My family is knows for its travel adventures. Thanks to my dad.. who to an extent can be termed as a travel freak :) We have travelled almost all over India and have been to Europe too.
Hes a master planner and a super executor of these trips... I will write a separate post on how we go about these trips.. but the purpose of this post is to share the beautiful experience of my latest trip..
Dad had been telling me for quite some time about this place, which he had read about in the Deccan Herald, I was very much interested, but I jus dint find the right time in between my hectic work schedule... Finally the day did arrive on MahaShivRathri, I took an off from office on Friday the 12th of Feb, mom any ways had a holiday... We asked my aunt and cousin to join us.. booked an Innova ... and off we were...
We set off at 8 am, with short breaks we reached a place called Goni Koppal around lunch time, this is in Coorg, in between the forests.. We took a room at hotel Nandavanam for the 5 of us, its a neat and homely place, at quite a moderate price too.. After luncheon we rested for an hour or so , and left to our actual destination by around 3.30pm . Our actual destination "Irupu falls" was around 45 mins from our hotel. The route is through a dense forest, amazing wild life and scenic beauty! A Shiva temple makes its home at the foot of the hill..which we decided to visit after a bath at the falls. We had a medium climb on the hills, and finally we were there, at the falls.. what a delight!! Water coming down in a gush, lapping over the rocks, rising a misty smoke and giving the feeling of bein in the heavenly abode of lord Shiva.. The history of the place describes that this is called the "Lakshmana Theertha" When Rama and Lakshmana were on the move towards Lanka to find Sita devi, Ram feels a sudden spurt of thirst and there is water no where around, then his beloved brother Lakshman aims an arrow at the ground and creates this beautiful spring to quench his brothers thirst.
I was excited to be at a falls , after a really long long time. I jumped in under it, and drenched my self with delight! All the body pain I had due to long work hours started vanishing!
After spending quite some time, and two sessions under the falls for me :) we started our decent. We came to the temple, which was alive with Shiv rathri celebrations... This temple is built in Kerala style, as this forest borders kerala and karnataka.... Kerala architecture never fails to take a plunge at my heart, no different this time, I was lost in ecstasy! After a brief darshan, we were about to leave when we heard that thy are bringing the idol (urchava moorthi as we call it in tamil) out onto the temple premises (pragaram) . So we waited, the wait was quite long, which i realised only when we left, cause during the wait i just did not feel it... sitting on the steps on the pragaram, looking at the hill on the background, im sure no one would realise time passing... Then they brought the idol out, mean while 3 men were playing the chendai (Drum rolls typical to kerala prayer).
There was this man, coorgi by looks, who was wearing a special kinda attire, and he was the desired and destined one to carry the lord. He came round the temple once with the idol in his hand.. then on the second round, he placed the lord on his head and waled another round doin some small dance steps as graceful as a professional dancer. Then he stopped, very close to where we were standing. The beats were on all along, suddenly this mans body shook, trembled i must say, each part of his body literally trembled, right in front of my eyes.. there were all together 100 people watching this... he moved his arms vigorously in movements of a butterfly.. then he started this dance, of turning and jumping and running, with this really really heave idol on his head... which he dint even support sometime with his hands!!!! I felt i was seeing GOD himself come over this man! all these years i had just heard stories... and this was my first actual encounter! I was breath taken, amazed and lost...
Lord Shiva is known to be the cosmic dancer, and here this man was dancing with Shiva him self on his head.. who was making whom dance.. a question that needs to be pondered about! In this manner, he finished his third and final round around the temple.. and after that every one started taking his blessings... I went too, and could see this man panting, after all the energy he had put into this, and i have heard that it can be very tiresome after a man has been taken over by the supreme.
We heard this celebrations would continue all night, but we dint have all night to spend, and had a lil dangerous night journey back. So with reluctance we came back to our place, had dinner at Kamath hotel and went to sleep, and I slept having this feeling that i have made memories of a ShivRathri like never before! And which i am going to remember for ever and ever!!
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