Travelling back in our loaded Maruti Omni from Kurnool with Dad, Praveen and Anish, we decided to visit Ghati Subramanya while having tea at a dhaba at a fork on NH7 just after Penukonda. The national highway led to Bangalore, while the branch, a state highway went towards Hindupur, Gauribidnur, Doddaballapur and joined NH7 at Yelehanka. Somewhere between Gauribidnur and Doddaballapur, we left turned into a smaller road leading to Ghati Subramanya. After about 2km, we saw a group of boys lugging survey equipment, as we neared them they waved at us for a lift. I was not willing to stop but on Dad’s command we asked the civil engineering students to squeeze in along with their equipment. The loaded Omni was overloaded now… nine adults and lot of material. …the rear doors had to be left open.
As we crawled up the hilly section of the road in first and second gears, Dad went back to his engineering days at UVCE … told us how he and his classmates spent 5 days surveying the hills. Those days, 1960s, survey was a part of the 5 year course. He’s had one hell of a time! We dropped off the boys at the outskirts of the town close to a dormitory where they were put up and we went straight to the temple. I think we had to wait to for 30 minutes for the temple doors to open.
Inside the temple, close the sanctum sanatorium, we stood with other visitors. Dad and Praveen were in the front. Anish and I stood at the back behind a couple, the wife holding her 2-3 month baby looking at Anish with it’s cute little eyes. I was trying to be serious while Anish found the baby amusing. He started making faces at the baby and asking me look at it making faces in return. Serious! The baby would stick its pink little tongue out when Anish stuck his tongue out. I was little worried, what if the husband saw and mistook that we were trying something… The sound of bells during the Mangala-arathi finally distracted Anish from the baby.
The temple is not a very big structure but the mythological story behind it was quite interesting. The story revolved around the Garuda and snake; the reason for their enmity and all. Any time in the future, if I ever recall the story, I’ll post it. People would visit this temple to offer a silver snake idol to the temple, perform pooja and seek blessings to wash away the sin acquired by harming or killing snakes. Once out of the temple, we headed straight to a mobile cart shop, had bajji & tea and then started towards Bangalore.
During this trip, we had one helluva time. Our journey; Bangalore-Chilamkur-Kurnool-Ghatisubramanya-Bangalore. This was my first venture into the interiors of Andhra Pradesh and I was amazed at the state government’s effort into rain water harvesting… lakes after lakes. While travelling between Chilamkur and Kurnool, we took a small detour to visit a small dam and reservoir; sorry again, I cannot recall the river’s name. We saw hundreds of dead fish floating…
Andhra is beautiful, similar to Karnataka in more than one way.
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