Travel Diary#70: Little Colourful Things Across Borders

This is the one temple I always wanted to go inside in Shakar Nagar in Bangalore. I don’t think this is something very special or a famous one. But, the huge statue of Lord Shiva always attracted me towards the temple but I could not find an appropriate time to enter the temple.

Traveling through different states in India, I have always got amazed by the similarity as well as the minute changes in the culture across the borders.

In Kerala, temples have a very different style of architecture than most other parts in India. It is more like a serene place to be surrounded by huge trees and a lot of lamps in the evening. Just the surroundings of temples near my hometown in Kerala are a place to be if you are looking for peace.

However, the temples I found in Karnataka, be it Mysore or this temple in Bangalore had a different architecture, very colourful and busy most of the time.

The road outside this temple is more or less empty in the morning except for a few street vendors selling flowers. These flowers are bought as offerings or to put on hair. It is not the ordinary flower shop where you get cut flowers or ornamental flowers. Native flowers are sold here including Jasmine, roses and many others daily.

By the evening, the scene changes and the street turns into a market where you can get vegetables, fruits, and flowers. The last time I was there, the day I was leaving Bangalore was one of the days where Ganesh Chathurthi is celebrated. The whole temple was decorated with lights and a busy flower market outside the temple.

I saw these colourful Kolam or the patterns outside the houses were another interesting piece of difference. These patterns are generally called Rangoli in northern parts of India and Kolam in different southern states.

As soon as I reached Kerala it was already Onam festival days. Onam is celebrated in the month of “Chingam” according to the Malayalam calendar that marks the first month in Malayalam calendar. During the first ten days of this month, we make these floral patterns known as “Pookalam”. Since this year the first day of this month, I was in Karnataka, seeing those rangoli patterns made me realize how things are very different and yet a little similar. Or maybe I was just trying to find a connection.

In Thrissur, it has recently been a trend to make this huge flower carpet in front of the famous Vadakkumnatha temple on the “Atham” day. I reached Kerala already past this day and it was raining continuously for days. There was a yellow alert in many districts till Friday(I’m writing this on Saturday) too. So, the other day when I went to see the mega pookalam made there, it was already washed away with the rain. Now it looks more like a broken map of some unknown countries!

The temples I found in different parts of Karnataka are just so colorful and built with perfect sculpture details. Most houses here drew the patterns every morning and some had permanent markings or these patterns made outside their houses.

Back in Kerala, I love the simplicity of the temples here. The old mud tiles and the triangle roof with the pitch-black lamps with many cotton wicks to light them. More than the pookalam made with the flowers that are bought from the markets, I still love those simple ones arranged with the native flowers found around me. Now that the main days of Onam are already almost here, it’s an eager wait for the food and family get-togethers!

[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 13.063550 lat 77.584990 long temple d3scr)

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