Monolithic Men and Poison Women

Ahhhh. There's just something about the Indian countryside that's refreshing after spending the week in the city. Yesterday I went on an all day excursion to three different towns a few hours away from Bangalore. Ramu, the driver, came to pickup me and my Salt Lakian coworker Melissa at 6:30 in the morning. We went to the Badami House, which is the government tourism office for Karnataka. Ramu dropped us off and we got on our mini coach to begin our tour. We sat patiently on the mini coach waiting for the rest of our group. The mini coach was indeed mini, but the prospect of having less people to smell than on a full size bus was promising. However, after waiting for just a bit longer it occurred to me that I probably was not going to last a few minutes on the mini coach, let alone a few hours. The rest of our group piled on, and by some miraculous force there were three passengers left standing without a mini seat on the mini coach. As we took off I was grateful I had a seat. We ended up driving to a lot where we boarded a large comfortable bus. As I sat sprawled in my seat with plenty of leg room and seats to spare I became even more grateful for the inefficiencies of the Indians.

We drove for about an hour and stopped for breakfast. I chose to stay on the bus and continue my nap. As I've said, Indian food leaves something to be desired for me and I had slept only about 10 hours combined for the entire week, so the nap was feeling wonderful. We drove about another hour and got to our first stop which was in a town called Belur. We visited a temple there which holds the Gommateshwara, the worlds tallest monolithic statue measuring 17 m high. It was pretty amazing. The temple is an important Jain pilgrim center and is on top of a mountain. I had to hike up a mountain about 600 and something steps to get to it, and of course my shoes had to come off. I felt like I was hiking the Great Wall again, except I had shoes on at the Great Wall. The view of Belur from the top was beautiful. There were big mountains of rock and little temples all over. The temple I was at was built in the 11th century and there were tons of amazing carvings in the stone and different stone structures. The monolithic statue was at the very top inside the actual temple. It was really beautiful and huge. There was some kind of ceremony going on at the feet of the statue where people were praying and pouring water on the feet. I don't really understand the purpose of Gommateshwara, but it definitely was a sight to see. It was raining so everything looked and smelled clean and it was really quiet and peaceful. When I got back down to the bottom I wanted to buy some bangles from some very convincing businessmen, but the bus was going to leave me and as appealing as the monolithic man was I didn't think he'd be very comfortable to snuggle with when it got dark.

We drove for a while more through the country until we got to a town called Halebid. In Halebid we visited the Chennakeshava Temple, also called the Star Temple. It was built in the 13th century and took 103 years to build. The fact that it only took 103 years to build was amazing. It was all stone and covered with chiseled bracket figures. I really can't even explain it. Every single inch of the outside and inside was carved with a story, or a symbol, and everything was different. They built it in star shape because they can get more sculptures around the outside that way than in a square or rectangle shape. The detail was incredible. Each figure's face had distinct features and was different from all the others. Inside the temple were several different columns that were also ornately carved. On one of the columns was carved the dancing woman with perfect proportions. She was beautiful and certainly made a girl feel inadequate. The guide demonstrated to us how everything was perfectly proportionate on her. One of the stories depicted outside the temple was the poisoned woman. A baby girl would be chosen when she was born to become poisoned. She would receive a little bit of poison with her mother's milk and eventually she would become immune to it and she herself would become poison. Then she would be sent to entice the king, and by her touch and her kiss he would be poisoned and die. No one would know how the king died because they wouldn't expect this woman to have poisoned him. I didn't think the poisoned woman sounded like too bad of a job. The way the whole temple was constructed was pretty amazing. Everything about it was perfectly proportionate despite the fact that they didn't have anything close to the technology we have now to do that for us. There was a sculpture above one of the entry ways and when it rained water would drop from her hand, which was above her head, down her nose, past her breast and thigh and off her toe perfectly every time.

Our next stop was Shravanabelagola where we visited another star temple. It was very similar to the Chennakeshava Temple, but had been attacked by the Muslims and damaged a bit. It was still very beautiful It wasn't ever completely finished so on some parts of the outside you could see the beginnings, middle and finished process of the stone carving. It was just incredible to me that they could start with just a solid block of stone and end up with something so intricately detailed. This temple was also the home of the 6th and 7th largest bull structures in the world. How many of you can say you have seen the 6th and 7th largest bull structures in the world? It's definitely one of my greatest claims to fame. The bulls were actually very beautiful and ornately carved as well. On leaving the temple one of the merchant men wanted me to buy a little trinket he had made. He kept telling me he was a business man and I just needed to make him an offer and we could work something out for me to buy it. I kept telling him no and then he asked if I was married. I said no and he asked why. I told him because I was a business woman and I hadn't been made the right offer. He didn't have much to say after that.

We started the drive home after that. It was really nice to drive through the country and see Indian life outside of the booming metropolis of Bangalore. It still amazed me how many people were just everywhere, but it also occurred to me what simple lives they live. They don't have the distractions of the Internet or TV or shopping malls. They live in dirt huts with thatched roofs that they probably have to rebuild a few times a year. They just do their thing and sit a lot. I'm not saying I would ever want to live a life like that; I definitely enjoy my Internet and TV and shopping malls, but their simplicity seemed nice.

We made it back to the Badami House at about 9:30 pm where the driver Ramu was supposed to be waiting for us. He was not there, but I originally told him we wouldn't be back until about 10:00 so we sat and waited. We waited, and we waited. Finally at about 10:20 I asked a strange man sitting next to us if he had a cell phone I could borrow so I call Ramu and see where he was. They must not have good long distance plans in India because the man kept asking if it was a local number. I assured him it was. He dialed the number I showed him which was actually full of fours that I thought were six's so I'm glad he dialed. He then stuck his ear piece in my ear, which I wasn't too pleased with, but at least he was letting me borrow his phone. I talked to Ramu and he assured me he was on his way; I told him to hurry quick. I thanked the guy and gave him back his ear piece. Melissa and I continued to sit in the dark surrounded by strange Indian men for the next 20 minutes until Ramu finally came. He said he had been to the temple with his family; how could I be upset about that.