To Udipi Sri Krishna temple --east to west coast.
Since childhood i always associated Udupi with Udipi hotels that dotted South India and were famous or their delicious cuisine ,of tasty meals and tiffins made tastier by generous garnishing with desicated coconuts.
The connection between Udupi and Sri Krishna was always there but somewhat hazy and distant but its importance to our religious psyche was as concrete and equivalent to that of Krishna's temple at Guruvayoor.
It was my long cherished desire to visit Udupi that had reached fruition only now after harboring it within fir several decades and here i was walking down the Railway platform at Chennai searching for our coach, in the night express.
A slender man lay stretched out languidly on a sheet of paper in a corner of the platform ,with a cement bag for a pillow .He was unperturbed by all the characteristic bustles of a busy rly station . His eyes fixed dreamily on the sky visible through a slit in the covering .
A sigh escaped me .How lucky he was to stare moodily and meditatively without anyone finding it ridiculous or insane or abnormal.Some people even those lowly placed have all the fun effortlessly that is bent on eluding those specially those who set a time frame to have it like me who has the additional burden of artificially manufactured status that is either out of genuine respect or mere scorn ,unceremoniously thrust upon
The red shirted coolies have dwindled in numbers what with 90 % of the passengers be it a small boy clutching his mothers hand or a old lady bent with age pulling their travel bags ,all with wheels ,with ease.
The golden rays of the morning sun poured over the landscape the next day that was no longer arid or cultivated fields as it was in Tamilnadu but that of dense foliage ,clumps of coconut trees ,whose dark shadow was reflected by innumerable ponds,way side ditches [ i recollected the heavy rains that lashed the train on its journey the night before] and backwaters along the way. .
We had entered Kerala and were soon thereafter in Karnataka .The spacious red tiled houses occupying every available space in Kerala continued to do so as we neared Mangalore .The sea sky blue and restful beckoned us at a distance.
17.2.13--18.2.13
The connection between Udupi and Sri Krishna was always there but somewhat hazy and distant but its importance to our religious psyche was as concrete and equivalent to that of Krishna's temple at Guruvayoor.
It was my long cherished desire to visit Udupi that had reached fruition only now after harboring it within fir several decades and here i was walking down the Railway platform at Chennai searching for our coach, in the night express.
A slender man lay stretched out languidly on a sheet of paper in a corner of the platform ,with a cement bag for a pillow .He was unperturbed by all the characteristic bustles of a busy rly station . His eyes fixed dreamily on the sky visible through a slit in the covering .
A sigh escaped me .How lucky he was to stare moodily and meditatively without anyone finding it ridiculous or insane or abnormal.Some people even those lowly placed have all the fun effortlessly that is bent on eluding those specially those who set a time frame to have it like me who has the additional burden of artificially manufactured status that is either out of genuine respect or mere scorn ,unceremoniously thrust upon
The red shirted coolies have dwindled in numbers what with 90 % of the passengers be it a small boy clutching his mothers hand or a old lady bent with age pulling their travel bags ,all with wheels ,with ease.
The golden rays of the morning sun poured over the landscape the next day that was no longer arid or cultivated fields as it was in Tamilnadu but that of dense foliage ,clumps of coconut trees ,whose dark shadow was reflected by innumerable ponds,way side ditches [ i recollected the heavy rains that lashed the train on its journey the night before] and backwaters along the way. .
We had entered Kerala and were soon thereafter in Karnataka .The spacious red tiled houses occupying every available space in Kerala continued to do so as we neared Mangalore .The sea sky blue and restful beckoned us at a distance.
posted by K.C. Sujata at
3:54 AM
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