Cursed Town - Talakad

Talakad is a scenic and spiritual center located in Mysore district, near T. Narasipura in Karnataka state. It was a capital of the Ganga Dynasty (350-999 AD). It was the capital of several dynasties that ruled over Karnataka.

During 1600 when Talakadu and Srirangapatna were under the Vijayanagar Empire. The death of the last ruler, Srirangaraya in 1610, provoked the Wodeyars of Mysore to declare war. As Srirangapatna fell, the Wodeyar ruler sent his soldiers to get the jewels of Srirangaraya’s widow, Alamelamma.

Alamelamma fled from the Mysore soldiers, when she saw she couldn’t escape, she is said to have jumped into the Cauvery, uttering the curse: "Let Talakad become sand. Let Malingi become a whirlpool. Let the Mysore king fail to beget heirs.”

River Cauvery is said to have taken a sharp turn eastwards towards Talakad, from its Southernly course. This buried the entire Talakad (about 850 acres) in sand. Since then Talakadu has been under a sea of sand and the family tree of Mysore rulers show a large number of adopted heirs, and the current Mysore heir Narashimaraja Wodeyar is childless too.

There are as many as 30 temples buried under the sand, very few are visible above sand. The Vaidyeshsara temple along with four others - Arkeshwara, Vasukishwara or Pataleshwara, Saikateshwara or Maraleshwara and Mallikarjuna are visible and constitute the Panchalingams here. These five ShivaLingams are said to represent the five faces of Shiva.

The Pataleshwara Shivalingam is said to change colors during the day (red in the morning, black in the afternoon and white in the evening). These temples are opened once in 12 years. It will be open this November – December 2006. I hope to go there and have a darshan.

Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talakad

Mother Earth

What does the picture below look like? They look like Lips of a lady to me.

These lips belong to our mother earth. It is located in the Sudanese region of West Darfur. At 40 meters high and 1 km wide the lips actually appears to be pouting.

I hope to see the eyes of our mother earth. They must be filled with love and tenderness.

Links:

http://googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=1154&c=&f=q&hl=en&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=15&ll=12.370982,23.321614&spn=0.029846,0.040255&t=k

Temple of rats!!

Heard of temple of rats? There is one such temple of Rats in Deshnok, Bikaner Rajasthan. The goddess of this temple is Karni Maa.

There are innumerous rats in the temple. These rats never go out of the temple. The intriguing facts are - no incidents of any diseases have been reported, no devotee has been attacked or bitten by the rats, and the temple doesn’t stink.

No baby rats are seen in the temple, all the rats seen are of the same size. No one has any clue of where these rats are breed :-).

Amazing fact is that. All the offerings like milk, sweets, groundnuts and waters are first fed (offered) to rats, and remaining food is distributed to the devotees as “Prasad”.

No devotee has fallen sick. In 90’s when plague hit Gujarat, people went to this temple to have water and milk drunk by these rats as medicines!!!

There are much folklore around the origin of Karni Ma and the temple. The most convincing is that, Shri Karni Mata is the incarnation of Goddess Durga. Karni Mata once tried to restore her dead stepson to life but failed, as Yama, the god of death had already accepted his soul and re-incarnated him in human form.

Karni Mata, famed for her legendary temper, was so inflamed by her failure that she announced that no one from her tribe would fall into Yama’s hands again. Instead, when they died all of them would temporarily inhabit the body of a rat before being reborn into the tribe.

Links:
http://www.karnimata.com

The Guy Next Cube

“Are you free? “my lead quipped.
“huh!! Yes Please tell me.”
“This is Nikil, joining our team today. He will work on the Java modules”
“Voila!! What a handome guy.” I thought.
“Oh Great! Welcome to the team Nikil.” I managed to utter. I hope he didn’t realize that I was drooling at him.

Nikil was assigned a cube right next to me. He would give me a big smile whenever he saw me. My heart beat would shoot the moment my eyes would spot him. Would his heart beat increase too?

I would never miss a chance of talking to him, explaining to him about our project or the company politics. Everyday we would spend time together during breaks and lunches. We would chatter away for hours. We just loved each other’s company.

It was June 22nd 2006 my birthday; I saw flowers on my desk. I wondered for a moment as to who would have sent it. Then saw a naughty twinkle in Nikil’s eyes. I blushed. From that day, every morning I would see a flower on my desk. But, never had he put a red rose on my desk. Should I propose him or should I wait till he puts a red rose on my desk, I kept wondering through my sleepless nights.

It was August 9th 2006. He stepped by my cube with a photo in one hand and something hidden in his other hand, I thought the moment has come, and he will propose me. My heart started racing at a mad speed. He put his family photo in front of me, “This is me, my mother, dad and my sister.” Gosh!! His sister was almost a replica of me. “My sister died in a road accident 3 years ago. I loved her a lot and I miss her a lot. Whenever I saw you, I felt my little sister was back. Today is Rakhi… will you please tie it for me?”

P.S:
This is a digress from my strange world. But, when I got this concept, I could help but put it down on my blog. Will return to my strange world in the next article!!

It is my Buffalo!!

There were two farmers living in the neighboring villages of Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Both these farmers had their own flocks of buffaloes. They let their buffaloes graze in the same lands. A new buffalo was born.

Both the farmers claimed that the new buffalo was sired by one of the buffaloes in their flock. This broke into a quarrel. The quarrel wouldn’t end till the police intervened. Now, how could the police tell as to whose flock sired the new buffalo??
How is this feud resolved? Any guesses?? DNA test!!!

The farmers are going for the paternity test of the buffalo. DNA test would cost them 10,000 Rupees, while the buffalo itself would cost them 4,000 Rupees. After the test, the farmer having made a false claim of ownership would have to bear the cost of DNA.

It is really a strange world!!

Links:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061106/od_nm/india_buffalo_dc

Human Race with Horns??

How giants are usually depicted in our tales? Huge human like creature, with 1/2/3 horns, red eyes, hairy body isn’t it? My previous blog talked about gigantic human fossil. What would we have to say if human skulls with horns were discovered?

In the 1880s, in a burial mound at Sayre, Bradford County, Pa., human skulls with horns were discovered. Horns started at the eye brows and extended two inches above. The skeletons were seven feet tall. Other than the horns, they were found to be anatomically normal. It was estimated they were buried around AD 1200.

This discovery was made by a reputable group of antiquarians,the Pennsylvania state historian and dignitary of the Presbyterian Church (Dr. G.P. Donehoo) and two professors, A.B. Skinner, of the American Investigating Museum, and W.K.Morehead, of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. The bones were sent to the American Investigating Museum in Philadelphia; they were stolen and never seen again.

Did Giants Exist?

Haven’t we all heard of stories about giants from our grand parents? Did they really exist or was it fertile imagination?

Well, there have been certain evidences which prove Giants did exist. Ooooooooooo!!!

The image on left is of a monstrous fossil, which was dug up by Dr.Dyer while searching for Iron-Ore in County Antrim. Any guesses on the height and weight of the fossil?? It measured 12 ft2in and weighed around 2 tons!! The arms are of 4ft.6in and the girth of the chest is 6ft.6in.

This giant was exhibited in Dublin, Liverpool and Manchester.

Currently, this giant is supposed to be lying at the London and North-Western Railway Company's Broad street goods depot. No research has been done on this.

Intriguing isn’t it? Or was any research done, but results buried in dust?

If I unleash my imagination, I think giant men and Dinos existed together not very long ago. Hence, we have carvings (more to follow on this) and figurines of men riding Dinos and hunting them. What say?