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A morning to remember from Kashi  I felt like an original explorer that morning. I missed getting out by sunrise as I had planned. But, being a winter morning, it was still not too sunny when I ventured out at 8, and the streets were just getting a little busy in Varanasi. I got into an electric auto rickshaw and asked for Adi Keshav mandir. The driver drew a blank, and then I told him Raj Ghat. Still, he wasn’t too convinced. I opened up the GPS and told him to head straight towards Raj Ghat. I knew the best way would have been to go to Assi Ghat and take a boat ride rather than rough it out on Kashi’s streets. Just laziness or my dizziness in looking down into water while getting a boat, I avoided it. It was a pretty long ride, and once close to the right turn towards Raj Ghat we asked for Adi Keshav mandir and got directions. The GPS took us straight up to the lane inside where the temple is tucked in clearly. We crossed the archaeological ruins of the ...

“The temple is the concrete shape (murti) of the Essence; as such it is the residence and vesture of God. The masonry is the sheath (kosa) and body. The temple is the monument of manifestation. The devotee who comes to the temple, to look at it, does so as a seer, not as a spectator” – Stella Kramrisch The Early Chalukyan or the Badami, Western Chalukyan cave and temple architecture has been a subject of deep and long drawn research since the times of James Fergusson. Yet in the popular discourse and historical narratives the development in the South gets overshadowed by the study of either the glorious Gupta art in the North or the magnificent caves of Western India. The Early Chalukyan temple territory is small if we consider the core of their construction in the Malaprabha valley (Mahakuta, Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal set in a 25 kilometers long Malaprabha river valley) in the present day northern Karnataka, though their overall footprint was large, spread acros...

July 27, 2015 Yesterday’s expedition to watch Bahubali at a theatre unknown to me all these days brought back memories of all the strange movie going / watching experiences one has had over the years. From the time I can remember I have been watching movies – despite being an orthodox family, my father, his mother and her sister were all great movie buffs. It was very selective, the kind of movies we would be taken to as kids. Grandmother had taken us as elementary school kids to watch some of the Russian circus movies, African Safari and likes. She was my long time movie watching buddy. Sridhar was a preferred director, of course of the era when I started watching movies, while there mixed reactions to K.B at home. Dad hated Bharatiraja, in fact the only time I remember he lost his cool on me for watching a movie was when I accompanied someone to watch Kizhakke Pogum Rail for a second time. He watched Sigappu Rojakkal with his friend at Kutralam and that sealed his d...

Ineffable mass of grace who dwells on the peak of Elephant Hill, dark blue flame in the altar of the Lotus-Born's horse sacrifice wish-granting tree hugged by a slender creeper, the milk ocean's daughter: May he make us prosper!  (Verse from Varadaraja Pancasat of  Swami Vedanta Desikan translated by Steven Paul Hopkins)  The year 2019 is eventful for the devotees of Kanchi Perarulalan. Athi Varadar Vaibhavam, the darshan of original deity who resides inside the Ananta Saras Pushkarini happens once in 40-years, and 2019 July  – August  is going to be when He will be giving His darshan again. By the time you read perhaps the Darshan would have started. Those of us who have had His darshan in 1979 remember the devotion and excitement, and wait with same devotion now. But, for those of us who were too young to understand the history and circumstances of His Jala Sayanam, 2019 is different. The eagerness to see Him, to dwell into His Mahatmiyam is diffic...

Silent revolutionaries - Sowbhagyalakshmi Srirama Bharati It was May 2017, and that trip to Chennai was not just a routine stopover on the way to Kanchipuram. In April I had won the Justice Telang Fellowship in Indology - with just no more than a love for Alwars and their verses and a deep interest in traditional performing arts I had chosen the topic 'Araiyar Cevai - Millennial Retrospective'. I didn't know where to begin. Someone told me Kalakshetra had archived 'Araiyar Cevai' and I thought I will begin there. That is when a friend told me how she was part of the team that worked on that archiving, archiving works of Srirama Bharati, the man who took Araiyar Cevai from its traditional practitioners and setting to a secular stage. I had heard about his moving, devotion soaked Cevai but just around the time I got to know about him he passed away. Too young and too early - in 2000 when he was just 50. In May ‘17 when I searched for his videos on...