Lucknow - Feb 20,2009

See Pradeep, our host and Rajeev's house in the above photos.


Our dear friend Rajeev in Cleveland introduced us to his family friends Pradeep Gade, his wife Lata and their two young sons in this trip via phone.
I was in touch with them over the phone starting from Tirupathi. Pradeep said he would have a Taxi and a reliable driver ready for us at the railway station and we could book a hotel accommodation after arrival. We arrived at 8:40 a.m. To our surprise, he himself came to the station to receive us. Helped us in carrying our luggage. We were overwhelmed with his kindness. Rajeev already told us that with Pradeep and family, we would be very comfortable as if we were with Rajeev and family. He was 100 percent correct.
His home was 11 km from the train station and after checking us into a hotel, he had to go to his office. He stopped at a hotel and found out that there was no vacancy. He walked over to another and came back saying it was not fit for us. Immediately, he called his wife and told her that he was bringing us home. We really felt sorry for her. Lata and I spoke in Tamil. She welcomed us with open arms. She also had to rush to work. She prepared Upma and set the table ready. The house key was left with the family that lived on the ground floor. They both left home for their respective work. We got ready, the Taxi with driver Rohit Singh. a young and charming fellow was waiting for us on the street in front of the house. Our tour to Naimisharanyam began.

Indore to Omkareswar

Please click on the highlighted ones to see the photos( not taken by me).
Omkareshwar is a place where the actual jyotirlingam is located. The other real Temples are of Mamleshwara, and of Omkareswara. Both are very famous. In addition there are other ashrams like Anadamai ashram which attract many Western tourists. On the banks of the river, I met several French and Germans who were bathing and some were meditating on the banks.

Omkareshwar Road is about 77 km (48 mi) from Indore on the Indore–Khandwa highway. It is about 12 km (7 mi) from the Omkareshwar road station. There are steamboats across the Narmada river and also two connecting bridges.

As we reached the outskirts of the town, we were greeted by the pandas (those self appointed guides) and started quoting prices for their services. Our taxi moved on. As we arrived at the small Choultry, Kshatriya choultry it was 5 p.m. For 175 rupees, we got a room with 3 beds, lot of dust, no hot water. We needed rest and hence went to bed early.
Woke up early in the morning, had cold shower, washed some clothes and hung them in the room on the portable ropes that we carried in our bags. As soon as we stepped out, the aggressive pandas were waiting for us. They promised personal and special pooja, rudram etc. included. They wanted 700 rupees for their services and in spite of my resistance, when they said that we can decide on the amount after the services, Rao assumed that he could pay 300 rupees and agreed to follow them. He had a dip in the river Narmada and we all met at the Temple.
Now it got interesting. One priest became three priests. They agreed to all of Rao's conditions. One being that Rao should be allowed to recite Rudram with them. We could sit close to the Lingam etc. The agreed fee was between 250 rupees and 500 rupees. It was too good to be true. So, I added that I would be happy to pay the agreed upon fee only if I am fully satisfied with their services. Now we face the realty. We sat outside the actual shrine and the pooja items we were asked to purchase from their chosen store was not even opened, did not even lit the incense, they did not even recite the Rudram. They had the guts to ask me (very respectfully, of course) for a donation of 3000 rupees!!! Anyway we got frustrated with the whole issue and got rid of them by paying 735 (600 for the pooja+10 Rs each as dakshina for the 3 priests+105 for the pooja items)rupees. I hope Rao learned his lesson about the Pandas.
We went inside the Temple on our own and had great darsan. With the ill feeling that I carried about the guides, I don't recall much about the inside of the Temple. The outside is very picturesque, with a huge 'OM' written in Samskrit in the top of the hill.
The walk and the climb of the elevation made me a little bit breathless. Nirmala's knee joints bothered her.
We may have to visit this place again to really get some benefit out of the visit.
We arrived at Khandwa by 2 p.m and let the Taxi go and waitindgin the Railway waiting room till our train Pushpak arrived at 5:15 p.m. I felt bad that I hurried him and vetoed his request and Rao could not do the parikrama around the hill and visit the Anandamai ashram.
Now we are headed to Lucknow.

Mahakaleswar and other Temples in Indore

It is very scenic here. People from all over the world visited the ashrams here. Our interest was mainly in the Jyothir lingam of Mahabaleswar.

Please click here to see more on Mahabaleswar.
The other Temples here are of Gokul, Annapoorna, Chintamani Ganesh, Krishna Balaram and Sudama's Vidya peetham and Mahakali Guha (this Guha was closed - we did not see).

Annapoorna's Temple compound was huge with many small shrines of Shankara, Vinayaka, Hanuman, kalabhairava, Visweswara and so on. Same form with different names.

Dedicated to the goddess Annapoorna, this temple is one among the famous pilgrimage centers in Indore. Not only devotees, but also tourists come to see this majestic shrine. This temple resembles that of Meenakshi Temple of Madurai.

The Pravachan Hall of the temple is also very famous. Four full sized elephants embrace this temple’s gate. Sculptures around are of great artistic value. There are gigantic sculptures of Dasaavatarams.
There is a large kund associated with this Temple, but it was dry and filled with garbage.
After darsans, we proceeded to Omkareswar.

Vereval to Ujjain

We had train reservation from Vereval to Ujjain. But our expert Auto driver said that very recently, they have added Somnath station and that we could board the train in Somnath itself by showing our existing ticket and paying a small extra charge per ticket. he was right. We paid extra 30 ruppes and boarded the train. Rightaway, Nirmala and Rao dozed off and I started writing my diary.

Sofar, we have spent 30000 rupees for the 3 of us and had wonderful darsans, which happened due to Rao's research, friends' help and mainly some divine force was travelling with us all the way.

We had a meal at Jethalsar junction, we ordered 3 meals and shared it.
Arrived at Ujjain at 3 a.m. It is Feb 17th now. The driver Mukesh met us and no hotel reservation was made. This portion of the trip was organised by Nirmala's niece's husband Sudarsan who had been of great help to us in making domestic train reservations. We wanted to have a bath before having darsan of Mahakaleswar. The driver took us to a type of house where for us two ladies to have a bath, we paid 100 rupees. he wanted extra for providing hot water. I refused to pay since it was not originally agreed upon.
I will write about Mahakaleswar Temple in my next post.

At this point, I have to mention this:

I was looking at the receipt given by the CHANDNI travels in Dwarak (Tinbatti chowk) on one side of which it was written in Hindi and on the other in English. In one small block, they wrote

Dwarka to Amdabad:
Eve. 8:30 (Sliping Shits) Do you know what is in paranthesis? I decoded it to be Sleeping Seats.
Any other answers from any reader of this blog?

More on Dwaraka - in and around

Dwaraka is mentioned in the Mahabharata and in the puranas like Harivamsa, Bhagavatha, Skanda and the Vishnu puranam. The story goes that this Krishna's Dwaraka was situated near the current Dwaraka, but in time had submerged into the sea - probably a Tsunami?
I don't want to go into the details of the Purana stories, but just want to mention that for the safety of the people, Krishna and the yadavas moved the capital from Mathura to Dwaraka. The people were protected from the attacks of Jarasandha (father in law of Kamsa) who attacked them 17 times.


Dwarakanath Temple

The temple of Shri Krishna consists of a shrine that is supported by 60 pillars made of granite and sandstone. Devotees lined up very quietly and there was no pushing or shoving, no distractions. The darsan and Aarathi were beautiful.

Rukmini Temple:
The Rukmini Temple has beautiful carvings dating back to the 12th-13th century, especially on the pillars of the 'Sabha Mandapa'. The temple was built in honour of Rukmini, the princess of Vidarbha, who later married Krishna.
There is another temple to Rukmini, believed to be the site of Krishna's marriage with her. Archeological excavations have revealed five earlier cities here, all submerged now.

Nageshwar Mandir:
Nageshwar Mandir is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva and houses one of the 12 Jyotirlingas in an underground chamber.

Beyt/Bet Dwarka:
Beyt Dwarka, is an island at a distance of 30 Kms. Off the coast of Okha port. The island is separated by a strip of sea about 4 Kms wide. It takes about half-an hour to this island in a boat operated by the Port Authority. At Bet, there are temples of Vishnu (in the form of Matsya, the fish), of Devaki, Radha, Lakshmi, Satyabhama, Jambavati.


Porbandar:
South of Dwarka, on the western coast, Porbandar is a picturesque old sea port and Gandhi's birth place. We just drove by - did not even stop.

The Tamil Alwars have sung of Dwarka in a total of 13 verses, in which Nammalwar refers to Krishna as the Lord of Dwaraka.

More on the tours

Remember the mini van that we took for the tour? Since the space was limited, our 4 pieces of luggage were put on the roof of the van. I was very nervous about the luggage flying away. Checked with the conductor frequently. The bus stopped at a small Temple on the highway. The driver etc. must have stopped for a cup of tea. Nirmala and I checked out for rest rooms. One can release behind a wall (that was the maximum privacy that could be provided there), but due to the scarcity of water, we could not do the job. For men, in India, it is easy. The bus did not stop for lunch and hence made it to Somnath on time. Again, the stop was a little away from the station. Rao had to crossed the main road to fetch an Auto.
The Auto as well as the driver looked old. But the service was wonderful.We paid him only 150 rupees. he gave us lot of good advice and dropped us off at Krishna Hotel who charged only 450 rupees and it was excellent. Early in the morning by 5:30, we finished bath and went to have darsan at the Old Shiva Temple. Rao, with his navigational expertise, took us to the Temples. We had abhishekam done at the old Temple. here also, as usual we saw beautiful moon rise and sun set. By 7 a.m. we were at the new Somanath Temple.
Somanath Temple is awe inspiring. Not only it was huge, but also the cleanest Shiva Temple I have seen. It brought back the information we got from high school days about how this Temple was invaded by Muslims many times.We witnessed the 7 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. aarati. The auto driver being very punctual, we went on our mini tour and visited Krishna Niryanam place(where Krishna left the mortal body), Shankara Matham, Triveni(I forgot the names of the 3 rivers that met here) and the Laksminarayana Temple, which was huge, quiet and very peaceful.
I just have to mention that this part of Gujarat was very dirty. Flies everywhere including on the food being sold. No good toilet fecilities, foul smell everywhere. Being the sea coast and with fisheries industry, added smell was there.
But, with devotees of all ages around you, these little things were not annoyances at all. We had wonderful time.

The two bus tours in and around Dwaraka

The places we covered were Nageshwar, Gopi Talao, Bet Dwarka and Rukmanimata temple. The first bus was around 8 a.m. in the morning. We took an auto to the tour bus area and waited. The bus commences and terminates journey near vegetable market at Dwarka. The booking is done at offices near vegetable market as well as on Bhadrakali road. Around 8:30 a.m. a bus belonging to Chandni Travels arrived and we boarded and sat in our allocated seats. A few minutes later, we were told that it was a wrong bus and we were asked to get on a different one parked a little further. This one was like a Town or city bus with not much leg space between rows. Was very uncomfortable. It was nearing 9 a.m. and the tour duration being about 5 hours, we were concerned about catching our afternoon tour around 3 p.m. The bus has capacity of 55 seats. The guide spoke some dialect of Hindi. At the end he came near our seat and told us in a quiet voice about what we were visiting. He asked everyone for a tip. We gave, but others did not - for whatever reason. The bus companions were very polite and friendly with each other.
What did we see on this 60 rupees tour? Plenty.

Dwarkadhish, Devaki, Durvasamuni, Lakshminarayan, Madhavraiji and Trivikramji Temples. In addition, some of the following were covered.

Shankaracharya’s Math, Siddheshwar and Indreshwar temples Gomati ghaat, Sangam Narayan and Chakranarayan temples, Kashivishvanath temple,Rukmini's temple, Baldev’s temple, Vasudev’s and Siddheshvar Mahadev Temple.

One of the Jyothirlingams in Dwaraka that we saw was of Nageswara.
The trip to Rukmini Temple on the boat was a memorable one. Will write about it in my next post.