The second temple we went to, Chennakesava, was in Belur. This was more of a complex of smaller temples rather than one big one.
The gate:
This is a statue of Krishna. Scary!!
In case there was any doubt that the artists were men:
Inside the mail temple:
This statue is supposed to represent the feminine ideal. Her forehead, nose, and chin are perfect thirds. There are other perfect ratios represented in her figure but again, I didn't take notes...
Since this temple is still functioning, you can actually see people worshiping.
When I first arrived in Bangalore I joined the Bangalore Expat Club. They do happy hours, dinners, and most importantly, day trips. Last month I went on a trip they organized to two 800 year-old temples about 4 hours from Bangalore.
The first was called Hoysaleswara, in the city of Halebidu, which means "ruined city". That was not its first name. The original name was much longer, grander, and more befitting what was in the 12th century the capital of the Hoysala Empire. It wasn't until the 14th century, when the temple was almost finished, that it was sacked by an army lead by a Eunuch-slave general, Malik Kafur, and fell into its everlasting ruinous state.
And by "ruinous", I mean "breathtaking." For the most part, the pictures speak for themselves.
This is our guide, showing the wall in different stages of completion. Because construction wasn't ever finished, you can see on this wall how the carving was done in stages:
A statue of a temple dancer:
The platform for the live temple dancers:
Elephants would have been used to turn these pillars in place of a mechanized lathe:
Inside of the temple looking out:
Now comes the part where many traditional Hindu stories are beautifully represented in stone. Our guide described the significance, of each, but alas, I didn't take notes so I can only offer very vague descriptions.
This is Ganesh:
This is a god lifting up a mountain. It has the most detail of any of the carvings.
This carving shows a god trapped inside of an elephant's stomach. You can see he is trying to escape by piercing the animal from the inside with his thumbnail. The elephant is oriented with his head smashed into the ground, and his feet pointing to the (viewer's) right. The god is reaching up right where the light hits the upper right corner.
I swear, and the other Expats will back me up, that this carving depicts a wife riding behind her husband on an elephant, looking terrified and almost falling off of the back. Her right hand is raised in protest of his driving skills. This is certainly the oldest back-seat-driving representation I've ever seen!
WARNING!!! The next photo is marginally NSFW!!!
You just don't find stuff like this on European cathedrals.
This temple is a shrine to Lord Shiva, so natrually, Nandi statues abound. Here's the "king" Nandi statue:
Auto rickshaws are to Bangalore what yellow taxis are to New York City. Except you have to haggle with the driver because it's assumed that a foreign sahib will pay at least 1.5 times what the meter reads, if you can get the driver to turn the meter on in the first place. The meter will charge roughly $0.20 per mile. As long as you don't think about how dangerous it is to ride in one, they're actually pretty fun.
One month into my trip I have my first (and let's hope last) bout of food poisoning. Fever, chills, cramps, nausea, loss of appetite - all of it. It's lasted 2 days so far but I feel like I might be on the mend. I'm hoping that I'll be back to normal by tomorrow.
It's easy to become jaded and complacent living in New York City. You can find anything and everything there, right? Well you'll never have an experience like this one in NYC and for me this was a once-in-a-lifetime, I-can't-believe-how-lucky-I-am-to-witness-this event!
One of my colleagues very generously invited me to a concert with him and a few of his friends. It was held at an ashram called Fireflies about 1 hour outside of Bangalore, that describes itself as an inclusive, secular, guru-less ashram. The program was scheduled to go from 6 PM to 6 AM, with each musical group playing 3 or 4 songs and then making way for the next group. Many different kinds of music were represented by the bands that played. I stayed until 11, as I had a yoga class at 7 AM the next morning.
The setting for the concert was in a large amphitheater comprised of granite steps that lead down to a Banyan tree at the bottom and center. The tree's branched fanned out over the amphitheater sprinkled the audience with cooling sap all evening.
This first group I saw, Brahmastra, sang mainly devotional songs, and praised both Jesus and Krishna. One constant throughout the night was that lyrics were almost always in Hindi, but thank-yous and explanations were always in English.
The second group was Bhatktiyana, who performed classical Indian music:
The 3rd group was HFT, a jazz fusion group:
I have 2 videos for Esperanto because I liked them so much. Their aim was to incorporate musical styles from all over the world. One of the musicians even played a didgeridoo! Unfortunately, I didn't get a clip of that, but I did get a clip of this Indian man playing what is basically an Irish jig.
The 2nd video for Esperanto:
The last group that I got to see played Sufi music. The leader of the group is Shabnam Virmani, a documentary film maker turned musician. She is the director of the Kabir Project, which explores the meaning of the Sufi poet Kabir's work through different artistic media, including music. Her group had set several poems by Kabir to music. This was probably my favorite, and my friend who invited me said this was one of the best examples of this kind of music (which is from Delhi, where he's from) that he's heard in about 20 years.
Ms. Virmani explained the poems before she sang them. My favorite story was one about a brave little parrot. One day there was a fire in a forest and all the animals began to run away, but a little parrot stayed perched in a tree. The animals said to him, "Why don't you fly away? You'll die in that tree!" But the little parrot said, "When I was a young bird I played in this tree's branches. Here is where I learned how to fly. I have lived my whole life with this tree and I will not leave it now." As the fire drew nearer it began to burn his tree and the parrot flew away. He flew as fast as he could towards a lake, dove in, flew back to his tree, flapped his wings and sprinkled 2 or 3 drops of water down on the flaming branches. Again he dove into the lake and again he sprinkled a few drops of water onto his tree. After some time he became black with soot and struggled to continue his flights. Then, God noticed this brave little parrot and his tenderness for his home, and sent a rain storm to extinguish the fire. I can't quite remember, but I don't think that either of the videos I have for her are recordings of that story.
Bangalore is called the Garden City because of the ubiquitous trees (the majority seem to be Rain Trees, chosen for their immense size and the amount of shade they can provide) planted all over the city as well as the many public parks and gardens, great and small. The greatest among them is Lal Bagh Garden, a 240 acre space commissioned by King Hyder Ali in 1760. He favored trees with red blossoms and that is what "Lal Bagh" translates to: red flower.
I went there with the same driver who took me to Bull Temple. I paid 20 rupees for my entrance fee and 10 for the car, so my entrance costs were about $0.75. This driver was yet again concerned that I would be fleeced into an over priced tour and he instructed me to take the 1-hour tram ride around the gardens for 100 rupees ($2). Of course, much like in the Bull Temple, the minute I stepped out of the car I was approached by a man offering a tour. This man, however seemed to speak very good English, he had an official looking badge, and he told me up front that the tour would cost 450 rupees per 30 minutes and would probably last 90 minutes. This would mean paying about $30 for a private tour of the gardens and this time I was very happy to pay. My driver was very disappointed in me but, you can't please everyone!
The guide was wonderful! Either that, or a very convincing liar who could make up a lot of plausible, Latin-sounding names for plants. But actually, everything he said that wasn't completely new to me squared with what I'd already read, except for one thing. He told me that one of the reasons Hyder Ali built the garden was that he wanted a beautiful place to go jogging. Jogging!! Never, have I ever heard of royalty jogging before 1970! Anyway, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. It is only because of him that I have anything to say about the pictures I took.
There is a Watchtower on top of a rock near the entrance to the garden. It sits on top of a large rock which is one of oldest rocks on earth: 3000 million years old.
Here's a view of the city from the top of the rock:
35 meter pine tree:
My guide called this a "No-Monkey" tree. He gave me a twig that had fallen on the ground to touch, and it was very, very, sharp. Monkey's can't climb these trees because of the shape and arrangement of the needles:
A mango tree!! I still haven't had a fresh mango here...
Not a great picture, but I wanted to include it because it's called an "Elephant Apple" tree. The fruit is larger than any apple and elephants like to eat them:
This cotton tree is 800 years old:
This is a tamarind tree. Tamarind trees are the coolest to sit beneath:
The lotus flower is India's national flower:
This is called a "People" tree. It is common to find one outside of a temple:
Plumeria trees. I think these flowers are what leis are typically made of in Hawaii.
Some school children on a field trip. Kids have a half-day on Saturday in India.
The lake:
Some gates:
Statues of some traditional Indian dancers:
Statue of a scary dinosaur about to eat 2 cute little bunnies:
