nature’s own handiwork in boulders on the right, accentuated by the beautiful lawn in the foreground against clear blue skies in the background.

Hampi is replete with numerous robust stone pillared enclosures housing a variety of objects and open on all four sides, presumably to let in both light and air in plenty.  Here is one such structure in all its raw splendor.  Incidentally, the place is oppressively hot during summer.

Despite the rather poor condition in which one finds it, the Lotus Mahal is one of the most mesmerizing and beautiful structures in Hampi, indeed of any place in the country I have visited.  Here is a view of it amidst picturesque greenery and appearing to be shepherded by two great trees.

Another impressive structure despite its worn out condition is the Elephant stables shown in the next picture.  While the sign board is welcome, the partial, haphazard, ugly and mindless fencing in front of it is not only totally unnecessary, but also a downright insult to one’s aesthetic sense.

The following building with some impressive greenery and lawn on its front lies perpendicular to and to the right of the elephant stables.

The next picture features a subsurface rain water storage tank with some incredibly ornate and beautiful inverted pyramidal and tiered steps.  What makes it so very attractive is perhaps the symmetric stone steps laid out with such pleasing symmetry.  Observe an aqueduct running perpendicular to it on the ground at left and a large stretch of lawn behind the tank.  Observe also the stone-walled boundary and the rocky ruins beyond.

The next picture shows a large pyramidal three tiered platform, called Mahanavami Dibba, rising to a height of about 8 meters, with each tier of the platform adorned with sculptured figures in the characteristic style of Vijayanaagar architecture.  In the hay days of the empire it was being used for important public occasions involving royalty.

The next picture takes the viewer close to the Tungabhadra River and the large stone pillared Purandara Mantapa on its southern banks.  The view of the surroundings from here is a strange mix of serenity and ruggedness, the latter marked by the huge rocky hill in the distance and the boulders on the other side of the river.  The picture shows a few people putting the river waters to some very mundane use, unimpressed by the historic importance of the locale.

The Vittala Temple Complex

The quadrangle seen prominently at the top right of the Google Earth map houses the Vittala Temple complex, whose architectural style is characteristically different from the rest at Hampi, closer to the Hoysala style seen in temple complexes like Belur and Halebid, but with open sides.  This is easily the most impressive sight in Hampi and worth all the effort to reach it at its rather distant location from the rest of the ruins.  Here is a picture of the temple with the fabled monolithic stone chariot in the foreground.  The chariot has some resemblance to the one in Konark in Orissa, but much smaller and not quite so impressive.

The following picture shows a different and a vastly more impressive view of the temple. The intricate stone carvings, particularly on the clustered pillars, are breathtakingly beautiful.  The smaller pillars in each of the clusters produce a distinctive musical note characteristic of a popular musical instrument when struck with any hard substance such as a piece of stone.

I sign off with my last picture of this album, set in the Vittala temple complex, where for once nature takes precedence over human handiwork.  The center of attraction here is surely the magnificent tree, with its grotesquely twisted root and branches, giving an overall impression of awe and splendor very much in consonance with the resplendent ruins of the extinct empire.  I don’t think it is anywhere nearly as old as the principal architectural splendors of Hampi, but looks capable of surviving longer than the empire itself did.