Who created God?

Who created God? or Is it our own invention? It is an age-old question that has plagued all those who like to think about the big questions.

Just last fortnight, I visited Puri, Orissa for the pilgrimage to Jagannath temple. As much as it was spiritually "satisfying" for my parents I was irritated with the chaos and mayhem created by 'pandas' there. I was wondering if indeed visitors are able to offer their prayers in peace. It is after all every Hindus long cherished wish to do their 'char-dham-yatra' but was that the only purpose or the reason lies in creating another money spinning business in the name of God? Is God our own creation? may be I don't know and neither do I have the patience or time or inclination or competence to read and understand the philosphical content of all the books on the subject. But, here was this craftsman on the Grand Road - famous for the 'Rathyatra' conducted here every year, focussed on giving final touches to idols. His frentic fingure movement was a feast to watch and I was still wondering if he created the God!! Shy of me taking his photos he asked me 'Babu, humari photo kyun le rahe ho?' I told him, I never saw any one creating God to which he replies 'Babu, murti nahin banayenge to ghar kaise chalayenge aur bhagwan to haathon mein hai to khana khila raha hai.. humara to bass itna hi kaam hai'

Soon I realised why do we say 'Apna haath Jagannath'. I guess it is very important to be focussed and do our duty religiously.. rest shall follow. I guess I learn some thing from him.

Travelogue: Bidar Fort, Karnataka

Do u mind coming with us for watching 'Transporter 3'?! O.K, I'll pick you up in 15 minutes... was all that I heard... 2115 hrs, I told myself there is no time for cooking, we shall have dinner somewhere... later we reached IMax theater to discover a big group of boys inquiring at the box office about tickets.. as luck would have it we missed the movie.. boys had a bad mood and were wondering what to do next.. someone said 'hands up for ice cream on Necklace road?' and all were ready... I have started believing that water bodies have some great healing power they seem to absorb your negativity and a big scoop of ice-cream induces the much needed positive energy in you.. so it was one gr8 combo!! Cruising past midnight on Necklace road.. cool breeze, silent lake and shimmer on the water surface is just bliss... here our gang just sat there on the lawns next to the lake talking about life and things like terrorism and petty politics and things which are taking its toll on our lives.. when Ani said ... all I need is one long bike ride.. pat came the reply, lets go Bidar.. MP said 0500 Hrs sharp and immediately some one cribbed about the timing ... come on guys its Sunday!! said Sindwani.. it is too early.. after litle ping-ponging upon he issue everyone agreed to 'go'... nevermind, in the morning finally 14 of us were ready for the trip, we started at 0930 hrs from Karkhana road and hit NH9 at Miyapur and we made our first pit stop at Sadashivpet next to a Dhaba. We ordered Aaloo paratha as we can get them fast and were hungry like dog. I muss say the food was good as each one us 'overate'... hehehe.. after a cup of tea we hit the road again with standing order to meet again at Zafirabad to leave NH and move to SH-4. The road stretch from Zafirabad o Bidar owan goes through state borders and is very peaceful to drive through the jungles on both sides... on your we found several cart loads of sugarcane ... those farmers were graceful enough to give us a cane to each one of us... and quite naturally each one of us had a childhood story to share.. I was wondering when was the last time I visited my nanihal, I stopped counting years.. I felt bad.

Upon reaching the town area we were welcomed by a giant sign-board displaying distance and directions for the places of interest in the dusty town. We decided to start from Narsimha Jherni and believe me not once for religious reasons but to explore the cave with chest-high water levels with bats on the roof top it sounded so exciting... after the holy dip into the water we had a good bath at the natural spring in the temple campus.

We then decided to go for Gurudwara famous for its linkages with Guru Nanak Sahib and this time again the primary reason was the 'Langar', I actually could imagine hot-tasty halwa in my mouth... remembering 'Bangla Sahib' at Delhi... Legend has it that the areas has its only sweet water lake thanks to Guru sahib.

'Enuff of pligrimage!!' frowned one said after we had stomach full of food at the 'langar' and we now decided to exploit the photographic opportunity at the fort taking advantage of the sun. But, before we could go there I decided to check out some Bidri craft work, which is special to the area, try googling for the same and you might like it as well.

Here, again the place is very beautiful and really really provides ample of photo opportunities which our paltan consumed to its maximum. We had some great fun here. Some of the excitement is captured here.

Travelogue: Warangal

There are some indulgences which can not be explained, one such are bike rides. It needs your complete involvement and in return gives one the complete travel experience. Here, one does not experiences things but (s)he is very much part of the experience itself. Our trip to this important city from Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh was dotted through out by BIG boulders and I mean it quite literally. Prominent among them is the one at 'Bhuvangiri' which has a small 11th century fort atop. The intermittent landscapes were covered with lush green paddy crop. Once we reached this peaceful city with roads broad enough to accommodate its traffic we had lunch and only then we drove to the temple of thousand pillars which is currently under restoration by ASI which was quite a disappointment to us, nevertheless we were fortunate enough to find some one we knew who took us to the site and showed us the work in progress and briefed us about the renovation plan which very much compensated for the loss. We later visited the fort and 'Bhadrakali temple' which was feast for eyes at sunset. Our return trip was one real peaceful drive through the dark cold night riveted with the thump of our engines and illuminated only with headlamps... vrooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmm

This web-album tries to capture those moments.

Travelogue: Nagarjun Konda

Today was my first sunrise after years and still all looked so fresh, bright... so very own and while looking straight in Sun's eyes I found it asking me where have you been all this long, look at your self what have you done to yourself... are you the same footballer who would race against me to start the game... trying to frame an excuse.. I received a phone call from one of my friend.. "We have started... reach Lifestyle... 15 min" I said to myself ... I don't want to get late and changed gears to get ready.. but then years of lethargy and indiscipline can not just go like that.. while I was tying my shoe laces, I received my second call .. I straight away said.. will take take 5 min, on my way.. pat came the reply do u have MP3s on disk... anything will do... Dude I've them.. but not on CDs, will flash drive work??... No, there is no USB port here !! OK forget it we are right here at your doorsteps, so come out :) I had to wish all of them with a sheepish grin... while on car we truly appreciated things which are truly pluggable .. just plug them and play.. the discussion wavered between MP3s to flash drives to SD Card to Eclipse IDE to People. Yes people, we discussed how things have changed from past.. how simple it is for us to move any where.. how is it just a mind thing to feel about your gali, your city, your country.. your world.. and how adaptability is one of the most relevant and required skill in today's world.. we moved in a petrol station.. and snap came another wish to power our cars with electricity.. well as the with idea... we had a long way to go ..

It was two hours now that we were driving and though none of us really felt hungry.. we definitely needed a stretch break, after some coffee and fresh dollops of idlis we were ready for hitting the road again... where is Kondu? he was missing ! where did he go, some one said look him in the trees.. 'National Geographic ke liye koi video bana raha hoga..' Meet Kondu, a self-taught digital photogrpahy enthuthiast who loves to capture nature in all its forms and shapes.. he has panache for creating abstract images, speaks very less but has sharp observation... we got hold of him and stuffed him on the front seat to allow him to take photos while on move...

Another one hour and we reached the dam site... it felt so good to be there.. we straight away headed to wards the security post to walk over the dam.. alas we were stopped on grounds of security.. this is one of the side effect of terrorism.. it has simply spoilt the whole trust thing and has taken out the fun out of tourism... nevertheless the cops were really very polite and guided us about the dam site and other places to visit in close proximity. There description of the boat trip to an island in the third largest man-made reservoir heightened our spirits again and we rushed for the launch site.. on our way we crossed the spring bridge right in front of the dam... it truly majestic. The dam in all its glory stood there to provide irrigation to large portion of the state. The thoughts rushing in my head was how big can u think to create such an engineering marvel which affects lives of so many people bringing them happiness and prosperity.. as a souvenir of the place I stored lung full of fresh air gushing through my nostrils standing atop the bridge that provided 360 degree of the Krishna valley... I was happy.

"Time to move now the boat trip starts at 12" meet Saujanya our time keeper a post graduate in English Literature, who would rather prefer to slaughter me for my "Applied English". Learning the language might have imbibed good British habits.

OMG!! there was typical chaos a the ticket queue and only after one hour we could get our boat tickets, but then we were in time and that was reason enough for us to cheer up so we celebrated it with a dash of Sprite. Seeing the jetty coming to shores we decided to reach downstairs, guess what there was another queue to purchase museum tickets. Disgusting as it was I saw that process flaw and how revenue sharing issues must have created such a stop gap arrangement... find IT to rescue :) We could only catch next jetty at 1300 hrs. Saujanya was not amused :) we decided to take a walk around the launch site, its a small place with lots of cars parked all around this place, as it is one of they favourite weekend get-aways... you can find entire families touring he place.. with super-energetic children and tired mothers running behind them... so much fun.. such a pain.. I remember my mother telling me .. beta jab tum bade hoge tab samjhoge !! :)

An hour long boat ride we reached the Nagarjuna Konda island named after the Buddhist ruler of the area. This site was reconstructed to protect the archaeological findings from the area. The moment one steps on the island one becomes very part of it. The place is so peaceful that I wanted to stay there for the rest of my weekend. The silent lake with lush green tree line was truly blissful.

We went to the museum and learn about the Monastery, the valley model the way it looked before the dam was constructed, some how I felt deja vu about the whole thing. May be I'm there for a purpose.. OK, this was crap ;)

It was 1430 hrs and we thought of having lunch and there we find a canteen. I must confess, these tourism boards must take some steps o improve the food provided at their doorsteps. The food was pathetic and I could not eat more than one spoonful and the filthy fellow charged Rs. 60 per plate of "Veg-Biryani". The food was bad taste and unhygienic and to top it all the canteen vendor was apathetic to the whole situation... it sucks !

Upon reaching back to shores we headed towards Ettipotala waterfall which is there because of two tributaries of Krishna river emerge out of ground and fall into this gorge. I mus confess his place was straight out of jungle books. The story has it that people of the region stopped British explorers to visit the place as there is some big roar always come from the area. This place is densely covered with shrubs making it difficult to move through them, also because the rivers emerge from underground people would not have clue then in the year 1732. The lagoon is home to Lord Dattatri and goddess Madhumati. May be I will visit them next time.

Here APTDC has made some nice experiments by lighting the waterfall which was one unique experience for me. Although the music played was more of a nuisance and no way helped. May be APTDC can take cue from reality television and arrange a competition to create musical theme for the waterfall to be played at night. This way it will not only create an ambient place but also will open an opportunity for musicians to showcase their talent as a first step towards commercial success.

All the way back to Hyderabad I was thinking it is always so nice to visit places and there is still so much to do for us.

P.S. Find related photos here