Temple

Madurai’s Mud Horses: Raw, Real, and Rooted in Tradition

May 20, 2017ByteSizeblogger, Blogging, culture, India, instapassport, instatravel, lessons, Life, Love, Madurai, Metaphor, ordinary, passion, Play, purpose, Reflection, roads, Rural, Stories, Temple, traveladdict, travelblogger, traveller, traveltheworld, Village, wanderlust

There’s something about the rural plains that feels like a deep breath. A pause. A reset. Maybe it’s the colour—bold, unapologetic, woven into every fabric, wall, and festival. Maybe it’s the lack of sterile perfection, the absence of polished edges. Everything here is raw, textured, and gloriously authentic.

Take these mud horse statues from Madurai. Bright, defiant, standing tall against time. They aren’t crafted for galleries; they are made for the land, the people, the stories. Each jagged line, each uneven brushstroke carries a tale. There’s no need for refinement when there’s meaning. No need for symmetry when there’s soul.

Walking through these lands, surrounded by these colours, I feel something shift. A reminder of where I come from. The earth beneath my feet is familiar, yet always new. My roots, like these statues, breach fresh ground—seeking, stretching, growing.

Perhaps that’s the gift of places like this. They don’t conform. They don’t pretend. They simply are. And in their raw beauty, they remind us to be, too.

#village #Madurai #passion #rural #stories #culture #life #ordinary #traveller #instatravel #instapassport #blogger #travelblogger #blogging #traveladdict #traveltheworld #wanderlust #play #lessons #india #roads #metaphor #love #reflection #purpose
#temple (at Madurai, India)

The Roads That Were Never Roads: Lessons from Madurai’s Village Temple

January 9, 2017Uncategorizedblogger, commerce, conversation, culture, destinations, disrupt, entrepreneur, explorer, fun, instapassport, instatravel, journey, latergram, Life, Love, Metaphor, ordinary, road, startup, Stories, story, Temple, trade, traveladdict, travelblogger, travelinsights, traveller, traveltheworld, Village, wanderlust

The gates open to a quiet courtyard, framed by four pillars. Step past them, and a ruffled mud road meanders ahead, leading into the lake, beyond which stand great trees. Keep walking, and the rolling hills stretch out, pristine and endless.

The village temple marks time through its many celebrations, but for a city dweller standing here, the past whispers through the landscape. The roads his parents walked suddenly feel clearer—long roads that were never roads at all.

Their journeys began not by asking “Is there a road?” but by stepping forward anyway. Their dreams were never limited by paths already drawn. They made their roads.

Perhaps that is the lesson these great doors hold—step through, look ahead, and go.

February 10, 2016UncategorizedArchitecture, Art, blogger, fame, India, instapassport, instatravel, light, magic, Rameshwaram, srilanka, Temple, Travel, traveladdict, travelblogger, travelinsights, traveller, traveltheworld, wonder

Some places are magical. Just magical. Imagine a psychedelic light show that happens every hour of every day. Every single day on the whim of the Sun.
The architecture of the temple at Rameshwaram gets light to play hide and seek at different times of the day and changes the scene for you. There are more than a thousand pillars. Each exquisitely carved.
Its amongst the longest corridors in a temple complex. It can make you forget time. You could just sit there and light bring about the sound of life.
That such capabilities existed in the 12th century strikes the eye nonchalantly. Man’s quest for making something spectacular has remained constant.
Truly magical, wont you say?
#travel #traveller #instatravel #instapassport #blogger #travelblogger # blogging #travelinsights #traveladdict #traveltheworld #India #rameshwaram #SriLanka #art #architecture #wonder #light #fame #temple #magic (at Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu, India)

January 29, 2016Uncategorizedbhimashankar, bluemormonresort, blueskies, faith, hopes, India, Love, maharashtra, openminds, plants, positiveenergy, sky, start, Temple, wind

The Blue skies invite an opening of the mind. When the wind adds a fresh flavour, clouds dissipate.

And as the plants waltz to a new tune, you know that it’s a new beginning.
A new day.
Everyday.

#BlueMormonResort #Bhimashankar #Maharashtra #blueskies #sky #hopes #faith #start #love #temple #plants #wind @maharashtra_ig #India #openminds #positiveenergy (at Blue Mormon Resort, Bhimashankar, Maharashtra)

May 11, 2015UncategorizedArchitecture, History, India, Rameshwaram, tamilnadu, Temple, Tourism

The corridor at the Temple at Rameshwaram . From the archives. #Rameshwaram #India #tourism #Temple #architecture #History #TamilNadu

March 6, 2015UncategorizedMadurai, Meenakshi, tamilnadu, Temple, Travel

The majestic #Meenakshi #Temple at #Madurai Simply astounding. Every time I see it. #Travel #TamilNadu

Soulful symmetry

May 7, 2014Travel TalesArchitecture, Rameswaram, Temple

The hard disk has a lot of snaps. Adjectives don’t do a complete job of describing these. Although, it can safely be said that ‘100s of snaps’ or ‘1000s of snaps’ etc are improper qualifiers. Several of them I gloss over. Part upset. More embarrassed of me wasting of a grand moment with an inept handling of the camera. Leaving me with an image that distorts far more than what it reveals and reducing a moment that should last in the mind to another passing one that is glossed over with ease.

There are some pictures that sit pretty on the hard drive. I can keep staring at them and get drawn back to the time I clicked them. Only some. Truth be told, a concoction of luck, pluck and a decent camera make it possible. As the missus thoughtfully observed once, even as I was all chuffed looking at a photograph of a raging bull that I had clicked sometime ago, “Any donkey with a DSLR thinks attributes much less to the DSLR than what it deserves”.

My only deviant answer to that question was, ‘that is not a donkey, as you can see. That is a bull.”

Her cryptic response which said much more than what it said was, “Ah, Bull”

While that may be the general tenor and disposition, there are moments when I catch a whiff silent admiration as she looks at some of my clicks. Just a whiff. Of course, the slow chap that I am, I notice that there was a whiff that I should have caught, long after the whiff passes by. As with most things in life, these whiffs don’t come announcing with cymbals and bugles. ( Only Weddings happen that way).

These are moments that happen. For example, when the missus looks at a snap that I have clicked for three milliseconds longer than the normal two milliseconds she usually reserves for my pictures, I reaffirm my faith that all is not lost and there is still hope for me. If she tosses her head to a side and examines it like a kid examining a new math textbook, with interest laden disinterest, I know that I have nudged my image a notch higher in her mind.

This was one such image which she even looked at twice. The Rameswaram Temple photo, as I call it. With a ‘The’. Naturally, I had to share.

Rameswaram. The temple itself is as old as the 17 century, in its current form. In an earlier form, from the 11th century. If you have to see the interplay of light, symmetry, art and sheer scale of imagination on one scale and minute attention to detail on another, replicated multiple times, this is the place to go.

Go you must, with a truck load of time and with a desire to soak up what the place has to offer. Beyond the Gods and the pilgrims. Even as countless pilgrims scurry around running from one temple tank to another dripping water, you could soak up the grandeur of the magic of yesteryear. Of a way of life that paid attention to detail, imagination, symmetry and yet was comprehensively grounded anchored to ancient practices. All in the name of God.

If you just sit there, as I did and let the imagination roam to think what it must have taken to put all this together, pulling off such a grand structure that continues to awe and inspire for centuries, a few things happen. At a spiritual level, something happens. Its a feast for your eyes. Its a bounty for imagination. In a completely indescribable way, it is refreshing.

If it gets the missus to give it a second glance, me thinks God is in his elements. Whatsay?

June 28, 2013UncategorizedIndia Rituals, Temple

An assortment of flags adorn a temple. Somewhere in North India. In the back drop of a setting Sun, all flags take the same hue. But not all people see it that way!

April 2, 2011UncategorizedIndia, Temple, Travel, Village

A villagers temple amidst his fields. The boundary of the field is the boundary of his world !

February 3, 2011UncategorizedMadurai, Meenakshi temple, Temple, Travel

The Meenakshi Amman Kovil, Madurai and a morning sun.