In the Garden

We took the scenic route to KRS through Pandavpura, which basically meant that we stopped for directions every couple kilometres. Scenic it definitely was: paddy and sugarcane fields as far as the eye could see, with low blooms of cabbage and greens, long rows of gauzy greenhouses busy with young growth. We came to the turn-off for KRS at a bridge over a hurried and rather musty smelling canal. The KRS dam loomed ahead a long, long wall ahead, cocooning the Brindavan garden.

The Royal Orchid hotel sits a square colonial bungalow on a bluff overlooking the garden, and was built by Kishnarajendra Wodeyar as a guest house. The colonial splendour remains untouched with the original wood panelling, teak staircases and the antique floor tiles evoking memories of a bygone, more elegant era. As I walked the hallway, I was struck with the inexplicable urge to whisper, as if not to disturb residing royalty. It was all very swish and sophisticated, what with all the Belgian glass and the martyred animals on the wall. The lobby was a large airy space with cane couches and an ornate silver jhula that we had to plonk into the minute we set eyes on it! We were led to our room on foot up two flights of stairs, no bland impersonal elevators to mar the ambience. Our room, a Queen suite, was lush with gold and jewel tones all around. But the pièce de résistance we discovered after the bellhop with a subtle dramatic flair, threw open the balcony doors. There lay before us the Brindavan Gardens in all its afternoon splendour! The emerald lawns were almost painfully bright in the noonday sun, the spray from the fountains and sprinklers caught the sun in a thousand dazzling rainbows. The hush-hush of the fountains and the twittering of a few birds was the only ambient noise in this disciplined and pruned Eden. The dull granite façade of KRS dam wall encompassed our entire western view, setting off a lovely contrast to the garden.

Early evening was spent lounging around the pool and terraces of the hotel, and as the sun crossed over from scalding to merely hot, we climbed down a small fleet of stairs and stepped right into Brindavan. We took a walk along the little paths and trails between the lawns and fountains, while the variety of plants and shrubs stretched the limits of my botanical knowledge. As twilight approached, we crossed a bridge over an unfortunately cluttered canal to enter the musical fountain arena. As the show started, I felt with a sinking traitorous heart that the musical fountain that awed and thrilled us as kids now merely seemed jaded and sadly outdated. A jarringly loud Usha Uthup fought with our barely restrained sniggers, and we gave up after the omnipresent Saare Jahan Se Acchha. Brindavan is extremely photogenic at night. The hotel had conveniently placed benches on a walkway overlooking the garden, and we spend a serene but mosquito-ridden hour admiring the view below and constellations overhead. Returning to our room, we encountered the shyly chatty receptionist who regaled us with Sir MV anecdotes (Sir MV being the one who designed and build the KRS Dam). Apparently, Sir MV had the curious habit of including in his constructions one particular stone upon which the whole structural integrity rested. He was commissioned to design and build a bridge in England, and he did so, including this one important stone. But what galled our stiff-upper-lip Brits was that Sir MV had the stone inscribed “Made in India”. Asked to remove the stone, he said he gladly would, but it would bring the bridge down too. And so as legend goes, there’s still a bridge in England that says “Made in India”. And so we retired for the day with this story warming the cockles of our hearts.

Breakfast was served on the enclosed terrace overlooking the dam gates and pool, and a lovely mellow light permeated through the antique glass windows. Though we still had a couple of hours till we checked out, they were heavy with the knowledge that our lovely two day break was almost done! To my delight, the hotel offered bicycles to any guest wanting to take a turn around the garden. And so it came that after a gap of 16 years, I perched precariously on one and started off, rather shakily. But you know what they say about learning to ride, and half the ride was a breeze. The other half we burned our breakfast calories pushing the bicycles back up the hill.

And so our little break came to pass, and we find ourselves back in dusty Bangalore, though I like to think I’ve left a little bit of myself back there at KRS!

Part 1: With piety for the Deity

In an earlier life, repetitive tourism (in whatever guise: temples, tirth yatra or just a getaway) would be good cause for loud and insistent protests, to my parents lasting aggravation. Post marriage has resulted in a surprising complacency and tolerance that I would not have believed myself of conjuring (though there might be differing opinions on this!). Ergo, we found ourselves cruising along on Mysore road for the second time in as many months. Though its been a couple of years now, we cannot get over our luck at being blessed with this highway: shiny clean and even enough to eat off. As battered as we were by our road trips to South Kanara, we treated this one with the normal emotions Indians reserve when treated to a motorable highway: unselfconscious delight and surprise.
This trip was hastily planned with frantic calls to resorts and plenty of second guessing and rethinking to boot. With a friend’s recommendation, we settled on the Royal Orchid otel Hotel ckhoHotel at Brindavan Garden KRS. Brindavan gardens that provided the colour to a hundred tacky wet-sari songs in all possible vernacular tongues. We had an early start, and the road was a dream as promised. We cruised along at a good clip, particularly relishing the signs that invited and bid us goodbye with all passing towns: “welcome to Silk City Ramnagaram”, “Thank you visit again-Sugar City Mandya” and “Gombegala Ooru Channapatna”.
As one leaves Mandya, a pointy little sign modestly directs the diffident driver - Melkote. We’ve seen the sign on our many trips to Mangalore, longingly craning our necks to follow the road as far as the eye could see; and reluctantly put it off for other vacations. This time as the sign approached, the same though raced through our heads and we joyfully took the turn the sign obligingly pointed toward. It’s a picturesque drive, with fantastically shaped rocks and boulders precariously balanced end on end. The rampart of neat hillocks has its rugged beauty, even as the treeless baked brown slopes indicated a systematic deforestation.
Melkote rests on a hill, one of many that stand sentinel beside it. As we entered the town, we were immediately struck by how clean everything was! There was none of the rubble that is a sad artefact of other busy overcrowded temple towns. For a little bit of background history, the town was established in the 10th century by the Vaishnava saint Ramanujacharya. However, it is said that the temple predates the saint, with lithic records proposing a Tamil influence and Vaishnava worship in this area. Ramanujacharya’s disciples followed the saint, and soon the town became an important centre of Srivaishnavism. The main temple dedicated to Lord Cheluvanarayana Swami stands right in the town centre: a square low building propped up by a legion of pillars. It was modest and altogether much simpler that I had imagined, although going by the era and history I suppose this is consistent. For prayers before the deity, we were pushed into an orderly queue by thick hemp ropes, and the formalities were completed quickly enough. We took a walk around the temple and in sharp contrast to the unadorned functional pillars outside, the ones in here took our breath away. Chariots, voluptuous apsaras, soldiers with bows and arrows poised, battle scenes and deities narrated stories of a bygone era. Intricately carved with painstaking detail, we marvelled at the stonemasons of the time. A thousand years ago, they must have been privy to only the most rudimentary tools, and yet to masterfully create such a thing of beauty completely awed us. I did sneak a photo, though it invited a sharp rebuke from one of the priests. Our noses lead us to the

puliyogare stall outside the temple and we just had to dig into Melkote’s most famous export! Spicy, tangy and delicious, we gorged on a big bowl each and it was everything promised by puliyogare connoisseurs! Not sated by that, we armed ourselves with packets more of the mix to carry home and replicate.

A short climb up the road from the temple, we came across the “Akka-tangiyara Kola”. These are built along the lines of ‘kalyanis’ or temple tanks with water all year round. Legend goes that the older of the sisters wanted to build the tanks and enlisted her younger sister’s help. However the younger one was reluctant about the scheme, for reasons lost in time. Therefore of the two tanks, one is filled with clear water and the other brackish, testament to the younger sister’s reluctance.
Down the hill from the temple is the immensely huge kalyani of the Cheluvanarayana Swami and Yoga Narasimha temples. The kalyani is surrounded by mantaps supported by intricately carved pillars which have hosted a dozen romantic song-and-dance silver screen routines. The day we visited was no exception. Tinny music and the choreographer’s megaphone echoed across the water as Shivrajkumar and his tireless extras gyrated incongruously, breaking the solitude and serenity of the place.
The Yoganarasimha temple overlooks the kalyani from its lofty perch and beckoned us for a good hearty climb up the steps. We started off enthusiastically enough, extolling the virtues of a good weekend hike while furtively assessing each other’s energy levels. The granite steps along the way are carved off-and-on with figurines of men and women with their arms raised in pious surrender as they trudged up the hill. I guess these were meant to infuse the weary traveller with renewed vigour as he lost heart gazing up at the temple that seemed just a little bit further with each step! The monkeys along the way provided a bit of comic relief, as did the goats that pranced nonchalantly up the steps and bleated sneeringly at us. Once we did reach the top the view was breathtaking, although the barrenness of the surrounding hills disturbed me not a little. The temple itself was simple, small, with a wraparound terrace and view that encompassed the whole district. Not surprisingly, the Prasad was what else, puliyogare! Peering inside a small stone built room off the temple, we saw an old man in a dhoti toiling away at a grinding stone. I suppose this is where this heavenly mix came from with its perfect blend of spice, tang, a slight hint of sweet and the crunchy roast peanuts. We gorged on handfuls of the stuff and the price (Rs. 10/handful) for weird reasons I don’t want to probe, had to be left on the doorstep of the room. We descended.
Tick for Melkote, and I take back with me a little piety and a half year’s supply of puliyogare!

A Cynic walks through history

My earliest memories of Mysore evoke sugarcane fields whizzing past and the hot scent of rexine as our Ambassador taxi seats baked gently in the hot summer sun. Summer holidays spent in rural Chamarajanagar meant being a stone’s throw away from this historic city, and ensured at least one day following the Mysore trail…a peek at royalty at the ridiculously opulent palace, looking up in hushed awe at Rembrandt paintings in the huge echoing museum, getting scared out of our wits by the huge African elephants that towered over us at the zoo, and of course, what childhood memory is complete without a cool bite of chocolate ice-cream at Dasprakash!
I look back with indulgent nostalgia, young urban sophisticate that I now supposedly am. Going back after 15 years, my cynical city-cluttered mind whispered, that free of my childish naiveté, I would see things as they actually were: the palace seedy and overcrowded, the museum sadly dilapidated, and the zoo animals underfed and hag ridden. True, my perspective has changed. But as an ‘I told you so’ niggled at the back of my head, to my surprise I found myself all set to protect and defend! I wonder if it was my nascent patriotism or just a dawning realization and attachment to the very Indianness of it all…bottomline: I was still awed by the palace, although with an admixture of fond amusement at the frantically baroque façade. The caged animals at the zoo now evoked an uncomfortable lump of pity, guilt and anger, but I also took in the sleek coats of the tigers with gambolling cubs beside them, the huge airy enclosures, the newly tarred roads, the battery operated cars and the attempts at prettiness with flowered pathways, and felt an honest appreciation. The ‘I told you so’ retreated, for now.
History permeates the very air in Mysore, and as we drove past huge century old colonial-style government offices and the ubiquitous statues of erstwhile maharajas, I felt impossibly young and impermanent. The shadow of Tipu Sultan looms large over the city, and the wealth of monuments, paintings and artefacts left behind stand witness to his power and glory. Dariya daulat it says at the entrance, wealth of the sea: a wide-corridored, cool teakwood palace with tipu sultan’s glorious victories immortalized by frescoes adorning every available wall space. A few of the names on the walls rang a bell after William Dalrymple’s White Mughals, and for a few moments, those mere names came to life in the throes of battle. The lovingly tended mughal-style bagh of the summer palace spread out all around, and shaded by the huge trees and twittering birds, you could almost place yourself 400 years in the past. Tipu is buried not far from here, at the Gumbaz. It somehow felt far from being a melancholic reflection of death seen in other historic tombs. The tiger-patterned dome celebrated the Tiger of Mysore and there was always a handy guide willing to extol his virtues and victories for a quick buck.
I left with my head abuzz with names and dates, like it used to be a half hour before a history exam! Fancying myself a newly minted scholar in history and indo-saracenic architecture, we took the long road home…hopefully, a little less of a cynic!