The earliest trip I would have made to a temple would have been probably to the Murugan Temple, also known as the Hill temple. Lord Muruga in known as Lord Karthikeya in North India. And my second name is because of this connection. Palani being our native would be one of the important destinations during summer vacations. Still remember all the trips uphill with my brother...and trying to locate the tiny village where our grandma used to stay... Memories!
Over the years especially during my later years in school and College I did get the opportunity to visit the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, the Ichanari Ganesh Temple in Coimbatore, and the famous Balaji Temple in Tirupati besides lots of other temples in the countryside. During my first stint in Mumbai I did make it a point to visit the Siddhivinayak Temple.
Once I started working, work and career took over and visits to temples got limited to festivals and family functions that too when I would come down to be with appa and amma. My work took me from Bangalore to Mumbai, couple of times before I moved to Chennai. Being part of the complex, competitive and dynamic world of telecom. While initially it looked like a very small geography to handle, my trips to various regions as part of my exploratory market visits made me realise that the same was not true.
During these trips is when I realized that I have the opportunities to visit some of the historical temples. ANd this is where my temple visits started all over again. First the Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram, Kumbakonam, the Tanjore Bragatheeswarar Temple, and the Trichy Srirangam Temple. Each temple though had basically the same concept had its own style of construction, presented its own architecture and hence had its own charm. If you had really enjoyed the colourful splendour of the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple it may be very difficult to start exploring a temple without colours... but what more than compensated for that is the architecture and patterns, the sanctum sanctorum etc. Besides giving a pious feeling these trips also brought back fond memories of visiting temples.
In the coming days I would be covering lot more temple towns in Vellore (Golden Temple), Pondicherry, Salem and many more…
Over the years especially during my later years in school and College I did get the opportunity to visit the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, the Ichanari Ganesh Temple in Coimbatore, and the famous Balaji Temple in Tirupati besides lots of other temples in the countryside. During my first stint in Mumbai I did make it a point to visit the Siddhivinayak Temple.
Once I started working, work and career took over and visits to temples got limited to festivals and family functions that too when I would come down to be with appa and amma. My work took me from Bangalore to Mumbai, couple of times before I moved to Chennai. Being part of the complex, competitive and dynamic world of telecom. While initially it looked like a very small geography to handle, my trips to various regions as part of my exploratory market visits made me realise that the same was not true.
During these trips is when I realized that I have the opportunities to visit some of the historical temples. ANd this is where my temple visits started all over again. First the Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram, Kumbakonam, the Tanjore Bragatheeswarar Temple, and the Trichy Srirangam Temple. Each temple though had basically the same concept had its own style of construction, presented its own architecture and hence had its own charm. If you had really enjoyed the colourful splendour of the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple it may be very difficult to start exploring a temple without colours... but what more than compensated for that is the architecture and patterns, the sanctum sanctorum etc. Besides giving a pious feeling these trips also brought back fond memories of visiting temples.
In the coming days I would be covering lot more temple towns in Vellore (Golden Temple), Pondicherry, Salem and many more…
4 comments:
Everybody has different reason to visit temple..some people go to worship god and some ppl like you are going for the sake of it's architecture.. :)
Lucky you !
@ CRM User Am amazed that sitting in some remote corner of the world you know that I didnt go to the temple for worshipping and only for its architecture. Moreover if you know the photography guidelines in temples (atleast in Tamil Nadu) well then you would realise that photography inside temple is not allowed.
Thanks Kavi!
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