Back to the past - Shivamogga

Nostalgic trip to the roots – Shivamogga+Jog+Varadahalli+Gajanoor+Shivaloka in Harakere

A phone call from shivamoga for a marriage of my cousin brother ignited passion to visit shivamoga once again.  I rarely miss an opportunity to visit my strong roots of my childhood, and also the interesting phase of my family, which taught us to how to wade through the turbulent time

Once again, I called my gladiator Sunil from my earlier trip to Madikeri, and Shivanasamudra, but unfortunately he was also booked by a similar gang to shivamoga, he was forced to bow to their request, so he sent another specialist in Venkatesh. 

We left Bangalore at 22.30 after our customary pooja to the vehicle.  We reached Shivamoga in the wee hours of Saturday. 

We took the blessings of the lord Hanuman temple in Kote, our grass root point, where we spent our childhood.  The visit to the post office, The temple, the roads leading to the temple, the bridge across the Tunga River brought goose bumps.  It was an absolutely life time experience for me.

By 9.00 Hrs we are on the corridor to Jog. 

Tunga River in full flow

Kote Post office - Childhood play station

Family pose - Kote Anjaneya Temple

The Majestic Jog falls

The jog falls had seen me six times earlier; as usual she was never tired of looking at me for the seventh time again.  But this time she was witnessing a golden moment in my life, as her eyes were getting filled with an eye catching presence of my parents.

Water flowing - Emotional at its best - Family Package

The heights of spirituality Sridhar teertha in Varadahalli (Varadapura)

This is a marvelous place to visit. This was my third trip to this place.  The calmness, the spiritual heights all brings an engrossing charging point resurrect yourselves.  The only film shot in this place according to my knowledge base is Amrutha Galige by master magician Puttanna Kanagal.My parents braved to climb the 225 steps leading to the temple at the top.

on the way of climbing steps to Sridhara Teertha

The watery world in Gajanur

The dam across the river Tunga was in its prime glory, it was filled to the brim. It was memorable for its own reasons.  This dam provided one of the locations for Annavara song in Eradu Kanasu, and also it brought down many memories of my effervescent moments with putty and guru when I visited the previous time.

Gajanur Dam

The creation of mini kailasa in Haranakere

You give him clay, he will make sure he will bring god alive on this earth, that is the specialty of Mr. Kashinath, the artist, the master of sculptures.  The mini Kailasa on Hara Kere on the way to Gajanur Dam was a pleasant one.

Lord shiva with a inspiration smile on the lips

After a pleasurable visit to our roots, we returned back to our mechanical roots by the midnight of Sunday.

The glorious moments

•  The glorious moments
  
  ·         My father friend who met him after a gap of marathon 60 years.  They last seen each other when my father was 17 years old, now he is 77.
  ·         Even though, he has painful legs due to operation had about a decade ago, he was delightful when he walked down to view the gorge point near the circuit house on the other side of the falls, which became famous after the Kannada monster hit movie Mungaru Male.
  ·         Strangely, he never felt pain after we returned to Bangalore; he was at his normal best.  When the brave heart is full of happy moments by speaking to his near and dear ones, where will be the place for the pain?  

Trip to the waters - Shivana Samudra

Trip to the waters - 8th August 2010

A photograph carried in the news paper, spurred the idea of re-visiting the Shivanasamudra falls.  As usual Sandeep gave me warm shoulder to my plans.  Due to his parents visit, Our smiling assassin Vinay couldn’t join our barmy army. 

I summoned our gladiators Sunil & Raaghu from our madikeri exploits, and they obliged my request.  We eight of us ventured in to mysore road for the elusive water cascade in Shivanasamudra.  The eight were Sunil, Raaghu, Sandeep, Latesh Pawar, Yashdeep, Selva , Myself, and the beautiful Sonalika.

Selva, Srikanth, Yashdeep, Sunil, Sandeep, Latesh, Raghu in order from left

As per our plan, after picking the deadly trios Latesh (Smarty), Yashdeep, Selva from Sarjapura Outer ring road, I dashed in from the Vijayanagar, and finally warm pooja waiting for us in Sandeep’s house.

Our first breakpoint was Kadamba near Maddur.  The hot hot Idlis, Crispy Vada, the saucy Pongal enegised us to travel towards Gagana Chukki.

The Gagana Chukki is a water fall created by the cascading River Cauvery from the great heights. The view was breathtaking.  It plunges in to the deep gorge creating ocean of milky smoke, and hammering noise on our deaf ears.

That is Gagana Chukki!

Group snap shot at Gagana Chukki

Here we only savored the breathtaking view, and the photo session.  We are all working in an IT industry, but later realized, there was a serious bug in our human evolution.  If you want to know, just have a glimpse on the monkey-snappy moments.

On the way to Bhara Chukki, the second water fall in the island of Shivanasamudra, we stopped for a while on the age old, beautiful, standing tall in the testing time,  a stone bridge.  Again the bug in the human software surfaced, we had a nice time.

Wonderful stone bridge on the way to Bhara Chukki

Our next exploits was waiting for us.  The Bhara Chukki was waving its hands from a distance.  We couldn’t neglect the temptation; we headed to the call, and ventured in to the waters.  The experience cannot be explained in our 108 keyboard, only our cameras could tell the fairy tale.

Bhara Chukki at its best

All of us had a great time in the water, but we were careful personified. The diving Sunil, and Raghu, Carefully enjoying “smarty”, wearing heart on his muscled shoulders “Selva”, Enjoying with a haunting smile “Yashdeep”, myself enjoying the splash of water, and looking around for the beloved once, and Sandeep experiencing his penchant for water drenching.  Sandeep went to back to pick his third eye to capture the rumbling moments of our watery ploy.

We came out from the water like a mermaids, had hot hot chilly bajjis on the banks of the falls.  It quenched our thirst of hungry up to certain extent, it enabled to hold our appetite till we reached Somanathapura. 

Entrance to the Somanathapura Temple

The Somanathapura temple construction was started in 12^th Century, it was completed in difference phases over a period of close to 300 years plus.  It was majestic, a great example of Hoysala dyanasty rulers rich value of upholding culture, heritage.  The temple is breathtaking with intrinsic carvings, which we fail to write even on the paper.  It is truly marvelous, only revisiting again and again is tribute to the Sculptures of this Sand/Soap stone wonder.

The time was around 17.00 hrs, we decided to visit the Balmuri Falls, and the world famous Brindavan Gardens, and then head towards Bangalore.  But our beautiful decided to take rest, and so her masters Sunil, and Raghu decided to give a gentle tap on her to encouraging shoulders. She started smiling again, but after a break of good 1800 seconds.

Since our beautiful took rest, we decided to cut down our visit to Brindavan Gardens, but we made sure to visit Balmuri ravishing water.  But to our bad luck, Sun said enough is enough, let me log off.  But the sun was clever; he painted the back ground on a grand scale to give more work to our third eyes in the depleting light. 

But the snap shots were encouraging, and our master clicker Sandeep, satisfied with the clicks of his life.

We had a nice North Karnataka full meal in Kamath Loka Ruchi near Ramanagara, and safely reached Bangalore around the midnight.

It was again a fabulous outing with the dependable Sunil and Raaghu. Smarty (Latesh) and his gang of gladiators, and the ever dependable Sandeep provided the able support to plan and execute the outing with poise.

Finale

Our beautiful was none other Sonalika, the Car.  She was smart, she heeded to all our requests and accompanied us through out the day. A great thanks to her from all of us.