surprises on the way – photo essay

Kahin door jab din dhal jae …

Driving from Mangaluru to Murudeshwar on NH – 66 is awesome in it self  – provided you ignore the typical bad patches on any Indian Road that is under repair- or not under repair. (In India some roads are perpetually under repair 😀 ). I have travelled on this road a couple of times.

During our last visit, from Murudeshwar we were to come back to Udupi where we had booked our accommodation. At Murudeshwar Deepayan (our son) had expressed his desire to have a view of the sunset from a beach. As we were behind schedule, in our worry to catch up  we had removed it from our priority list and after sometime forgotten it.

Just before the point of diversion to Kodi beach from NH-66, we got down to refresh with a cup of tea. Rejuvenated after tea,  I said hey lets us head to the nearest beach.  There was traffic on the two way narrow road.  My wife cautioned me not to speed up.  I lost all hope of reaching there before sunset.

Shortly, a glorious spectacle welcomed us as I realised I was driving  in to the sun set- the upper half of the setting sun was in front of us across the sea.  Deepayan lost no time in getting down to capture the setting sun.

Nadi mile sagar mein …

Between Mangaluru and Murudeshwar a number of rivers join the sea. One such river is Panchagangavallli River that meets the Arabian Sea at Gangolli. Work is still going on for the sea walk. The beach nearby is isolated. The road to this place is narrow and other than a few locals you don’t find many tourists here. Maybe, after the sea walk is complete and the connecting road from the NH is widened it would become a prominent tourist spot.

Purana Mandir … (Not the Ramsay types)

There are a number of alternate routes from Shivamogga  to Bengaluru. We decided to take one of the roads less travelled.

While on the State Highway between Tarikere to Hosadurga the following board made us pause for a moment. We decided to take the diversion  for the Amruteshwara Temple located near Amruthapura village. .

Even though from the outside one may get the impression that it is an abandoned temple preserved for the sake of only being ancient, we found that puja was still being done inside to the presiding deity – Lord Shiva. Outside the temple there are a lot of warning boards informing the wannabe vandaliser about the consequences of violating the rules related to the archaeological preservation of heritage.  To my disappointment I could not find any board containing any information about the history of the temple. However, the priest himself gave brief account of the temple.

Amrutheswara temple was built in Hoysala style in the twelfth century by one of the Commanders  of the the Hoysala King Veera Vallala II by the name Amrutheswara. One distinguishing feature of the temple is that scenes from Ramayana and Mahanbharat are depicted on the outer panels.

Unlike the direction board at the diversion point to Amrutheswara Temple, no such boards are there on the State Highway to indicate the diversion for the Yoga Naraaimha Temple. Thank God after coming back to the State Highway we had set our Google Navigation to the Yoga Narasimha Temple, Baggavalli.  The road to this temple from the state highway is also badly in need of repair.

And to our despair, even when Google informed us that we had reached the destination, Yoga Narasimah Temple was nowhere in sight. We found  another family from Bengaluru in similar predicament.  We consulted a local who pointed towards a narrow alley in between village houses and barns. Here too one may get the impression that it is an old abandoned temple.  But we were proved wrong.

There are a number of Yoga Narasimha temples in Karnataka. The idols inside are like the famous Yoga Narasimha idol of Hampi.

Yoga Narasimha Temple, Baggavalli

Somehow these little known ancient temples have managed to survive – both the ravages of time and our apathy to our cultural heritage.