Two weeks back we had been to few of historical places near Bangalore which took about 1 ½ to 2 hrs drive. Now being winter, early morning was very chill and covered with fog, we love to enjoy the weather and it’s not only me, but also my son who is 5 yrs, loved to have a drive in the early morning.
We started early in the morning sometime around 5 a.m from the house, where our car flew in the Highway towards Kolar. The road was covered with fog, as we could not even see the vehicle in front of ours. We stopped for a cup of coffee and morning munches in a highway restaurant – “Nandi Grand“. Next to the restaurant there was a rose garden, where could see hundreds of roses with a wonderful fragrance. Our morning coffee time was great with rose garden, chillness and fog.
AntaraGangae
After that we started our journey towards “Antaragange”, we didn’t want to trek, as we went there with our kids, just like that we parked our car in a parking place near a mosque, which was surrounded by a plenty of Eucalyptus Tree. Here starts our Journey to climb the hill; the area was well maintained as it was neat and tidy. There were hundreds of monkeys, running here and there, so be safe when you carry things. I would say just a shoulder bag would make sense.
As we started climbing the hill, we could see monkeys crossing, hanging all over the tree. As it was morning, and there was fog, also with the wonderful fragrance of Eucalyptus. Along the sides of the steps, there were small caves and older days constructed stone buildings. There were almost 300 to 4oo steps to reach the hill top where there was a beautiful Lord Shiva Temple with a beautiful pool. As we went after Karthigai, we could see many deepams, lit all over the temple and the pool, so it looked little messy around the pool.
In one corner of the pool, we could see a small waterfall, where there will be water throughout the year but only quantity of water differs. It’s being the water source for the nearby villagers, the people who visited the temple, filled that water in a bottle, and quenched their thirst. Also we filled one of our bottles with the water; it was very sweet and could feel the taste as it comes directly from the nature. But still now the origin of that water is unknown. The water was flowing in between two Nandi’s which were facing the Shiva Linga in the center of the pool. There was shivalinga in the centre of the pool and a nandi bull facing the linga from the other side, as per the belief that the wish whispered in the ears of Nandi comes true, my daughter went and whispered her wish into the ears of Nandi.
We got to spend almost 1 ½ hrs over the hill top, admiring the beauty of the nature, long grown Eucalyptus tree, buzzing of bees, chill breeze, beautiful butterflies, view from hill, 2 to 3 street vendors, voice of drums and bells from the temple and last but not the least our heroes – monkeys. Also the villagers feed the monkeys – that was wonderful sight to see the monkeys eating the tomatoes.
But the only thing was finding the route was little difficult and the roads we travelled was through the village and it was small, but worth travelling – a peaceful and beautiful place where one can feel the essence of nature after a bored CITY life.
Kolaramma Temple
After our visit to AntaraGangae, we travelled to Kolar, to visit Kolaramma Temple. This was one among the beautiful and wonderful planned stone architecture of CHOLAS, as the age of temple would be more than thousand years. After coming to know that it was build by cholas, there was huge expectation from my side as cholas are not famous only for their architecture but also for the inscriptions and beautiful carvings, there is a quote from the poem “KALLILAE KALAI VANNAM PADAITHAN” means “one who creates arts in stone”, I am sure most of the tamilian would come across this lines – as this verses comes in the song of Movie – Raja Raja Cholan.
The entrance of the temple was wonderfully carved and also there were inscriptions all over the temple, usually I try to read the inscriptions to know about the cholas. Since it was more than thousands of year, I could read and identity very few tamil alphabets, but couldn’t read the complete.
Here Goddess Parvathi and Goddess Chelamma or the scorpion goddess is the deity of the temple. There is a belief that praying at this temple would guard the people from Scorpion. One more interesting thing of the temple is that there was Hundi at the floor of the temple, where people are allowed to put at least a coin, which leads to a large hole dug at the earth, and we could hear the sounds of the coins accumulated over years and the scorpions running over them. The temple was constructed in “L” shape.
I was shocked to enter the temple, it was almost dark and the priest for the first asked us to see the goddess in the mirror and later from the other side we were asked to view the goddess directly. Even if you have belief with these traditions are not, once when you see the goddess who could feel the spirit of the goddess. The Goddess was depicted in the way that one who looks her, it feels like she is live near you and I would say I felt the spirit of her in the temple. My kids was little scared to see the goddess, when I enquired about the priest for why to look the goddess through the mirror, as he said there are few people who get scared when they see the goddess directly.
My expectation over the Hundi increased, but I could not find anything over and so when I enquired about the same with the priest. He showed us where the Hundi is and now it was closed not in use for people to drop coins, just like with questioning mind, I started asking him, why was it closed – He stated that people not dropping only coins started pouring milks to the hole and causing disturbance to the scorpions living there (it was believed for scorpions) and kept them more challenging to maintain the temple. Also he gave me some kumkum (sacred powder, to keep in forehead) as prasadham.
Both the places – Antaragangae and Kolaramma temple was well maintained, but I could see few plastic bottles in some places of Antaragange, so got to share that how beautifully a place is maintained there should be some efforts from our side, so do not throw any plastic bottles or bags and spoil the nature.
Madraasi - a tamilian tales 