Pretty Little Temples @ Sirumugai

Couple of years back when I was heading to and from Kotagiri in the Nilgiris, I find couple of temples pretty neatly painted or newly built while on road across Sirumugai,  in the Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu. Since it was Chitirai - the beginning of Tamil month, many temples were at festival spirit across our path and it could be the reason these temples look refresh.

Both were shot at different day times, the one painted in sandal color was captured from the moving car and other was shot at halt when looking for direction, as we took detour missing the main road leading to Sathyamangalam.  I simply adore these temples for their pretty neat paint work on them and also   located on scenic even being roadside temples. 

Stone Paintings @ ECR Toll Gate

ECR, defining east coast road is a great blessing for Chennaities and a scenic gateway to the weekend getaway. It’s quite pleasure taking this coastal road all the way to Pondicherry and beyond, but the most amused ride quality was quite restrain till Pondicherry and under toll gate control, the road was maintained well and pretty neatly drawn lines and road studs enhances the ride quality and night driving was fun (once) expose to stunning reflectors. The emerging buildings and villas may change the scenery from time to time, but it seems to adapting everything and breathes fresh forever.

Rock painting on butterflies (click photos to enlarge)

The ECR toll gate is one stop; from where we get tickets to use the road has beautiful setting of garden alongside the booths and flowering plants and date palms adorn the toll gate beside picturesque painting stones. Erected vertically, these painting stones catch anyone's attentions while waiting to pass and during such times I used to try capturing images on them and here are few photos on the paintings shot at different moments.

 

The above one has paintings on animals and birds; and the below was on jungle and the detail was really impressed me when zoom enough on the painting. I find two lily ponds, snake emerging from its burrow and the lesser golden back peck along an own peek from the tree. What more interesting on this painting was, a saint smashing herbal medicine sitting under the tree?  

Yellow flowers bloomed at toll gate

Jallikattu and Judgment

The Supreme Court has revealed two significant verdicts today that influence a lot in Tamil Nadu. One was to allow raising the water level of Mullaperiyar dam to 142 feet which was refused by Kerala government so far. There had been difference between the two states over the safety of the dam, while Tamil Nadu contended the dam was safe and its water level had to be raised from 132 feet to 142 feet, Kerala maintained that the dam was weak and needed to be replaced. Kerala has repeatedly asserted its right to enact a law regulating the safety of dams in the state, insisting that the river rises and falls in Kerala which is why it is an intra-state issue. The SC had reserved its verdict, last year, on the legal battle between the two state governments over the dam and as per committee appointed by court has revealed that the dam was safe.

Another verdict the SC has delivered today was, prohibiting the practice of the traditional martial game of bull taming in Tamil Nadu, called Jallikattu. Following Madras High Court’s ban for the sport few years ago, the issue was taken to the Supreme Court where a batch of petition has comes to final disposal now, as the SC had already noted once that Jallikattu was nothing but a sport inflicting massive cruelty to animals, but allowed it under stringent condition on vehement request by the Tamil Nadu government. The animal welfare activists are up in arms against Jallkattu for past several years and wanted to ban the age-old sport has acquire great relief now and of course every animal lover and who hate inhumanity.  

I too support the verdict and anything against animal or nature need to be prohibited.  But my only thought and worry was, what will happen to those bulls, which are grown specifically for the sports if the game was prohibited. The bulls that are used in the Jallikattu are belonging to the Pulikulam breed of cattle, which are reared in huge herds numbering in hundreds with few cowherds tending to them.  In this world only things that are in use and useful survives and once the need for them has gone we slowly lose their ground. I guess the world famous Kangeyam bulls are in edge of endanger list and soon the work for the Jallikattu bulls is invisible, sure their name will be added to endanger list. What I think was, even they struggle at least they survive being so. If we stop all activates involved by cattle, they have no hope of survive, and they are practiced to work along with humans and if we can’t who can support them well. I wish the bulls strength is used in a remarkable way, without giving them trouble.

P.S. Above is a painting I done on Jallikattu (a scene of bull catching) haft a decade back and thought it would be apt to add with this post.

கோடை மழை / Summer rain

Pic by Jeevan (from archives)

வேர்க்க விறுவிறுத்த காலம்

கோடை மழையில் இன்று ஜிலு ஜிலுவேன.

உஷ்ணத்தின் உச்சகட்டம்

இன்று மேககூட்ட பக்கம்

பொலிவிழந்த பச்சையிலைகள்

புதிதாய் வண்ணம் தீட்டியது போல்

தாகத்தின் விளிம்பில்

வேகமாய் உறிந்து திர்த்தது பூமி

The season of vigorously perspire
become cool in the summer rain.

The pinnacle of warmth
got clouds side this day

The faded green leaves
as newly painting

At the edge of thirst
the earth sucked away quickly. 

Balsam bloomed @ home

First time I saw the balsam in Valparai, on the Western Ghats and it was bloomed in gorgeous red! Impressed in its beautiful and colorful flowers, my grandmother collected some seeds from there and sowed at our flower pots and in her backyard. The plant grows very fast and looked like small trees grown in pots, but they haven’t flowered and we also stopped watering the plant and later cleared the pots to plant other.

The balsam plant, which is native to the Himalayas has colorful blossoms and also sweet scented. Just look like an orchid growing in the wild, the balsam plant grows in hilly regions and does not require much watering. The plant grows in large numbers and sometimes the whole mountainous region where the plant is seen is covered with pink or red. The balsam plant has a unique way of propagation, which develops seed pods that burst and spreads the seeds far away.

The flap of a petal which looks like a helmet and this plant is also called the policeman’s helmet. The plant grows for two to three feet and flowers profusely, have leaves bright green in color growing in central arrangement and have wavy edges. The balsam blooms almost similar to rose flowers, look like roses from far and only the fact that they don’t have thorns.

The balsam grows and blooms during summers and beginning of rains, has shown blossom now at home and not from our pot, but the tenants who share our house in upstairs. They have kept their flower pots in front of our house, which we water daily since they haven’t occupied quite yet.