May 2007: A week­end drive from Ban­ga­lore to Ter­a­halli (near Kolar) to Kaivara (near Chin­ta­mani) to Lep­ak­shi (Andhra Pradesh) and back.

This was an inter­est­ing Sun­day week­end drive as we cov­ered quite a bit of ground (over 300 kms) on the same day. We decided to keep an open plan and set off towards Kolar. We had break­fast at Kamats near Hoskote. Just before we reached Kolar, a lady informed us of a jathre (vil­lage fes­ti­val) tak­ing place in the vil­lage of Terahalli.

A quick deci­sion was made by the other two occu­pants of the car (Venky and Deep­san) while I was still half asleep, and we drove up the hill towards the vil­lage. The hill was rem­i­nis­cent of Hampi, with huge rocks dot­ting the land­scape and once we climbed upwards, we could see the plains of Kolar spread out in front of us.

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The vil­lage itself was just wak­ing up to activ­ity. We mean­dered towards the tem­ple area where peo­ple were putting up stream­ers in prepa­ra­tion for the fes­ti­val to take place later in the day. A tem­ple with a few com­plexes inside beck­oned us and we walked in. There, one of the priests befriended us and gave us a mini dar­shan of the temple’s premises.

Out­side, peo­ple were set­ting up shop for the day and spread­ing out their wares. Colour­ful ban­gles, big coconuts, knick knacks — there seemed to be some­thing for everybody!

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Since the fes­ti­val was only in the evening, we decided to move on to the next place : a some­what big cave called Kaivara at Chin­ta­mani, a lit­tle dis­tance away from Kolar. Cut out from a rock face on a moun­tain­side, the cave is huge and quite dark inside.

At the entrance, vis­i­tors throng the 2–3 small shrines. I am not sure about the reli­gious sig­nif­i­cance of this whole place, but in India it doesn’t take much to give things a reli­gious twist. Inside the huge hall area, it’s almost totally dark, with light stream­ing in from the door­way and a few other win­dows cut out of the rock. Kids play around and par­ents are busy offer­ing prayers. We wan­der around for a while, it’s a nice respite from the strong after­noon sun. We find a shaded place out­side and eat our packed lunch, try­ing to keep away a few curi­ous monkeys.

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We’re back on the road again. The coun­try­side is truly beau­ti­ful in this sea­son. Though there’s no rain and it’s quite dry, the red gul­mo­hars are in full bloom, resplen­dent like new brides, giv­ing the whole land­scape a bright and colour­ful aura.

We decide to cross the bor­der and drive up towards Lep­ak­shi in Andhra Pradesh and in less than an hour (when I catch another quick snooze in the back of the car!), we’re already there. The sun is really strong now and we spend some time on the grassy lawn out­side the tem­ple, relax­ing in the shade of the trees. The watch­man wants some money and we slip him a ten­ner and stretch out.

Lep­akhi is well known for its ceil­ing paint­ings. It’s built dur­ing the Vijayana­gar empire and style (sim­i­lar to the Vit­thala tem­ple in Hampi) and there are beau­ti­ful sculp­tures on the tem­ple pil­lars and walls.

We walk around the long cor­ri­dors and then ven­ture out onto the hot burn­ing stones of the cen­tre court­yard. Despite the heat, there are quite a few vis­i­tors, includ­ing a big group with a guide. We do a round of the tem­ple and then peek into the inner sanc­tum where prayers are going on.

There is a mono­lithic Nagalinga : sup­pos­edly the largest of its kind in India — in the inte­rior court of the tem­ple. A short dis­tance away is a mag­nif­i­cent gran­ite bull and it’s sup­pos­edly the largest sculpted Nandi bull in south India and we make a quick halt there also.

The main­te­nance unfor­tu­nately leaves much to be desired and I do hope the con­cerned author­i­ties wake up to the wealth of the tem­ple and take some pos­i­tive steps to restore the struc­ture, the paint­ings and the fres­cos. It’s a rather beau­ti­ful place and it will be sad to see it go to the ruins.

- Ter­a­halli Album
– Lep­ak­shi Album