"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be." - Patanjali

Sunday, January 08, 2006

The journey of the South

Am in a very typey kinda mood (and Aurangzeb refuses to yeild his pics!), so I should fill you in, what I've been up to after Rameshwaram, and before Ajanta.

Straight after Rames, we (Rahul and I) went to Madurai, where we wanted to take it easy. We ordered room service and slept.

From there, it was to Kanyakumari. An 8hr hour bus trip on a government special! That really did the trick! Kanyakumari is special. You can feel it in your bones when you get to the point that is India's end. You stand and look forth, thinking this is the end, and you feel a shiver up your spine.

Then theres Vivekananda's rock. Its quite a monument. Construction would have been quite a challenge. The boat ride to the rock is rocky and blusterous. Quite a few times the ocean water jumps up and soaks every one peering for a view. On the rock itself the main hall has inside a statue of Vivekananda. Below the hall is a meditation room, and despite the crashing of the waves and the noise of the wind, you can barely hear anything at all inside.

Outside, the wind is tremendous. One can pretty much let themselves be carried by the force.

The only thing about Kaniyakumari, is that theres not that much to see. It can be done in half a day. So its best to takent he surrounding sites as well.

So from Kaniyakumari, we went to Trivandrum, from where our flight left for Bombay. Didn't really see much of the city, although we noticed a a plethora of study-book stores and that women had a more prominent role in the running of a business.

Anyways, should go. Next edition will be Bombay...

4 comments:

CK said...

Your decription of Kanyakumari gave me a instant flashback of my trip there as a 13/14 year old boy. (wow that was a long time ago)

This is a memory I did not know I had, so thanks. It was a amazing trip for me. The story goes, as a overly active and naught kid I always used to run around. When we got to Kanyakumari, a group of 7 people (2 families), I managed to give everyone the slip, went downstairs and sat in the meditation room for a full 10 minutes.

In those days, it was unheard off for me to be sitting in the one spot for 10 minutes, let alone without talking or moving etc. So the rest of the group is frantically searching for me outside, while I am sitting inside "meditating". I don't really remember what I was doing, but I do recall being quite at peace when I came out, put my chappals on and went and stood next to my mom. Suffice to say their stress was a surprise to me as was my story to them....

:)

Anonymous said...

your musings continue to inspire me and JP- I wish we could just wing it like you have, but JP wants to "plan" ahead... we shall see, tis a long, long, long time away. you sound very Swades-ish with your boat journey description. I can just picture you all Shah Ruhk style all over India!
Now can't wait for your Bollywood adventures from Bombay... or should i say Mumbai so as not to annoy the locals...
:)
miss you hrishi... lots been happening

Anonymous said...

CK: dude, its unheard of for you to sit in place now for 10 min! Kidding!!!

Yeah its quite a remarkable place, only because of the turmoil outside and the serenity inside. i wish we had spent more time in there tho...

Anonymous said...

Swati: no way! You have to do everthing on whim! No planning...I started of that way, and booked places two or three weeks in advance, when it really wasn't necessary! Even today I book the day before.

And Swades? Don't know about that...I just came from Dwarka and I'll hoepfully put up some pics of a boat ride that was Swades-like...

And I miss you guys as well...