Put de Offering in de Coconut and Drink em both Up
Trip Start
Aug 04, 2009
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56
191
Trip End
Aug 30, 2010
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Brahma: object constructor
Vishnu: mutator methods
Shiva: object destructor
Aside from the sheer mnemonic value of a language I'm readily familiar with (ie Java), it's confirmation that I'm not the only tech geek out there.
Eminence between the Big 3 varied across different regions of India, so I was glad to find out that Bhopal and its vicinity tended to focus on Shiva. Aside from having the coolest role, he had a really interesting relationship with his wife, Pavarti, and her son, Ganesh.
In one story, he lopped off the Ganesh's head in a bathroom dispute and had to replace it with an elephant's to mollify Pavarti's (understandable) pique.
Architecturally, the Shiva-Pavarti pairing are often represented through a structure called the Shiva Lingam, the Shiva being a giant stone column arising from the Lingam, a broad and flat base that curls upwards at the ends, and the pair representing Shiva and Pavarti's respective sexual organs in union.
One of our first and more complete day trips out was to the Bhojeshwar temple, home to a 22m tall Shiva Lingam, the largest in the world. This thing so filled the temple that the outside stairs leading to the entrance were negated by the pit back down to ground level inside to house the Lingam. The Shiva stretched so high up that several terrifyingly large honeycombs with distorted shapes where visible hanging in the cool gap between it and the ceiling, safe from the numerous bats that hung under the roof.
Sundeep bought an offering kit of sweets and a coconut from a nearby street vendor then took Abhi to crack open the coconut with a stone in front of the temple, place the sweets therein, and place the offering on a growing pile. We then skedaddled in a hurry before the combination of open coconuts, sweets, and bees led to obvious mishap.
Our next day trip was to the ancient Buddhist site of Sanchi. A UNESCO heritage site, it was structurally more striking than Bhojeshwar, but it lacked the interactive offering aspect. It didn't help that we only arrived about 10 mins before its closing and so had to loop around the main structure in something of a hurry.
In fact, truth be told the best part of Sanchi was the drive. A popular pilgrimage destination for Japanese tourists, the roads to Sanchi were the best maintained I'd come across in India. The sheer relief on our butts (and Sundeep's car's suspension) made the whole hour-plus drive each way a pleasure.
Our final and most fun excursion outside of town were to the Bhimbetka cave paintings, also a UNESCO Heritage site. The site was more of a leisurely stroll than its name suggested, based on a gentle hill full of massive boulders with outcroppings and more like gentle nooks than caves. The location itself, with monkeys up above hopping between trees and boulders, was much more interesting than the admittedly impressive 5,000 year old Paleolithic cave paintings.
Sundeep recounted how in his college days, before the site got the UNESCO nod, he and his friends used to come around to chill out. He pointed to an area below some 2,500 year old paintings of a hunt, where he'd sit and chug beers. The corner where they'd throw their cans were now behind a railing.
Closer to home, Sundeep showed me the neighborhood in the Old City where he grew up. I spent an afternoon on my own roaming around Bhopal's animal refuge, from which you get a great view from the southeast of sunset across the biggest lake (Bhopal being known as the City of Lakes), riavalled only by the view from the northeast bridge.
Mona and Abhi joined Sundeep and me on most of these day trips, and it was
really cool to join their outings like an extension of the family. I'm hoping one day I'll be able to show them around California (preferably at a time that I'm living there).
Sundeep took photo duties: "Glimpse of Bhopal"
-Dave
