Travel Wonder

I had too much on my mind today, work, generally life and as a very rare case indeed, I could not think of a topic to write about. That's when I began to go through saved messages on my mobile (ideas hit me at the most inappropriate times and I save them for later use on my mobile) and I read this one message saved when I was touring recently.

Unfortunately, I do not remember where this was. One night, we were driving from Bijapur, through Gulbarga to Hyderabad. My eyes were drooping, we had listened to the same music over and over again and it was dark outside to look at the unchanging scenery. We came upon a little village, the kind tat you find everywhere in India along the highways. I have always felt that these villages developed to break the monotony of driving down highways, to give some colour to the dull grey of the never-ending roads.

Anyway, this village comes upon us. Okay, just another one, I think. I lazily look outside to see a HUGE statue of Lord Shiva staring out into the horizon, as if He were too nonchalant to look at the people and the cars going past his feet. In India, very rarely is Shiva worshipped in a human form. He is normally depicted as a linga. Before we could finish gasping in wonder, we were past that village and a turn of the road hid Him from our eyes.

I wonder why such a huge statue came up in the middle of nowhere because if I remember right, there were no major towns near this place. Maybe a politician lived there before he took off to the corridors of power and he got it built hoping to atone for his years of "service" (to himself).

The next wonder was somewhere along the roads of Andhra Pradesh. Again, it was a monotonous road. Suddenly, in the distance we saw a very huge statue of Kumbakarana, the brother of Ravana, who spent half the year sleeping. It was very long with little statues of his servants blowing horns, pulling his ear, screaming down his other ear, prying his eyes open to try to wake him up just like in the story from Ramayana. Now I could not think of a possible reason as to why that was built there.

This is one of the reasons why I love travelling so much. More than the place I am going to, I am amazed at what I see on the way. I miss travelling already. Cant wait to take off again! Something to do with stagnant waters to me... I just have to move, travel and live life!