A journey to God's Land

I was a little busy at work last week and I had taken Thursday and Friday off. We (Appa, Amma, Sister and Paati) left by west coast on Thursday morning. We reached Mangalore on Friday morning and hired a qualis for the next 3 days. We stopped by a motel to shower and grab a cup of coffee and headed to Udipi, 75 mins drive from Mangalore. We had a wonderful morning darshan , Krishna was wearing a red color, blue border zarigai paavadai and he was dressed like girl with thala saaman. Needless to say he was adorable and very beautiful. Not a long queue, the darshan was absolutely blissful.

We headed to Kollur to have the darshan of Mookambika- 2 hrs drive from Udipi.. We were there at 11.30 am and had darshan during Rahukalam and waited to see the Ucchi kala deeparthana. At 1.00 pm we headed from Kollur to Sringeri and reached there at 3.30 pm. We rested for an hour in the room and then refreshed and headed to Sharadha temple. At 5.30 we reached Narasimha vanam, a place where Sringeri Acharaya lives on the other side on river Tunga. We took his blessings and on the way back we stopped at Vidya Shankar temple. Later in the evening we stopped by Sharadha temple to get a glimpse of the golden chariot purapaddu and then headed to the pooja hall to participate in the evening pooja celebrations. We had a relaxed darshan of Acharya the next morning. Acharya recalled his stay in our house 18 years back and blessed us with his kind words and graced us with his motherly look. The noon lunch was served with Payasam and it was very tasty. Going with the saying, “unda kalaippu thondanukkum unduu” we took a brief nap in the afternoon. We left Sringeri by 5.00 pm on Saturday.

Climate was absolutely great with cloudy skies, low humidity, warm sunshine without a drop of rain. We headed to Dharmasthala 3 hrs drive from Sringeri, and as we approached the temple the rain god started to shower his blessings on the town. It was pouring cats and dogs. We decided to join the long queue though it was pouring outside. It was almost 9pm when we left Dharmasthala. Long weekend had brought tons of people on pilgrimage and we were not able to get an accommodation. We headed towards Mangalore and stayed at Ujire (10 kms from Dharmasthala). The following morning we left early for Subramanya (75 kms, 21 kms roads were horrible) and reached here by 9am. We had a good darshan and left from there to catch the 1.00 pm train at Mangalore.

Our onward train journey through the coastal Kerala and Karnataka happened during the night and we were not able to relish the coast line. The tracks are just 500m away from the coastline. I had to remind myself that I am traveling on the western coast of India. Kasargod to Calicut was an amazing journey, with the ocean, coconut trees and back waters and catamarans, what more can you ask for? I was wondering if Barathiyar had visited Kerala. His poem “Kaani nilam vendum parashakthi” very much was in sync with the ambience. Each of the houses measured approx. 1-1.5 grounds (kani nilam) and had coconut trees decorating the plot (thennai maram keetrum ilaneerum)

Kerala is definitely “Gods land”. This journey was a feast for eyes, mind and soul. I will share the pictures in a day or two. You can access them at http://photos.yahoo.com/arun_ri