A journey into the ruins

This trip of ours was literally on a road less travelled..less touristy and a rickety rustic ride into the ruins of Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal…As we alighted at the little railway station of Badami..there were no touristy faces around…no guides..no taxiwallahs nudging each other for business…we just boarded the little auto parked in the stand and headed to the resort that sort of sits strangely facing the main road of Badami. And the resort was a pleasant surprise for the little area that it owned..it had done full justice to the space with greenery, a nice swing, garden and topped it with pretty cottages and we started unwinding into the slow pace of Badami..

The first day we visited the famed Badami cave temple and Agasthya lake and it is a gigantic structure beyond our urban ‘technical expertise’ horizon…a massive empire of sandstone structures that tower over the entire city….and within the structures are engraved intricately crafted sculptures and temples that will astound you! And the entire campus of structures overlook a massive lake body and to think that this entire masterpiece was created centuries back! It’s a magnificent palate of colours…the green water, the brown sandstone structures that engulf the lake and the clear sky that completes the trio with its bright blue borders! And to your surprise, there are no obscene throngs of humanity visiting this place…and you are at leisure to explore the carvings, climb atop the cave temples and enjoy the massive sight of the lake and the ruins that is probably the signature of Badami heritage!  And if we weren’t relaxed enough with that , the walk through the town further enhanced the unwinding experience..tiny tots playing gleefully in the portico of the little white and green/blue Badami houses, the pig and piglet families strolling through the market ..the locals in their ‘Nehru caps’ and the ladies in their colourful attire selling their produce in the local bazaar..! A lovely luncheon with a view of Badami life and we headed to the Agasthya lake and strolled through the embankment ..aimless and agendaless…some more marvelous sandstone structures and the evening melted into the waters and the sky migrated from its bright blue to its browny pallor and we retired into the comfort of our resort..

The next day was our exploration of the archaeological structures at Aihole and Pattadakal and the route to these two locations was an enjoyable one through fields and farmlands…the real ‘cattle’ led farming that we so rarely see these days …real farmers and farmer houses ..each house boasting of its own goat or cow or both or more (depending on their prosperity I presume)..almost a funny replacement of the bike and car/(s) that dot every urban household (of course depending on their prosperity)…the ‘monsoony’ greenery and grey skies just adding to the scenic portrait.. and when we did reach our destination, we were surprised that few of the monuments were right in the middle of the village house…goats straying into the campus..kids playing on the floor of the heritage sites…an odd mix of village life and historic monumenhts at play at Aihole!  A quick visit to the beautiful complex of monuments at Pattadakal and it was time to board our train back to Bangalore.

As the sun set into the solitary railway station, the skies turned a golden brown and the village life muted into a beautiful silence and we boarded the train – a happier trio…grateful for the heritage and rural soul that still lives through at Badami…unalloyed and unpolluted…and the ‘hope’ that the urban monsters of Bangalore do not knock at the doors of Badami soon! 

Ten Years of I do and err…. ‘You Do’

Perhaps it is the overdose of Hollywood in my life that I had to cling to the ‘I do’ usage when in reality my decade of matrimony didn’t quite start with an I do..it was a more symbolic ‘regional’ golden acceptance..a simple golden knot and a floral exchange that sealed the deal.

But I think a ten year marriage is the consummation of the clichéd ‘ I do’ with a plethora of you do and the unsaid silence of  ‘why don’t you do’……yes I do and I did a zillion things since the married tagging was completed to my existence…some that I fondly remember ..some that  I probably don’t want to ever do..some for which there was no choice than to do.. some which I didn’t even realize I did…some I thought I never could do but indeed did..some that I definitively would like to do for the next decade and beyond…and I can go on.

But it also comes with torrents of resistance and unfairness that comes with becoming a wife….and many of the ‘ I do nots’ that I initiated while taking the ‘pheras’ (is there an English term for this?)..stuck with me for ten years…. many that I moved conveniently from I do to ‘you do’… many that I overcame the mighty mountains of ego and resistance to move into the elite category of ‘I do’..But fundamentally I voiced and rebelled against anything that vaguely resembled glorified ‘gender discrimination’ a.k.a. as ‘expectations of a wife’…the incredulous thought that you cease to exist as ‘you’ post that ‘sindoorification’ ceremony..the constant expectation to ‘look a wife’…the overemphasis on the woman of a household to hold fort…the timescales set by society from matrimony to motherhood!

I guess the establishment is a quirky mix of freedom and reigning in your ‘spirits’…and the days go by in the constant struggle to maintain the balance especially when the ‘reigning in’ trait starts gaining dominance in the establishment. It means to walk that extra mile to ensure your identity is not lost in the matrimonied world that you create for yourself…it means to push yourself to go out of the comfort zone that a wedding knot creates to find your own independence…it means to guard your teen spirits so that the freshness and enthusiasm of the teens do not erode with the passing of wedded times! It also means you receive an opportunity to build a journey with a like-minded individual..to see a dream together and work towards making it happen..an additional pair of ears to listen to your laments of your daily grind..an additional brain that can take over when you have a burn-out and one that could sometimes drive sense into the irrational behaviours that you unconsciously indulge in!

I guess much as you wish yourself different from the humanity of married people on the planet..some things and clichés are like ‘default applications’ that come with the installation of the ‘married’ app in one’s life….the ‘it’s your fault’ position that every man and woman takes in a marriage…the anger levels of a husband who sits in a car driven by his wife…the false exasperation of a husband when he looks at the shoe rack and the stress levels that a wait of ‘just reaching’ creates in a wife! Ten years in all honesty can probably nibble away a few of these ‘married’ traits but the magical disappearance is probably a goal for the next 10 years!