Finding the adobe of Sun:
As i imagined one of my travels would be it is. I am writing this in a train as it hoots and trumpets announcing its arrival to the next destination. How was the sun temple? It was utterly unexpected, beautiful and the artistry blew my mind. More than anything it made me blush and giggle and laugh out loud at the joke it played on people.
All around the protected monument, people posed and smiled to look at their best. The monument was on the other hand mocking them back. A chariot made of stone with twenty-four wheels.It is the chariot of the sun coming out of the sea in the morning. It used to be adjacent to a sea shore, but the shore has receded in years leaving the chariot of sun on the land. The chariot of the Sun is as regal, majestic and overpowering in stone as the very sun that shines on it.
On closer inspection each figurine carved in stone displayes a range of emotions, joyful, flirtatious, sensual to erotic. The poses of the figurines is nothing that one would ever expect in a strict society like the one where it is now set. It expression of love between two or more people in stone, in the golden era where the population of this place was under decline. Just not the worship that one would expect from a typical devotee I must say. So, I left with a smile on my face.
The Sun temple on a shore is what I wanted to see, but the sea has receded, so I decided to chase the sea. I found its shores some 1 km away from the temple, the Chandrabhaga beach. The shore was breathtakingly beautiful. The waves lazily kissed the shores. If you left a footprint it refused to mark the beach. What can not be captured though is the calm of the beach. Hardly a soul around, and even the waters slide silently in and out of the beach. Orissa is calm.
I went hunting for the largest brackish water lagoon in India - the Chilika lake. It is an uninterrupted expanse of water that hosts many birds. 1100 sq. kms of just water unbroken by any land. I have never seen anything like it. And I was curious to know the story of the lake. It is the story of the young bride who was a devotee of Godess Kali. While crossing the lake on a rainy night tragedy struck the young bride who was trying to reach home across the lake. She drowned in the storm calling out to Godess Kali in her last moments. The bride's mother cried to Godess Kali, about the injustice done to her daughter and questioned her about the protection she would provide. Godess Kali appeared in front of the mother and assured her that justice will be done and her daughter will always be taken care of by her. So, Godess Kali got the bride to also reside in her temple at lake Chilika. So, I set out in ahead of the oncoming storm in the lake to see the temple.
On the empty lake, only our boat was there. One could hear the rumble of the oncoming storm in the distance, but no sound apart from that was audible. Again the calm. The boat, the oar and my thoughts. I knew then that peace and calm are just what Orissa is all about. The real place, unperturbed by human menace. Pristine beauty protected by the Gods and Godesses all around.
