Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Vizag Snippets 2

On the morning of the 26 th, we, a party of six, including a little girl started for Arasavilli.....Left to ourselves may be we two (hubby n i) would have preferred to visit Araku....But as we had been there as a party, we were game for the Arasavilli trip and must admit enjoyed it thoroughly and were glad to have done it at the end of it all.....

We engaged a taxi and very predictably the driver turned out to be a mine of information....He seemed to think we have engaged him as a guide too and by the time we returned ,we were in a position to rattle off info on where actor Tharun"s cashew nut grove is,...the two best filling up stations of Vizag,...how many bus services actor Sarath babu owns at Amadalavalasa,...the kind of local political equations ,...the place where best cashew nut can be procured,...the climate, crops,and the financial well- being of the ryots of Srikakulam Dt etc etc etc so much so that i wished i had him as my geography teacher back at school....My scores could have been better....

.....................................................................................


Actually we thought that Arasavalli would be a more than three and half hour journey and pleasantly surprised to have reached there in just two hours...Wide, in perfect condition,surrounded by greenery, and with sparse traffic, the NH5 was fantastic.... The kind of road long distance drivers dream of....You cross the Nagavali river, and go up to Srikakulam and Arasavilli is just five or six kilometers away from it...Nagavali is sort of a perennial river, our guide told us,,as it never dries up....farmers harvest two crops a year,and coupled with the produce from the nearby forests,most of the people in the district are quite prosperous...nay.. very, very prosperous, though none of them ever look like it,he added caustically...

The famous SuryaNarayana temple...the only one to be dedicated to Sun god (konark is not really a consecrated one, if you remember)...is a medium sized shrine,not really big ..., but nevertheless well maintained....There was"nt too much of a rush....But "wait till sun day",our driver, philosopher and guide said...."bus loads of people would throng the place, pleading for health, eyes and dasa parihaarams."......

The main deity,flanked on each side by his consorts, is an attractive figure,with brilliant eyes and fierce mustachios too....There were specific instructions written prominently on walls, warning the devotees not to close their eyes in his presence and keep looking on....The surya namaavali and aditya hrudayam are also engraved on the walls and i guiltily reminded my self once again that i should start reciting them, at least from now on...

Yearly once sun rays are stated to reach the feet of the lord here for three days and people come in droves to witness this amazing spectacle...One young man of our party, a mechanical engineer from New york,went about the premises for sometime, searching for , a clue to know how the sun rays could enter at all into the temple as it was all boarded up...He gave up at last with a shrug...Ofcource we were not really conversant with the exact angles and directions of the place...

.....................................................................................


"Sri koormam is just three kilometers from Arasavilli...and you must visit the place" insisted our driver (sorry i can"t remember his name)..."anyway you have come this far...So, Why not?"....,..."yes...Why not?"....

Sri koormam sounded vaguely familiar...What i mean is, i have heard of it but never knew it was so near to Vizag ....Not on the list of generally popular pilgrim stations, it is nevertheless gets talked of as a very ancient one and does figure as an important place in vaishnava lore.....Actually it is said to be the only shrine dedicated to Lord Mahavishnu in his koormavatharam......Interesting really....There is MATSYA NARAYANA TEMPLE at Nagari in chittor Dt,where the lord is in his matsyavatharam, now Sri koormam,and later the Varaha Narasimha shrine at Simhachalam.....We felt we were going through the entire list of dasavathaarams...and idly wondered where else in the world does one ever find divinity in all living creatures....



Indeed Sri kooramam turned out to be a very ancient temple but made us feel really sad for the sorry state it was in....Stated to be under the patronage of the GAjapathys of Vijayanagaram,it has vast grounds, a large temple complex, mantapams,good sculptural wealth (though i must admit do not know too much about it), even a small hatchery of baby tortoises too ( where urchins run after you pleading for 10 rupees....To feed the tortoises with greens) , but in the end, we found the paint peeling off,the floors are sinking in, the outer grounds are full of weeds and rank growth,the vahanams and palanquins looked lacklustre, and the general atmosphere inside the gloomy, dark temple is of neglect....Wish somebody...T.T.D? or like minded people would come forward to renovate it...


The sanctum was a bit startling....Instead of the usual idol, we saw a giant stone-made tortoise, perched up on a big rocky platform.....The lord----For it was HE---was facing to the backside of the sanctum, resting after the onerous task of bearing the weight of Mandaragiri.. .....Sandalwood paste has been liberally applied all over him, while beautiful stone-studded namam adorned his snout....

But the Priests here more than compensated for the sorry appearance of the temple with pleasing demeanor and made a sincere effort to explain the significance,and rituals of the temple, and spoke in English too..( for the benefit of the convent educated,) they later explained....A darshan of swami here would ward off griha, graha, vaasthu doshas and brings in the blessings of our ancestors, according to them...The priest at Mahalakshmi temple,(Lord"s consort) went even one step further and declared that people suffering from sani dosham invariably came there...."you can all check your charts", he challenged...It has even been tested and proved, he averred,,but personally i was not convinced.....



.....................................................................................


It was already ten in the morning by the time we finished visiting both the temples....And the driver took us back to Srikakulam....As we had not breakfasted yet, we asked him to take us to a hygienic place where we cold get some food that would not upset stomachs....By the look of the things, that seemed to be a remote chance, for,Srikakulam, though a district headquarters looked backward,out of date and unusually dusty---widening of roads was in progress, we were told--....,

Perhaps that was why, at the Hotel Nagavali,---the best one ,, our driver assured us----we were rather taken aback, to see what i have never seen even at some of the best hotels of Hyderabad , ....waitresses in miniest of miniskirts....Even our G.E. nephew looked a little dazed....O.K...we thought....So?...Even the hinterlands have caught up with times...wow....Nagavali is a three star hotel, we were told...It did look rather cushy,..until we have placed our order...They made us wait full one hour for a rather usual andhra breakfast,...and charged the earth for few tepid, oil less dosais,(they seem to care more for my health than myself) and unpleasantly cold chutneys....

.....................................................................................

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Vizag Snippets 1



On the evening of 24 th of this October, we were on Godavari Express...comfortably ensconced,... and on our way to Visakhapatnam to attend a wedding of one of my husband"s cousin"s son.....Does it sound too complicated?:)..O.K......

And i was excited about going there....For long i have heard of the city.....from my uncle who studied for his law there at Andhra university,... about the beautiful locales the hostels were placed in ... his graphic accounts of how he stood at the balcony of his room 212, at sidhartha hostel, looking on the sea,....From the works of Rachakond Viswanatha Sastry, Puraanam Seetha....You could say i half expected to encounter Gedela Nookaraju, veera Bangari,discipline athayya , Rathalu and Rambabu freely roaming on the strets........And from other umpteen scenic locales that seemed to have caught the fancy of our various film Directors who never seem to get tired of the place.........For i have been seeing Vizag in films since my childhood...

Somehow it never came about for me to visit the place.....A bit ironic....Since the place is not too far off or in another state......Once i did go through it on my way to Vijayanagaram for another marriage..(seems like i go there only to attend weddings)....but then the only memory i had of it was just a hazy picture of a railway station....

The Godavari arrives early.....about six"o"clock and runs through a beautiful belt of greenery much before that....One is pleasantly surprised by the flower girls----who somehow seem to have gotten into the compartment---selling bunches of lovely KALUVAPOOLU as cheaply as 10 for five rupees....The wayside ponds were all filled with hundreds of them.....
.....................................................................................


Surprisingly, the vizag station does not seem to be too big.....nor too modern....But once we got out and drove down, the city looked clean,...roads are wide and thankfully not clogged with traffic snarls.....and buildings, as usual, a curious mix of the old and new.....

One word is a must here on the lovely old worldish constructions of Vizag..My pet love....I just loved the stately, old K.G.H ,collectorate and university (though we have seen very little of it) ......When we (me n hubby)..got down in front of Hyma's apartment block-----she is my cousin---- and i stood transfixed, staring at a very old balconied house opposite her"s,Hyma went into giggles...." All of us in the family seem to have a kind of fetish for old houses" she said......" when last time Sandy came in, he even took photographs of the building"....

Some of those beautiful structures seemed to have been converted into either hotels or marriage halls or some kind of government quarters.........Good, we thought....At least they have been preserved this way and ugly multiplexes have not risen in their place......Though that day seems to be not too far off seeing the pace at which Vizag is expanding....

The grand Hawaa Mahal, wherein Nehru was said to have been stationed when he came down to Vizag to launch the famous JALAUSHA, is on the R.K beach road and Hyma"s house is just a line or two behind it and we could look down on it"s terraces from her balcony.... Even today it IS a lovely building....Hyma says it is her daily adda....she goes there everyday for her endless classes....art of living,kriya yoga, cookery and what not....

Another lovely little...little little granite building with two turrets..(it reminded me strongly of Lady Ampthill"s).. is converted into a Bar cum restaurant and back gardens and is called Sandy Lane....The back side view from it is excellent, Hyma certified....One could see the sea very closely from there...

The delightful sprawling , low roofed , lenghty granite bungalow...that featured in many a motion picture----rendu jadala seetha, swarnakamalam etc---is today Viswapriya function hall and is on the beach road too....... Another couple of buildings on the AAsilmet Junction that captured our fancy turned out to be the living quarters of joint collector.... Daresay there are many more such ones that i have not seen
.... ........................................................................................

The twenty- fifth had been entirely devoted to attend the marriage ceremonies....That just meant we had nothing else to do than decking up in silks, sitting glued to our seats,gossiping and eating excessively, taking pleasant naps ...Advantages of being on the bridegroom"s party, i suppose....Then looked out for prospective marriagable youngsters.....To get them married off too..........Also, i discovered how comfortable it was to be just that much distant to the principals of the marriage party....and not having to run frantically for the thousand things the priest seems to perpetually call for......Just when you think you are perfectly prepared and relax,he is going to fox you utterly by asking for something you never imagined to be of any use.....sandalwood powder balls?.....ant-hill sand?.....juvvi leaves?...grinding stone?....Grinding stone ,of all the things ....My god...

.....................................................................................

Monday, November 5, 2007



"It is a mistake to think that only punjabis and gujarathis have vivah sangeet,..sing and dance during weddings".....said the exuberant Mrs. Snehalatha Murali, an artiste with AIR Hyderabad...who formed a troupe with few other talented singers to give live concerts.... at marriages and other functions too ....That might be quite common, you might say,.. but here,her speciality is wedding music ..or pellipaatalu ...."we, in Andhra pradesh have a fund of rich heritage here in this regard, and the idea is to present them in a more attractive and updated way...."....she said....To do this, she and her fellow artists have dug out a number of wedding songs that went to rust ,..that were unable to stand the speed of modern day"s fast paced weddings,packaged them in newer, livelier tunes...


We had the good fortune to listen to one such concert at the wedding reception thrown by one our relatives on this last sunday of the october and must admit that it certainly was a highly entertaining and enjoyable affair...

The primadonna of the troupe,..Mrs.Snehalatha, her self was the life and soul of the concert and led with a breezy presence...The format was a kind of combination of mujra--- in the sense that the singers...(.there were five women, all clad in bright red-maroon embroidered chiffons and suitably ornamented for a wedding,... and a male singer.).. sang and acted out the lyrics with lovely facial expressions while sitting ---,....a bit of dramatics.. and ofcource music concert all rolled into one ......Enlivened by some easy, ched-chaad type of banter between the two marriage parties...---One boy proxied for the groom and a girl for the bride----....they had liberally interspersed the proceedings with some contemporary,on the spot witticisms ----like they said the groom and bride make as lovely a pair as Abhishek and Aishwarya and they need not lie today as they had to sometimes----.......While some of the rather raucous and loud humor that made up our yesteryear"s rustic folk"s cup of tea sometimes made you wince --like the mother of the bride presenting her with an appadala karra as a parting gift,...they certainly touched few chords too...I must admit i had to personally smile up my sleeve at the mother-in-law advising the new son-in-law to start learning to make coffee, since her precious daughter would not wake up so early.....coo.......I don"t really think Anasuya ever saw a sunrise in her life...


...The concert itself was a medley of mainly some old , very familiar pellipaatalu,--each one suited to the occasions of the wedding rituals,...from engagement to the arrangements,wedding dinner, down to Appaginthalu, ,..-----, few noted filmi wedding songs,..-----sreerasthu..subhamasthu from Pelli pustakam, the evergreen kotha pelli koothura rara , haayiga cheyi cheyiga,---- few annamacharya keerthanas..( for example , they broke into "Jagadapu chanavula jaajara" for the "buvvam banthi".....when the irrepressible Snehalatha sprang up from the dais to rig up a small impromptu kolatam with guests and the little kids....She even coaxed the neck deep busy mother of the groom to relax and sport with her for few moments...

They almost sang for three hours,...ably accompanied by a small orchestra of a mrudangam, kanjar, key-board,and some others and kept the audience spell bound to
the chairs throughout, even down to the mangalam when the sole male tenor rose to present it to Lord Srinivasa....It was a beautiful rendition... set to soulful kaanada, and devoid of accompaniments, the resonant human voice rang out like a bell in praise of the lord and strangely brought a lump to the throat... and once again i veered to the view that no instrument can ever match the emotive impact a human voice could cause.....Incidentally the boy was said to be the one who sang track for the hugely popular Maha prana deepam for Shankar Mahadevan, from Manjunatha.....

On the whole it was all very enjoyable and one felt, apt for a wedding....Better than gazal or band shows....Ofcource there were the few usual sound recording hiccups and a bit overcrowded hungry guests milling around.....But, ..yes...inspite of all that, a rather refined and renewed package of the old tradition.. ....