Avani

Destination Avani wasn't previously fixed. It came to me through a Google search for places within 100 kms. from Bangalore. I like that about Bangalore; there's a new place to go to no matter how many times you have headed out from the city. I should also tell you that I have a penchant for old temples; temples which are not functional but are left behind as relics from a storyful past.

Avani is around 98 kms. from Bangalore and the approach is via the gold mine district of Kolar. It would have been a great idea if I had started really early in the morning. In fact the websites that I referred to suggested the same.  Lesson learnt! I was out of home by 8 am and had to make a trip to the fuel station which I have been delaying in the hope that the unrealistic fuel prices would drop any day. Looks like the hope was unrealistic, we are staying sky high with those prices for a week now. Car tanked up, I suddenly remembered that I was hungry. My plan was to stop by at one of the wayward eateries for some difference in taste but since the onset was delayed I stopped for breakfast next before I buckled up for the drive. Destination Avani.

Bangalore traffic decided to behave on this Saturday and I was happier for it. The drive out of the city borders went smooth and from there on it went smoother. This is the first time I ventured out on my own to a totally new destination. Travel always meant company but I have been pushing it for a very long time waiting for company so much so that the wait started eating me up. That’s when I took to the steering wheel. Each one of us has our own travel stories, stories of what a journey does to us. There are so many of them that we even have books written and movies made around the theme. For me, travel has always been about refueling and going by the pace of our lives these days, refueling needs to be consistently done or so I believe. One thing which helped me with the solo trip was to slowly step out of over-cautious mode that I found myself in these days. I felt like a dog who has been kept indoors for months and let loose on his own. He would, I guess, start by sniffing the air around him and then take small steps to stick to obviously safe terrain. But once he has been outdoors for long enough the natural instinct will be back and that’s close to where I was by the end of the day. Once I left Bangalore and its suffocating high - rise skyline I felt I could breathe more easily. I was beginning to miss out on the essentials, being cooped up within the city walls. Slowly, like that dog which was kept tethered for long and let out in to the wild, I found myself stopping wherever I wanted to, to regain the joy of feeling unfettered by standing out in the open. 

All the way to Avani except for the last five kilometres the road looked just the same. It thrilled me in the beginning to see open stretches after a very long time but soon enough I was craving for more excitement. That's what I got in the last leg of the journey. I read about the last stretch of this trip being very difficult and I was expecting some major mess. But as I was getting on to the village road that was being laid I saw the following: heaps of gravel piled up on one side of that narrow stretch, two way traffic crunching through on the rest of the space that was available. But what amazed me was the patience shown by big buses to trucks to motorcyclists to wait for their turn and even back up to let oncoming traffic pass by so that the smooth flow was retained. Not that there was much traffic but whatever there was it hardly felt like it. 

And then came Avani. This village is 32 kms away from Kolar and just 10 miles from the gold fields. Avani in Sanskrit means earth and the village is popular because, as legend goes, Sita, the daughter of Mother Earth and wife of King Rama, chose to live here for a while. The place is known to be the birth place of Lava and Kusha, princes and sons of King Rama. Avani was where Sita, his wife and their mother, lived during the period of her exile. There is a temple dedicated to Sita atop the hill which loomed large behind the temple complex on the ground. The trek uphill is supposed to be an hour long and it was close to 12 noon by the time I was done with the temples afoot the hill. It only meant that I will be back to Avani to complete the concept. After all, a trip to Avani wouldn't be complete without a visit to the temple of the daughter of Avani. The entry into the temple complex on the ground was pretty straightforward as the arch at the entrance had small sculptures of the Ramayana family carved on it which made it easy to figure my way in. Though maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India the place wasn’t yet a much sought after tourist or pilgrim destination and hence the lack of haggling for parking tickets or wayside goodies was a welcome relief. I got out of my car and walked in gingerly expecting someone to turn up and ask me for a ticket here or there. Nothing!  A cop was sitting on a metal chair, bored and he looked at me for a quick second before resuming his game on the phone. I left my shoes next to him since I had found a pile there, but again, no tokens or tickets. The temple complex afoot, as records show, is from the 10^th century and was later modified during the time of the Chola dynasty. The temples afoot the hill housed shrines dedicated to Rama and his brothers. What was fascinating was that it was the phallus that was worshipped in all of these. One of the boards outside the Rama shrine indicated that the Ramalinga was made of smaller dark stone than the Lakshman linga. I found it amusing. The temple architecture was mesmerizing as goes with the old temple structures and the carving in stone is something which always enthralls me; the details and the stories behind each of them. What I found different here was the fact that there was a prominence of male energy around the place and I say this not just because of the overwhelming presence of phalluses. As I was entering the complex I walked in to cries and shouts from inside the complex. When I went in I saw that the cries emanated from a 10 something boy while the shouting and the possible hurling of abuses came from two men standing in front of him. My limitation with the language failed to figure out the details of the scene but the vibe of male ego and show of power resulting from a probable warrior streak  that has been around the place for so many years was unmistakable. 

I walked around the place for a while, taking in the spirit of the times it was built in trying to picture life in those times. Travelling solo gives you the freedom to wander like this. I went and sat inside some of the shrines which were empty yet so cool compared to the mounting heat from a sunny day outside. I looked at the carvings on the ceiling and peeped through the pigeon - hole windows and imagined going back in time when someone else would have done the same then. I would have spent around 40 minutes at the temples on the ground before I walked out of the complex with the weight of the unseen from atop the hill upon my back along with the harsh rays of the afternoon sun. There was much to come back for: Remnants of the ashram where sage Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana, was said to have been residing while writing the Ramayana, the room where Sita gave birth to her twin children Lava and Kusha are some among the few of the missed sights. From the pictures that I found on the web the remnants of Valmiki’s ashram could possibly have been from his time. However the temple dedicated to Sita looked relatively fresh in appearance and construction as compared to the rest of the structures.I won’t confirm on anything till I have made that trip. Needless to say, these little connections with mythology and reality is what gives me the kick out of visiting these temples. To think that there are entire legends and eventual religions which stepped out of the imagination of someone observant and creative who lived in those times is what gives me the goose bumps. 

Walking out to where the car was parked, I noticed that just as at the beginning of my visit, there was yet another male power show, this time more violent.  A middle aged man was being beaten up with a stick by a much younger yet stronger looking man to the accompaniment of verbal abuses. Again the limitation of the language failed me to understand what was going on but I noticed that after a dozen of thrashings the older man started reacting and from then on the physical assault ended but the verbal one continued. I got in to my car in the middle of these happenings and I drove out of the village in a haze trying to put together the stories surrounding the place from afore and the reality as was being witnessed right then. The shows of male power outside the temple was to me a reflection of the energy from the shrines worshipping male phalluses inside it; stories of male might and justice in their own right. It seems as if these well - told stories of the place and its people, passed on over generations from the minds of the old to those of the young, have left an indelible mark. 

I drove back in the company of the images created by these stories, old and new.