Solidifying the knowledge gained.

When we came back from Hampi, as I was looking into characters and issues, I started to think into that direction and what came to mind first were caricatures!

I thought why not present Mundane everyday activities of these people in an interesting way.

So I had thought of making a book, but as our course says Temple town Tales, for the cover I thought why not make a 3d temple itself. So my product/book says Temple town tales, it has a simplified structure of Gopuram as lid of a box and box has 10 chosen stories from my experience with caricatures of people with their interesting and catchy dialogues and at the back of each caricature card is the story of that person. 

For creating experience of Hampi Bazar where I did research mostly, I thought of making books with doodles of Hampi. We had learnt a few book binding techniques in workshop conducted by Eduardo Rivera.

In the box, half white and half black colour denotes either complete support of people in an issue or completely against an issue.

The last string.( Reflection of complete trip)

On the last day we decided to go to Hampi just for ourselves, to enjoy the running water without any thoughts, without any burden of sketchbooks and notepads, without any camera!

Just to stay still and enjoy beauty of Nature. Hence we went to Hampi for one last day. That was the time I realised that we are not going to come here again, that was the time I realised by the side of the river, that we will not be crossing the river again by boat trying to catch water, I realised that we will not be climbing the tiring staircase up and down again, we will not follow our normal routine of coming everyday here and we will again be busy in our “Bangalore life”.
The journey so far was complete in every sense but still incomplete in many. First day, getting down from the train little did we know that we will take so many memories from this place. Morning sunrises taught me that if days end a new day has to begin. When there is no way, wait for the morning to light up the way for you. Ruins of temples taught me how to have a deep meaning in every piece of art that is made, no art is "simply done". Art needs meaning. Solid structures taught me not to lose myself in wind storm. People taught me to find my piece i need peace. 
All the events simply took form. From completely abstract image of hampi and Anegundi to a refined one, it was smooth but rough. The biggest part was discovering a place where women have work and men drink, eat and sleep. 
First of all, small activities that we did in classroom!

• Tracing back our communities helped me understand importance of community and whole idea of belongingness to a place as well as the community.
• Studying a temple gave me exposure on how people will be behaving around temple and in what way are they comfortable talking and whole idea of layers of temples, one is fabricated which is beautiful but just from outside and has faith and peace in place. The other one being unfabricated, the one which needs no show off, layer which is actual temple.
• Talk with Arpita gave us idea about how to approach people and about what things to focus on in a temple town.
• Eduardo's works gave us ideas and i understood that in a photograph, colours and basic design form is as important as in a painting. 
• Clicking pictures from Ant eye view, gave me a different angle to explore, exploring details.
• The first day at Hampi pushed me to look into history of sculptures and how every sculpture has a story or a meaning as every art piece of ours should have. 
• The second day at Anegundi gave me an insight to look into people and made me more curious about famous 'Banana fibre workshop'
• The third day gave a bird's eye view of place which made me think more about market area and Hampi as a UNESCO site
• The fourth day lead me to a complete different way. I discovered how largely banana fibre workshop affects the whole village of Anegundi, how men are unemployed and women are employed, how the factory forms a network in village, how hindu ladies make the raw materials at home and muslim ladies furthur process it into final products and how rituals at Hindu home and muslim homes affect their workings.
• On the fifth day, I could get to know lives of people working in market area and how they all are affected by UNESCO and UNESCO clearing out shops to make Hampi a world heritage site.
• On sixth day, I got different views on my identified issues which made me realise everybody has either black or white opinion about a particular issue in the way it affects them.

Hampi- was the place I realised my worth in, a place where I shed out my fear of talking to strangers, a place where I found my peace in. I felt internally as if I was in a holy place living a life of nomad, Hampi being one of my spots and I follow routine of coming and going everyday just as the people who owned shop and restaurants in Hampi did.

This place had taught me a lot. How to find your own peace in places was one of them. External Peace was important, as it gave a way for introspection and introspection gave a way to discovery and discovery to Internal peace.

Thankyou dear Land of temples for teaching me what cities failed to teach me.

Male ego goes high

Today was discovery of male ego. First in terms of men who did not like Shama and Shama's style of working as they thought that she took away their say in political issues and second in terms of when Shama identified a work for men and tried to do something for them, men did not seem to take interest at all, maybe it too was against their pride. 
So today I started my journey of validation of points I had discovered in Anegundi. Hence I started from our very own starting point. Since this was last day in Anegundi, I wanted to go to Raghuvendra Swamy temple. So we started walking towards river where we met three met who just simply standing and talking to each other or gossiping maybe. I went upto them and asked about the issue I had discovered about men and women.

To my surprise all of them denied the fact that Shama Pawar is doing good to ladies and also said that she does not pay wages as much as ladies deserve and also that men do have a lot of work of farming. Hence men have a feeling of envy towards women of village and they completely deny the fact they are jobless or they keep wasting their time:

Story of Hoolgappa:

“Shama ke niche jo ladies kaam karta sabka nuksan hota hai, vo kamati hai itna aur kaam karne walo ko sirf din ka 60 rupees milta hai. Humko yha khoob kaam hai khet ka” says Hoolgappa drowning in male ego.

Males in the village do not feel they have less employment opportunities. Farms, Small shops are enough for them to survive. They do not give importance to Banana fibre workshop either. Hoolgappa works in farms.

Story of chinappa:

He says that Shama buys so much of our land and does so much other works and they don’t have a say in any of the matters. Working in farms since very start in his life, he doesn’t feels that Shama is doing a good job, they feel that she is a big woman and can do whatever she wants but he does not like her say in village matters. He says that village has work for men and they are satisfied by it.

But doesn’t feel satisfactory to me, as most of women I spoke to either had idle husband sitting at home or their husband had died because of drinking issues.

Then I after coming back from river, we thought of going to Banana fibre workshop again hence we headed back again there. Still one of my questions was unanswered that why is it that mostly muslims work in factory?

As we walked inside, We saw that factory was empty, there we met the craft manager and the new intern. Craft manager Vijay told us that today was holiday for ladies as today is Eid. My question became even more relevant now!

He told us about how final products are made from banana fibre, he explained us the process in detail. Just when he was about to finish, Shama Pawar arrived. Something great happenedand we were not expecting that at all. Finally after she had five minutes to talk to us, I got answers to all of my questions.

She said that muslims have beautiful hands  in art and since history known they have been born artisans so that is why she chooses muslim ladies over hindu ladies for making the final product! She started the factory in 1997 and since then she has been handling the factory single handedly. She still keeps on bringing in new types of bags, boxes and keeps inventing other items for her factory produce this is the most interesting point about her. Even when she has so much to do she pays equal attention to everything.

She is such a lady that she can inspire anybody to work, I guess that is what turned this sleepy village to half awake village. Ladies were right, Shama has an inspiring personality.

So I did discover that men do not want to work internally. Maybe this is the reason why males are unemployed?

Story of BONI

After I had searched for issues in Anegundi, I wanted to look into Hampi once, hence I went to Hampi, of course the vendors did worry me a lot. What was the reason of this market? What were there lives like?

Hence I started off.

When you enter Hampi after crossing Tunghabhadra and climbing up the stairs, no scene can be more ecstatic than women, men, children selling colourful products from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and many other states. Earrings, anklets, incense stick holder, diyas and what not. For a moment you might feel that even their life is full of colors, colors that define them, colors that make them their own selves. But no!

They seem to have had lost all interest in selling these to people, they only want customers and no people.

I wondered what could be the reason? “These people must have been standing with their at the same place since years. They might as well speak history” I thought.

But no one was interested in talking or general conversation. I wondered more.

Untill I  found out their story of colours to colourless!

Here are a few stories from Hampi which I found as I walked down the lane.

Lambani Lady:

Story of BONI (money earned from first customer of the day)

“ Madam boni kardo na please, subah se kisi ne kuch nahi khareeda hai”

“Arey par abhi to vo ladki saman lekar gayi apse”

“Madam kuch kharid lo na ap” she said hiding away as she did not wanted to take up my question.“ Madam sab khatam krne ka hai khareed lo na please.”

I was very puzzled, Until I found out my answer in her words and her eyes. Carrying baby in her womb, worried about how will the baby survive, she did answer my question finally!

This Lambani lady hailing from Kalrapur, travels everyday from a village 5 kms away just to sell off her items. On asked how far is the village? She said 7rs by bus and 5 rs by auto! Same was the answer from other vendors. They all just knew whatever concerned them. For them distances were in money. Their big shops had been snatched by UNESCO to make this a colourless space, consisiting of brown heritage standing high only and they were given just an year to set up their small stalls on the road to sell off their items. Everybody has very few months left. “Sab nikal dega madam ye sab” Crushed by government and burdened by her family, she goes on to the next customer- “Boni kardo Sahib” showing her tanned earrings with her tanned hands.

                      

Shivaram:

I just happened to bump into a person sitting near a small salon while I was wondering why is UNESCO snatching away colours and essence from Hampi by destroying their houses and shops and what will it give in return to these people.

‘ Koi unity hi nahi hai’, shouts a man Shivaram, crestfallen on the matter of their houses and shops being destroyed by UNESCO. He was more worried of the fact that this place has no unity, people do not help each other, but they definitely envy each other due to money matters.

350 houses and big shops were broken down by government near Hampi Bus stand and in compensation 150 small plots were given to people 4kms away in  Kamlapur where not much tourists go. Shivaram owns  salon which is exactly between Virupaksha Temple and River. It is so because people after doing Pooja can come for Mundan and then go to river to complete the Pooja.

Noticing that this is only haircut shop in lane I asked him, “fir to apko pandit favour karte honge na shop ko khula rakhne ke lie?”

“Pandit bhi to commercialise ho gya ab, vo kyu favour karega” I could definitely sense a deep grief inside him about split in the communities.

“Kisi ko kuch kaam ni bacha yha, sab idhar udhar ka kaam karke paisa kamakar jeeta hai.”

But his son definitely saved his life by taking a road untaken by joining Jindal, a steel plant 45 km away from Hampi in ITI department.

Old man did seem like he is losing his own children at the cost of Hampi being a UNESCO world heritage site.

Administrator:

Administrator in one of the Jain Institutionsin Hospete, he did seem priest of Krishnadevraya's powers and Vijayanagara Samrajya.

Out of nowhere he started from history of vijayanagara empire to how Krishnadevraya used to get up early morning 3 o’clock to start his day to split in army due to his son-in-law Ramraya to the battle with Bijapur. He broke my superstition about all temples in India have been looted and destroyed by mughals only by bringing out the fact to me that the wealth was not looted, it was divided into three parts, one part went to Bijapur Empire, one to Tirupati and the last one was taken by his relatives in Chandragiri and Panagonda!

His words did leave me wondering how powerful history these massive structures embody.

This is the place where such a great combatant took his breathe.

Raja:

'I am concentrating on more flashy flashy things in Hampi' says Raja proudly annoucing himself as 12th PUC fail.

Well, the straight way to life seemed too boring for him.

Fascinated by 'European things', he stopped studying and dreaming of owning a business,he set off!

From being a tour guide to managing a restaurant, there doesnt seem any job untouched by him. Everyday being a new hope for a new flashy experience for him, he isnt scared to touch the ground again, to loose his shop which will be cleared in a few months by UNESCO!

With a big dream of owning a hotel someday, he says with eyes filled with pride ,I can survive on my own anyhow for whatever happens.

Bad facilities in Hampi for tourists did seem to bother him alot.

Tailor Lady:

After her divorce, when she wanted peace in her life, one of the history chapter in 7^th standard did come to her mind. 400 back story left such impression on this Lady that when she came to Hampi as a tourist she decided to stay here forever in lap of Krishnadevraya’s kingdom’s ruins. Greatness of Vijayanagara empire left such print on her mind that with 20,000 rupees in hands she came here all the way from Hyderabad and settled down her own tailoring shop 15 years ago.

She finds her own kind of peace in Walking every morning till kamlapur along with the sun, more peace than she every found in being an army man’s daughter or in her marital life. She seems to have married this place. But of course no tale is a fairytale, reality did throw upon harsh times when UNESCO cleared her shop too with 350 other shops. But she being the fighter all her life, she holded her parts down and started a small tailoring shop in the market lane. A small cubical is now her home. She sleeps there, she eats there, she works there! Life can be hard for a single lady, but it is definitely something full of pride.

In midst of everyone fighting for land and wanting big shops and money, she is happy on her own without any greed of having anything.

People do a lot for finding their own peace!

In the later part of the day we went to Kamlapur to find people who work in homes, but we could not find any. 

A village where women are employed and men are unemployed.

Yes the title says it right. Have you ever heard of a city where women are employed and men are not? Women are smart and men simply drink, eat and sleep? 

Today was an eventful day. There were a series of events which lead to my discovery of some of the startling facts of Anegundi, the small sleepy village bound by four main roads and divided by small bylanes.

I had already heard about Banana fibre workshop and still what I heard was just the names “Banana Fibre Workshop in Anegundi” and “Shama Pawar”.

While we were just wandering near the Chariot which was starting point for us of Anegundi, We came across a white small cubical, and when we walked a bit more towards it, there it was “LIBRARY”. The room was filled with books as usually a library is and for us it was ‘books but no books’ as all of them were in Kanadda. As we entered inside, there was a thin man in check shirt and pant sitting on a desk of librarian. As we asked him can we get some books on history of hampi or Anegundi, he replied why don’t you people learn Kanadda, it will be very helpful for you.  Being in Karnataka, everybody should know Kanadda. There he started from how he knew seven languages and he has been working as a librarian since so many years. Finally he stopped when we reached section where English books were kept. Library was very peaceful as nobody was there and from one window you could see small village houses and chicken living everywhere. I came across this book on history of Anegundi. This book had all the information about Anegundi about how Kishkinda Trust came into play and how Shama Pawar entered and how one of the architecture school from Mumbai had come and other schools and colleges have come and have reformed Anegundi in a way and way how Anegundi has transformed and who all played a role in its progress. After reading about shama Pawar and Banana Fibre workshop, I felt like visiting the workshop as the book stated that the workshop has brought a lot of transformations to the village.

So by one point in mind I left the Library. Asking our way to factory by people, I met a  woman. Geeta her name, she lived right in front of Banana Fibre Factory. When I just casually asked her how much has she studied, to my surprise she had studied her B.A. and she has also worked in press for 2 years. Astonishing it was to find a lady with a BA degree living in such a small village. On being asked why she not works now, she says that “mere ko kaam karne ki zarurat nahi mera pati to pandit hai aur mahine ka 13000 kamata hai. Yes for sure she does not need to work, 13000 per month is enough for a house in Anegundi to survive. But more astonishing was her reply when asked why doesn’t she work in banana fibre factory. She said that she doesn’t want to work as mostly Muslims, backward and those people who are in need of money work there and she was a Brahmin. So then I realised that this peaceful place is not very far away from a typical society and its divisions which in turn means no peace or maybe peace in terms of divisions? Although she did believe that Shama has brought a lot of changes in Anegundi especially for ladies, but still she feels that there are better opportunities in city and hence she wants to move to city.

Next I met Vamsi Krishna, with his  “ degree in hotel management, branding and tourism from UK”, he has been visiting Hampi since last 10 years and he even has worked with the ladies of Banana fibre factory. Hailing from Andhra, he finds Anegundi very peaceful, away from noises of city. He was clad in a traditional attire, short kurta, pants and a side bag. It seemed as if he is amongst one of villagers only but with his own attraction. It was beautiful how this man had completely become an insider in spite of being a complete outsider. Peace did matter a lot! He had earned 3000 when he worked in factory and today he bought stuff worth 3000. He told me many “inside things” of village. He told me that there is one more Banana fibre workshop which is privately run by Meera. He told me that brothers of Royal Family still live here and he also suggested us to talk to Mr. Ramdevaraya.

Next I met Hasina and Raziya in Banana fibre factory. They have been working here since 1997. Inspired by Shama they work very hard. Both of them were muslims They say ”Shama madam humko bolta hai hai ki tumko bahut kaam karna hai aur paisakamana hai. Lately many ladies from their community have been engaged here too. They all earn 100 rupees per day and they come from far villages too. They say ”Madam aaye to sab acha ho gya”. Surely Shama Pawar is like a god to them.

In the Banana Fibre workshop there were a lot of materials made of ropes of Banana fibre such as table mat, door mats, boxes, purses Pencil case, Tea coaster, Water bottle case, Bin and many others, endless list it is.

The next we met a lady on road who took us to her guest house:

Hailing from Bellary, this woman owns a guest house named Saroavara home stay in small sleepy village of Anegundi. Her sons doing engineering, she finds Anegundi having nothing for higher studies of children and no employment either in here. “Sara men khata peeta aur sota hai, women ke lie to Shama ne acha kar dia, women bahut smart hai yahan ka par men ko kuch dhandha nahi hai, koi factory aajaye to acha ho jaey yha”. She feels bad for men wasting their time here.

This lady showed us way to Meera’s workshop where we met Shehnaaz Parveen:

Husband died last year, she did not seem sad on that. “Waste husband hone se kya fayda, isse acha no husband” Clearly she points out at males being unemployed and wasted in Anegundi. “Gents ko yha kuch kaam nahi hai, sab peeta hai bas, ladies ko to factory ki vajah se improvement hai, ye factory ni hua to yha rehna mushkil hai.”

She has 3 daughters and she works 10 to 5 at banana fibre factory for them, to make both the ends meet she works even after timings are over sometimes, she also sells chapatis to women of her locality. With 2000-3000 rupees per month as income, she is surely proud to have been able to pay her daughter’s fee and did not seem to depend on anyone for money.

These facts were really astonishing that women have work here and men do not have anything to do. Later in the day we went to Shama’s cottage where things are sold and we found few women working there and when talking to them, even they declared this fact that men do not have work here. One more thng I realised while talking to people was Muslims work in factories and Hindu women make the ropes out fibre at homes and in this way there is whole connecion in the whole village for Banana fibre products.

Untill I talked to people I had no idea that Banana Fibre factory means so much to them and today I came across two very surprising issues:

• ·         Men in Anegundi do not have work while women have a lot of work
• ·         Muslim ladies work in factory and Hindu ladies work at home for making raw materials.

So my next task becomes validation of these points and finding out reasons for these issues.

Bird's eye view day

Before starting on anything or deciding my research topic, I wanted to look at the temple town from bird's eye view. So I thought of exploring everything without details. 
Today we all had to go on our own which was much better than other two days as it gave us our space to explore whatever we wanted to explore. So again started the bumpy auto journey to Hampi. We walked down to staircase to the river, while we were going down, we stopped at a person who was making a stone chariot miniature model from granite. He told us that he brings stones from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and the stone is very soft hence is easy to carve. When we walked down the staircase, vendors sitting on the side of the streets started calling us,”Boni kardo madam ji boni kardo! Subah se kuch kharida nahi hai..dekho hmare paas jhumke hai, payal hai. Dekho.”. As we talked to them we came to know that all of them belong to Lambani community!

They live in Kalrapur, Kamlapur and Kadirampur nearby. Many of the products like anklets, bracelets, necklaces are made by them by thread.  What a nice business I thought. Making something on own and selling them. We crossed the river and there stood again the whole market lane and elephant coming out of water after bathing and giving everybody ‘ashirwad’. It was interesting how elephant knew that when people give banana he has to eat it and when they give money he has to give it to his caretaker and for whatever he gets he has to give ashirwad to the person giving it to him. As we walked through the lane one of the astonishing facts about vendors for me was that everybody was their customer and nobody was human amongst them. People were so keen on selling their items that they could cross any line to sale their items. The market was indeed colourful in that way too. Colorful bags, tanned jewellery, clothes, scarfs everything it had. Before starting to work we all wanted to explore the whole Hampi first. So three of us went to cycle stand to get our cycles, just when we were about to hire cycles, one auto guy turned up trying to convince us to hire auto from him and he was giving us a lot of discount, he offered to show us all the famous sites of Hampi in one day. He said “300 ka dena, sirf apke lie discount, hmara service dekhkar ap khud humko 400 dega.” So we finally decided on choosing auto as we three wanted to atleast see whole hampi from birds eye view. So we started our journey with Auto guy. The Auto seemed to dance on the beats of the music which was playing.

Our first stop was Chandikeshwara temple. Scary from inside, it did look like one amongst long lost but beautifully ruined temple of India infact the back side of the temple had so many bushes that few the carvings were hidden too. Hemant, our Auto guy told us the technology the craftsmen used during 14^th century to carve out the musical pillars. The upper base of the pillars was carved until pillars were able to produce proper sounds. These pillars had five sounds: Mrudanga, Tabla, Panchtala, Damru and one more.It was amazing how the pillar not even being hollow was able to produce those sounds.  He also told us that there were no shrines in any of the temples in Hampi. The reason being that in 14^th century there was a ritual that there has to be nidhi(money) beneath the shrines before starting constructing the shrines and the temple and hence Mughals took advantage of the same ritual and destroyed all the shrines in greed to get wealth. Mughals had destroyed only the Hindu temples and all the mosques were intact. I realised that even now the world resembles a lot to 14^th century World. Is it at all a history? Don’t these things happen till now? Structure of activities is same, just the form has changed. 

While we headed to Underground Shiva temple he told us that there are 83 monuments in total in Hampi which are recognized. We saw Krishna Bazar which was Spice bazar of 14^th century and Hampi bazar which was a place for Gold and Diamond marketing. We also saw Toll gate system of 14^th century where there were 3 gates, the centre one being for the king to pass and other two for soldiers and horses.

The next we stopped at Underground Shiva Temple. Anyone on first sight would think that only ruins of the place are left before they went inside and saw the actual underground massive structure. With a Linga inside and a lot of proper drainage places it was definitely a modern structure synonym to today’s basements and drainage done together.  When we came out of Underground temple, we met a soda selling person who was extremely keen on selling all of us his soda even if we do not like soda. He had cunning  answers for for all of our excuses.

The next we headed to beautiful Lotus temple where a Marathi movie shooting was going on by Surupsamartha production house. They chose Hampi as their base for shooting as none of the Marathi movies have been shot before anytime in Hampi.  

There I met Basamma. Here is her story:

Some people have a yellow layer and some have black layer in their glasses based on a how that person looks towards life. It all depends on how the person’s life has been and how she managed in her ups and downs.

It seems that this lady has been through a lot of bad times and is definitely sick of her married life. She says to me,”kya jeena marna, kya shadi, shadi barbadi, kabhi tum shadi mat karna”.

She has been into maintainance of Lotus temple since last 30 years , working in archeological department, Hampi. Her husband does not do any work, so handling all the burdens on her own shoulders her shoulders have certainly bended more as she becomes old. Her son died at the age of 20 years and with all her faith in a baba in Maharashtra she lives just to die one day. Looking into her wet old eyes I did find my own grandmother. Lets hope something revives her trust back to life.

“Ek din sabhi ko jana beti!”

Elephant’s stable was such a long piece of monument. It was really amazing how it was built leaving spaces of human heights so that humans could move inside from one stable to other.

Next we stopped at Hazara Rama Temple. It has 1000 scenes of Rama’s life on it’s walls. You could read a whole pictographic Ramayana here.

We saw Tarari gatta gate next which was entrance for Vijayanagar Empire. We also saw secret chamber, King’s Audience hall, Royal enclosure and pushkarni.

 I strongly felt that 14^th century’s technologies  and tactics were a lot similar to ours, ours is just privatised. The secret chamber was the place where secret meetings of regional importance used to take place. 

The next we went to Stone chariot and Vijay Vithalla Temple. Vijayvithalla Temple had three platforms where dance used to take place. It is said that these three mandapas belonged to three queens who would dance inside the mandapas and all the mandapas had hooks running all over the perimeter for curtains. There was one more Huge mandapa which was Band mandapa of 15^th century, meaning that it was the Mandapa where all the music would be played. The musical pillars had seven different kind of sounds of different instruments. Imagine the music being so loud that all the three queens could hear it from their Mandapas.

One of the things I noticed everywhere today that in most of the places ladies are employed, be it ticket counter or be it people employed for maitainance of monuments.

Then we went to museum in Kamlapur where there was a huge size of 3D structure of whole Hampi how it would look from sky. It was massive.  

That was the last stop after which we returned to the river.

When you end your tour day with a sunset, it is the most beautiful feeling ever. It was six already and we were on our way back to resort. It was the most magical feeling, watching glory standing in front of sunset!

Second day of Discovering Native of temple town!

After a full day of walking and walking and walking, quite exhausting we had a small day today at Anegundi. Anegundi is known as native place of Vijaynagara kingdom.

Anegundi, place where peace flows in air, unlike Hampi streets where people keep rushing and guides, autowalas, cyclewalas keep calling everyone and also place which smells of people more than archaeology. So this is a place which speaks a language of culture and belongingness. Our day started in Auto rikshaws, the part of the day which everybody loved the most. Sitting at the back seat, holding ourselves, protecting ourselves, everytime with the fear of falling down from it, that was our favourite part, after all everyone is a design student, would do anything just to see running roads down the feet, enchanting  scenes passing by, rocks so tactfully arranged as if it has been done manually to create a mountain, thin streams of water running at the side of the roads. We at first went to a temple where the act of stacking bangles on one of the small poles amused me and the rough, cool texture of floor relaxed me. This temple, Ganganatha Swamy Temple had a place for yagna outside the temple, reminding me of times when yagna was the most important part of a place for god to worship Fire.

One of the five tatva I am while making earth,

Symbol of fear and destruction, I am strong enough to destroy your whole yard.

People fear me, people worship me.

People find comfort in me, People find harm in me.

I am people’s belief, I am people’s panic.

When I burn in wood people worship me, when I burn in homes, people curse me.

The next was place of Jains. Looking like an abandoned temple in a sleepy village, a place where Hinduism as well as Jainism coexisted, this place was a definite reference to History of cultures and Religions of India.

Walking back towards the point we had started, we saw a fort, abandoned too.

 With staircase so small and risky, It was a single floored building with two rooms on First floor with 3 windows seen from outside and every window had a platform to sit and relax. Seems that, even then windows weren’t just something of ventilation, they provided a peaceful space for thoughts as well where one could sit for hours and relax while being lost in thoughts looking outside at the sleepy village. Being so peaceful, it did give me feel of sitting there and getting lost in it’s beauty. With some of the walls having pictures of Hampi clad in dust, it did say something about the small fort and its connection with Hampi.  One black and white picture of family caught my attention. Maybe it was picture of the Royal family. While struggling through the broken staircase leading to terrace, the texture of Stone floor and walls was priceless and so relaxing and cold in warm weather. Broken terrace of broken fort was as beautiful as the stones. The view was wide.

While walking towards the river, we saw a woman converting some brown strands of a fibre into ropes. A hobby maybe, I told myself as I tried to convince myself that how can a woman of such a small village be doing business.

 But still this scene did leave me thinking about it. After few steps of walking,we stopped at river. River here too? It was a beautiful scene. So unexpected it is to find a river so easily for people who stay in city, where all you can see are diverted water routes. Was the diversion necessary? After all inhabitation is for humans! And which human can hate these beautiful rivers! For human safety, humans have created a bubble outside them and refuse to come out from that bubble to experience adventures of nature.

64 pillared was definitely a beautiful architecture to see but there was no way to reach till the structure as the nearby areas were fields and place of wild grass. I read somewhere that 64 pillared has 64 forms of art practices of Vijaynagara Empire depicted  on each pillar.

The way is more beautiful sometimes than the destination. This is what happened in case of Raghuvendra Swamy temple. The feel of touching water from the boat with the hands as if everything is slipping at the same time at which everything is coming back in hand. 

What do Urbanites know about nature I thought? Living in big cities, having knowledge of only his desk? And here are villagers, having to see all these natural beauties and knowing everything about wildlife. Who is more knowledgeable? Those who know nature practically? Or those who spend years studying about various things whose one part is nature. Education and this system of education, is it important at all? Literacy rates of urbanite maybe high but knowledge rates of villagers will be higher. Experiencing practicality of life is important.

We stopped at a point and the boatman warned us for not stepping into water as it is dangerous. It was so difficult to resist water, the playful water protected by mountains of stones at side. Such a beautiful scene it was to see a point where stones and water meet, stones being submerged in water and protruding out somewhere as if to give a throne to tapasvis!

Raghuvendra Swamy temple had many Tulsi platform like huge structures. After coming back from Temple we went to Chintamani temple, again on the same side of the river where we had started. Chintamani temple was a sleepy temple,  found men sleeping here and there. Justified resons- the place was extremely peaceful with cold stones with a beautiful scene from first floor where the temple was. Stones, river and temple! What can be a better place?

We called the day off then and went to a place to have food. While walking towards the place to have food me and my friend bumped into this man who was constantly asking my friend from where she is as she looked Maharashtrian. It was kind of scary and irritating but funny too. The roof caught my eyes! With palm and banana leaves and bamboo sticks the whole structure was sheltered. What a good use of resources I thought!

The food. Me being North Indian, it was initially difficult to accept the fact that I will have to eat rice  with hands. Yes for sure eating with hands maybe a pleasure, but for a person who has never done that, this place wasn’t very comfortable to do that and at the point where I was extremely hungry, having something which I might not like would have been out of question but as the food was being served and I started having food, It was the best south Indian Thali I have ever had in my life. I did feel bad about my initial thoughts about food. Every type of food has its own taste, own language!

The following evening we had “round chairs discussion”, where I had listed down a few points on which I could work on in Hampi and Anegundi. But after realising by what my facilitator said, I increased my fluidity and thought of looking as characters after meeting one of the characters today who was constantly asking my friend from where she is just to irritate her and was not letting us go until we answered all his questions!

Hence I increased space for changes in my plan and thought of looking such characters in Hampi bazar as bazar was the part which attracted me the most.