Elephanta – a peep in the shrine

There are only few places on earth where you can truly meet the holy god in his entirety and versatility. And nothing could be better than Elephanta islands which really pinch you by the labor and pain that would have been done to construct an art marvel like this. The great caves of Elephanta depict the fact that a human mind set on fire can even do the impossible.

 

Can you imagine those twenty seven hundred years before, a bunch of villagers excavated and carved a hill island of 16 kilometer square area? Can you imagine that how they used to work day and night, at a place more than ten kilometers from the mainland? Can you imagine how those nomads even thought of the beam and column system to support the great load of mountain above the caves of Elephanta? On my recent visit to the industrial and glamour capital of India, I couldn’t stop myself to visit these somewhat pale and silent figures of sheer beauty and hard work.

 

We reached Gateway of India at about twelve, when we got to know that the boats for Elephanta would commence from one in the afternoon. For the time we visited the magnificent hotel constructed opposite to Gateway of India – The Taj Residency. This magnificent figure can even leave most Britons gob-smacked as being a gothic church. However, this whim for eyes would atleast cost you two fifty bucks as even coffee at this gubernatorial hotel costs his much!

 

At about one, we set the sailing to the caves and on the way I saw ships of all types! Be it the warships of navy or coast guard, to the commercial vessels to the fishing and tourist boats, this busiest region of Arab Sea have them all. With the help of exceptionally calm ocean, in about an hour we reached the island. The boats were anchored at a platform specially made for tourists’ boats to park. This is a 100 meter long concrete structure that has reclaimed the land from sea and has made a man-made marshy land on the shallower side of the sea! This artificial marshy land has the rarest of flora and fauna and was a starter for my appetite for beautiful scenes. We reached the steps that lead to the cave through a toy train (like the one in north-east!). Till now it was pure fun, but from now on began the terrible part that made me realize what a life would have been lived by the builders of this great temple. There are more than 250 steps that lead to the temple premises. But the sun and scarcity of drinking water are the factors that troubled me much more than anything else. Everything here is sold at double rates and water is as precious as crude oil! But then just think, how the wanderers used to lie without portable waters in the mid of the ocean.

 

Thinking that we reached the temple where there is an office of Archeological Survey of India (ASI). Those people have made a museum there which displays every detail of not only elephanta but also about its sister concerns like Ajanta and Ellora. Going further we confront the grand entrance which truly reflects the name given to this mighty rock-cut architecture marvel.

The caves of Elephanta, located about 10 kilometers from the famous Gateway of India, are given the status of world heritage site by UNESCO. Elephanta, officially known as Gharapuri Island or place of caves, is a hill island and have no straight pastures. At the entrance is an entablature which is supported by 4-5 pillars of about 2 feet diameter. This whole column- entablature system is wholly carved in the rocks and is made to step up by about 3-4 feet. These caves house rock cut temples dating back to the 5th century BC. The Elephanta Island was so christened by the Portuguese due to the excessive use of figures of Elephant in the premises. These rock cut temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is rich in sculptural content. The entire complex was created through a process of rock removal. Some of the rock surfaces are highly finished while some are untreated bare rock. There are three distinct entrances to this temple, of which the ones on the east and the west mark the axis of the temple. A 20 pillared hall is mirrored against this axis, and on its western end is the cella (entrance portico). The pillars consist of fluted columns standing on square bases, and are crowned with fluted cushion capitals.

The Sadasiva avatar of Shiva is carved in relief at one wall of the cella.  Going further through the interior gate of the temple, we arrive at the open yet covered mandala. This depicts the Nat-Mandir of the Dravidian Architecture and has bare rocks as its enclosure. This courtyard leads to the secondary shrine, which I think was constructed much later than the former one.

This shrine is not that big in scale as is the older shrine, nor is it very beautifully carved. The secondary shrine basically houses a small mandir of Shiv (Lingalingam) and the pradakshina path, all around it.  The temple as a whole gives a glimpse to the whole life and events of Lord Shiva and is a treat to not only the religious folks, but also to the nature lovers and adventure prone hunks!

Being Refugee

I am not an orphan; not even a terrorist in a land of foe; neither am I a person from the caste of ‘untouchables’. I am residing in the Republic of India since last thirty years. I have my driving license from New Delhi. I have my voter id of Chennai. I also have a Ration Card bearing the photo of my wife and three children, and also the address of my last to last abject tent-house. I have a saving bank in State bank of India, just because it is accessible from everywhere; a quality that is necessary, just in case of emergency. But I am not Indian.

Yes, I am, anything but not an Indian. I speak Tamil, bifurcated Hindi and Bengoli accented English. But still, I’m not even an Indian. I came from many countries, mostly from the ‘friendly’ neighbors like Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet and Sri Lanka. My parents died in the villages of India and my children were born in the cities of this nation. Yet, neither my parents were Indian; nor are my children.

I have forgotten my gods and goddesses. Even I don’t celebrate the death or arrival of the angels. My children have never seen their uncles. They were three, all younger than my father. My youngest daughter, the only girl of the scorn of two boys and one girl, often ask me for bicycle; and I often reminisces her the days of my childhood, when I used to fly with my bike in the marshy lands of western plateau. However, she never listens to it. She just keeps gazing at the tall building, on the other side of the road on which we live. It’s a wide road. And the bus-shelter, our home, is quite cozy and warm. Especially in winters, my son looks on the sky through the hole in the fiber sheet of the stand. He does multiplication and subtraction of stars, I guess. However, I have never concluded what he does because I have never been to any school, nor do my children.

My wife is an expert in family business. She gets up early in the morning and rush to the nearby colony to find our breakfast. The last night’s dinner of the colony people serves as our breakfast, sometimes even lunch. Then she wears the most rustic saree of all his half rotten sarees and goes out on the site. The site of our work is near the famous theatre of this city. People come there to with movie with fewer cloths. However, they do give my wife some pennies inspite of their own poverty of cloths.

Sometimes my second son asks me to go back to ‘our land’; the place of our great grand-father. I wonder how it would be. Will the mango tree of backyard was still giving sweet mangoes or it has turned unfertile due to my sudden departure in the times of war. I didn’t want to leave nikky, my cat, but when a bomb came and blasted in front of my mother, nikky ran away and never came back. I last saw her with tiger, the most handsome dog of our slum their.

Amidst these thoughts a policeman comes with gun in his hand and puts it on my hand. He thinks I have stolen the marble elephant of Yusuf uncle who lives in the building that is on the other side of the road. Nonetheless he suspects that I also supply RDX to the insurgents of the ‘enemy’ country. And because I am not of this country; I am not an Indian. I’M A REFUGEE.