Moonlight and crystal salt radiate whiteness on the desert

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Gharapuri with Dikshitar playlist

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  There are many brilliant depictions of Ardhanarishwara across the country. But, standing before Him/Her at Gharapuri/Elephanta always feels special. As one moves from the Sadashiva who occupies the center space, with his magnifying spell, towering over us is the Ardhanarishwara. The Her part which we first encounter, the lips that twist to represent the masculine and the feminine is sure to cast a spell. The stylish way in which His hand rests on the Nandi, and the light coming from the left adds to our appreciation of the full form.  On my first visit after five years, in December, when I was standing there, I asked my friend who is a student of Carnatic Music, “why don’t you sing Ardhanarishwaram” … that song reverberated in my ears for long after I left the island that day, to only revisit it with another friend, the next week. I thought as someone who loves temple visits as much as Carnatic music, and listening to lot more of the mahan vaggeyakara Muthuswami Dikshitar in...
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Elegant temple and the exotic maidens

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 The Kakatiya grandeur at Palampet, Telangana  In the book ‘Royal Patrons and Great Temple Art’, Shehbaz H. Safrani, author of the chapter on the Ramappa Temple in Telangana compares the patron of the temple General Recherla Rudra to Pericles for his statesmanship and also for his famous temple, the Parthenon. Across India there are scores of temples that have been built, endowed by queens, generals, traders, trade guilds etc., While one can think of local comparisons, to the Somanatha Dandanayaka a general of Hoysala king Narasimha III who built Somanathapura, a global comparison is beyond me. However, the size and effort of Pericles being compared to Recherla makes one sit up and take note of the size of the temple and tank he constructed and also his role and importance in the reign of an illustrious Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. While historians of the Marxist school or the post-modernist have not been kind to the kings and the temple builders, mostly attributing them to p...
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STRAIGHT T(W)ALK – Andal and Ammaiyar

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  ‘The Gallery of Upside Women’ - the title taken on from the legend of Karaikkal Ammaiyar's walk towards the Kailasapathi which we who grew up near Thiruvalangadu believe ended there. Nataraja performed Urdhva Thandava at the Ratna Sabha, and told Ammaiyar to go to Thiruvalangadu if she wanted to witness the rare dance. A modern, cosmopolitan poet, a spiritual practitioner and a researcher on lady bhakti poets was speaking about them at the book reading of the latest and the last of her trilogy.  A couple of things, very commonly found statements either touching on feminism, marginalization, emancipation etc., came up, naturally. The title of sainthood that adorned the bhaktas doesn't seem to go well either with the academicians or the city readers. Nor does the idea of saranagati (surrender or servility is the word used in general as the translation by those who think saranagati as regressive) seem to be acceptable.  Then came a question from my friend - “were the...
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