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Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
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Back after a Break!

I am finally back, after a short break, and it has been wonderful. As usual, though, now that I am actually sitting down on the computer, I don’t know where to begin!

To start with, for those of you not in the know, I spent the Diwali holidays at Tirupati, managing to escape from the pollution and noise the festival brings along. Of course, no place in India can remain immune to air and noise pollution during this one festival, and Tirupati was no different – well, maybe a little less polluted than Mumbai, and certainly a lot quieter! Most of the bangs we heard were from quite a distance, which actually helped us enjoy the spectacle of firecrackers, which were too far away to pose any danger! So, yes, we enjoyed Diwali, and spent the entire day visiting temples big and small in the vicinity. An auspicious way to celebrate the festival, wouldn’t you say?????

I spent almost 10 days at Tirupati this time, something I have wanted to do for a long time, and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you are wondering what I did for ten days in a place where the temple is the most popular attraction, and has a reputation for being among the most crowded ones, you are not alone. That is the one question I have faced from everyone ever since I booked the tickets. But you will have to contain your curiosity for a while longer till I manage to collect my thoughts and put it all down!

Returning home after two weeks, I found that I had a wonderful Diwali gift waiting for me – a book, what else???? A much awaited one – The Slayer of Kamsa, by Ashok Banker, the first book in the Krishna Coriolis series. I had won the book a few weeks back in a contest on Ashok Banker’s website and was eagerly awaiting it. I first heard of Ashok when I stumbled upon his Ramayana Series books, and have been a big fan of his writings ever since, and I was looking forward to reading his version of one of the most interesting stories in Indian Mythology. Now that I have read the book and assimilated it, I can get to other matters and begin writing again J


This one is just a short post, intended to get me back into the loop. You can soon look forward to reading a lot more about the places I visited – no, I didn’t visit only temples! Unfortunately, I don’t really have many photographs, thanks to the paranoid security situation at our temples. There were so many interesting things I saw, which had me itching to take pics, but most of the times I didn’t have my camera with me L

Comments

  1. LakshmiNovember 16, 2010 at 4:58 PM

    welcome back.great to know you had a wonderful trip...all set for the next ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. sandeepNovember 16, 2010 at 8:39 PM

    welcome back! bangalore was apparently quiter for this years diwali. hope its the beginning of a good trend

    ReplyDelete
  3. jayasreeNovember 16, 2010 at 9:52 PM

    Anu, great to know you had a nice holiday... Looking forward to read about it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Madhu TyagiNovember 16, 2010 at 11:21 PM

    hey Bhabhi nice to hear u had a simple and real diwali !!! keep the book more me plz!!! how is every one!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. UshaNovember 20, 2010 at 10:32 AM

    Anu, what are all those capital Ls and Js in your post? Some new internet lingo that slowcoach me needs to catch up with? Will call you sometime this weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anuradha ShankarNovember 21, 2010 at 11:05 AM

    Thanks everyone...

    Lakshmi... absolutely all set for the next.. looking forward to that one already!

    Sandeep, nice to hear that!

    Madhu....uske liye bombay aana padega!

    Usha: no idea about that... cant see them on my screen.. have used smileys for once.. adn maybe they are showing up like that!

    ReplyDelete

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