Two Weddings and a ‘dismantled’ Temple

The Hills.

18-05-09

H,

Greetings from the Hills. As I write this letter to you, please understand that I do it with a heavy heart. Well, all’s well with me, but it was something I saw 150Kms away from The Hills, that has left me shaken. Before I tell you what I am cribbing about, I do have lot of things to share with you. And especially some gossip from the hangout, where the other day a fight broke out, the deserted roads on 16th May and one whole day of witnessing holy unions!

No matter what, weekends are always filled with some activity. Last weekend, as you know, the results decided the fate of our state for the next 5 years. I can’t tell you if I am happy or not about the outcome for it doesn’t matter what I feel. I am happy that people have given a verdict and that ends a six month long hoopla of almost everything about them. For once, we will get to talk and read about something other than Politics, corruption and power. The roads in the Hills were deserted beyond belief. An hour later, at our hangout a huge fight broke out, between one guy and 4 girls. I don’t know the exact reason, but it was surely entertaining. The others were busy talking about the pros and cons about the government. I don’t see how it’s going to effect us in any manner. The schemes which the government has introduced have no connection with our lives. But then we are the breed which only talks and does nothing apart from paying the taxes. That’s a catch 22 situation there, something which we don’t see and don’t do anything about it! From what I see, I understand that you are more dejected about the result in IPL and its always hard to see the favourite teams losing. That’s one thing I have understood over the past few years. You can’t get attached to one thing forever! It always hurts. This principle maybe not be universal, but it always works for me.

Sunday was filled with tremendous activity. Folks came down here for a week and I had to attend couple of weddings. The first one was in a Church. Apart from the wedding, which in itself was quite an experience, I realised how little I know and understand Christianity. Maybe this was my first time in a Church for non-touristy reasons. As they read verses from the Bible, it occurred to me that it’s a beautifully written collection of short stories which has a message for almost everyone. The hymns invoke the blessings of God for the couple, the verses read from the Bible have a message on how to lead a good life and all this is done with the Church’s Father as the compere. On this occasion, I thought he was being very lame with his jokes. At one point of time, I wondered whether he was being a male chauvinist. But then, all was done in good humour and that settles the case. All in all, a different experience, which introduced me to a new tradition. Oh, between…did you know that the highly localized slang of English makes a mockery of some of the names in Bible. I had to struggle to realise that the Father was talking about “Samuel”!!

The other wedding was in Orugallu, some 150 kms away from the Hills. This was my first visit to that city and I was a bit excited about it. Before heading to the marriage venue, mom was eager to visit the 1000 Pillar temple, which as you know is the symbol of the city. It is here that I was dumbstruck! One thing, the temple from one side, reminded me of the temple in Belur (the architecture was quite similar to that of Hoyasalas) and the other, I was pretty sure that the temple had less than 1000 pillars. Someone told me that one huge section of the temple was “dismantled” couple of years ago. Maybe it was on the verge of collapsing. But I was shocked that ASI didn’t do much about it, how could they just dismantle the whole structure like that! There are only 600 pillars now and the rest is just piled up debris. The architectures of this era might be good at columns and bars, but can they match the artistic brilliance of those a 1000 years ago? I doubt it. If this is the state of one of the major symbols of the past in the state, then there’s no hope for Tourism and preservation of Heritage which we are so proud of!

The wedding commenced with quite some fanfare and mom was more than happy to catch up with her friends. I was introduced to quite a few of my dad’s colleagues and I was happy that they didn’t come prepared with a questionnaire! Yuppie! A lavish wedding, maybe not too lavish, but I hadn’t seen so much Gold at one place for a long time. People do love to flaunt their riches and I was strolling out there like a college kid gone astray! There might me some more news on that front, so wait for my next letter.

One thing I have learnt this year is, the marriages are nothing like they show in our Telugu movies. Unless you are a part of the process, it’s either pure chaos or utterly boring! I had to run away from a wedding ceremony of a friend few days ago, didn’t know a single soul out there!..:). The environs in which we live are changing beyond recognition. I realised we are aging faster than we can guess. Thank God, atleast we know that we are in our early 20’s and there’s still time for us. Untill then, the only wise thing we can do is, Keep Looking…:)

Yours,

Hemanth