April 30th was the third phase of the on going Lok Sabha elections in India and the second and the final phase of the polling in Karnataka. I had to take a leave off from my office (polling was complete in Bangalore the previous Thursday (23rd) itself) and goto Mangalore to cast my vote.

This was the third or the fourth time I cast my vote, the last being a year and a half back for the by-elections. Due to the delimitation process my area moved from Ullal constituency to Dakshina Kannada. There were 11 contestants who were in the running out of which seven were independents.

I went around 9:30 am and was able to cast my vote in around 10 minutes. I hear that at a few places people had to wait for a long time (about a hour or so) before they would cast their votes. Overall the percentage of people who voted in Dakshina Kannada (DK) was the highest in Karnataka – 74%.

One of the reasons I could see for this was the May 1st holiday. Lots of Mangalorean people have now moved out of Mangalore and are working in other cities like Bangalore. Taking a leave on 30th for voting would have given them an extended four day weekend and it looks like most of them utilised it cleverly.

A couple of weeks still to go before the counting starts lets hope the best candidate wins and we have a stable government at the centre.

Date: 20th and 21st January
Places: Around Mangalore

On 21st of January there was a function of a office colleague in Mangalore, hence some of the other colleagues wanted to go and visit Mangalore. So off we went.

Since Mangalore is also my hometown I had to plan some trip for them. Shown below was what I had planned (the actual trip turned out to be quite different):

My colleagues reached Mangalore well and early at 7:40 am, and I was conveyed that they would be having breakfast at 9:00 am at my colleagues house (the one for whose function we had arrived here), hence I was optimistic of sticking to the planned schedule. But like always things don’t happen as would like it to happen. My colleagues were finally ready for breakfast at 10:30am, then had their breakfast and we were finally on our way at 11:30 am; a full one and a half hour behind schedule.

The first place on the list was “The Thousand Pillar Temple” in Moodabidri, which is about 38Kms from Mangalore and the journey took about one hour. A bit of details is as mentioned below (taken from some site, I donot know which):

A Holy Shrine of the Jains, the thousand pillar temple is dedicated to Shri Chandranath, a Jain Saint. Jains spread all over India travel to this place to offer worship at the several Basadi’s dedicated to different Theerthankaras The temple is intricately carved and has architecture that is peculiar to Nepal. This temple is around 569 years old and was built over a century. The history of the temple is carved on the walls and pillars of the temple. No two pillars in the temple are alike. It has got an elegantly carved wooden cieling and a wooden screen with intricate carvings. The Basadi is a treasure house of art and architecture. No where in Karnataka, a Basadi of so much grandeur and so much magnificence as this could be found.

As can be seem in this description, this is a very elegant place, it almost looked like a fort, covered by all four side by high rise walls. The carvings on the pillars were really something to look and appreciate. But alas, we spent only 10 mins here before heading to Annapoorneshwari Temple in Kodyadka which was just 8Kms from here.

Though one would not find much about this temple; it is a fairly new one and apart from the temple has some pets housed (like Elephant, Horses, Peacock, Deers etc) in it environ. Since it was on our was to the next destination, we went here to. We has a qick cup of tea and by the time we left this place it was almost 1:30pm.

We reached Gomateshwara Temple, near Karkala at around 1:55pm. This is famous for the single stone 42-foot (13 m) statue Gomateshwara (Lord Bahubali). The Bahubali statue here is the second tallest in the State. This monolithic statue of Lord Bahubali was installed at Karkala on February 13, 1432 on the instructions of the pontiff of Karkala, Lalitakeerti. We could not go too near to the statue since the stones forming the floor was too hot to walk without footwear. Since the place was on a hill, the surrounding scenery was quite good and made a wonderful setting from a photo session. Since there is nothing much to see I expected to leave in around 10 mins, but contrary to that we only left at 2:40pm.

Our next target destination was Udupi Krishna Temple which was about a hours journey. We reached there quickly passing Manipal on the way. We arrived at the right time at the Temple since the crowd was less which increased quickly as the time went by. The details of the temple is as under (again a copy paste from some site):

Udupi Krishna Temple is a famous Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Krishna. The temple area resembles a living ashram, a holy place for daily devotion and living, founded by Madhvacharya founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta. Legend has it that once Kanakadasa a worshipper who was not allowed into the temple was so piously dedicated, that one day the Krishna statue miraculously turned around to allow the disciple to gaze upon his heavenly form through a small window at the back of the mutt (matha). There are several temples here, the most ancient as basic wood and stone of 1,500 years origin.

After praying and looking around we went to have our lunch at 4:00 pm. Though again I had expected to leave this place by 4:30pm to have enough time in our hand for the beach, this didn’t go as planned and we left Udupi only at 5:00 pm.

Since we were already behind on the schedule, we had to skip a wonderful opportunity of going up a Lighthouse and seeing the beautiful view around of the Kaup locality. We decided to go to Pannambur beach where the International kite flying competition was going on. We reached there at around 6:00 pm….well amost…since such a major event was going on, it looked like the whole of Mangalore had decided to come over here….which resulted us in having to get down 2kms before the beach and walk the rest. Hence we took another 20mins to get there and we missed the sunset. The kites were still flying around. The variety , shapes and the very design of many kites amazed us. Finally after spending some time in the water we finally headed back to the Hotel.

We had to cancel the Kudroli temple visit since some of us had got wet and would have have been ideal to go to the temple in such a avatar.

Day two, most of the plans I made was throw out of the window myself, since the previous day my colleagues had mentioned they had planned to go for a film in a multiplex near their hotel. Hence I did not go ahead with the planned schedule. They went for a movie at:11:40am. And came back and got ready for the function at 2:55pm.

The function got over by 5:10pm and since everyone wanted to change into something more suited for the beach, we went back to the hotel and were finally on our way to Tannirbhavi beach at 5:35pm. We took a auto convincing the auto driver that we would also engage him on the return journey if he waited for a hour. He agreed for this with a nominal waiting charge.

We reached TannirBhavi, had loads of fun on the near empty beach. Then finally at 7:00 pm headed back to the hotel and left Mangalore by a KSRTC bus at 9:15pm.

It was a good trip but for some miss judgment on my part. For example on the first day since we were already one and half hours late hence I should have skipped Moodabidri and Karkala and should have gone only to Udupi. As they say we make mistakes, and this was one of them. I am sorry for my colleagues who were made to hurry at every place and missed out on a lot of fun.

Hope the future journeys would be a lot of fun

In today’s world, small kids don’t get to interact much with their busy parents who go to work. Grand parents live far and apart; visiting only occasionally, hence these kids don’t get to learn much about tradition and culture. Earlier children used to listen to stories from their grand parents in their own mother tongue, now it too is on a down side, and is being replaced by cartoon network and certain English story books.

Would it not be nice if children would have a opportunity to listen to stories in their own mother tongue. I came across one such effort last week. Mrs Asha Shenoy (known as AshaMai) has a website which contains many small stories narrated in South Canara style Konkani. The stories are just between 3 to 15 minutes each which is ideal for kids. In total there are 50 plus stories; all in Konkani. They are available as free download in MP3 format at http://ashamai.zenusinfotech.com/Stories.htm. If you have kids then you can play them one story per night as bed time story, or in case you don’t have kids then you can listen to it too. Overall it is a wonderful attempt to reach out to the future generation of amchigelle kids.

If you found this useful then please do leave a comment below.

Update 8:00 pm
The will be lifted tomorrow between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm, however the educational institutions will remain closed and Section 144 will still be in place.

Update 6:15 pm
There is news that the curfew will be extended till Tuesday morning 7:00 am, also there was some violence today in Bunder area.

Update 3:00 pm
daijiworld.com reports:

A mad rush is at the railway station where the student community can be seen waiting in long queues for railway tickets to return to their houses. The police at the station are having a tough time to control them and maintain order.

Update: 1:30 pm
After the curfew relaxation between 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, the curfew is back on. Many political people are in Mangalore currently on a visit to review the situation.

Update: 10:30 am:
I had just been to Hampankatta, the situation there is just like a normal day, with just the addition of police with arms standing everywhere. Due to the heavy traffic, traffic signal has also been put on. (The image shown is taken from daijiworld.com, and the area is Kankanady (correct me if i am wrong))

Today there is not as much rush as yesterday, this is due to the fact that there are more shops open. Rush can be seen at a few places such as the petrol bunk. I could see many tempo transporting goods, which i believe is for the various hotels and hostel.

There was a CNBC/IBN/TV18 mobile van at Hampankatta, which i noticed while waiting for the signal. Also the milk was selling at the MRP at the milk booth in Hampankatta and there was enough stock of it, this I am assuming by the number of crates that were around there. And I also saw some youngsters (students) with bags heading towards the railway station, they must be returning home, after a struggle for food and other necessities here in the past 3-4 days.

Update: 7:45 am:
There are reports on TV that there will be relaxation of curfew between 9:00 am to 1:00 pm today.

7:15 am:
Today marks the fifth day of complete shutdown of Mangalore city, with the shops remaining shut and the buses, auto’s being off the road. Also today is the third straight day the curfew is imposed, (which has been extended till 6:00 pm today). School and Colleges will remain shut for two more days.

In our area, the morning looked very normal today with the newspaper arriving at the doorstep at its usual time of 5:40 am. The milk booth unlike yesterday, had the milk stock; but the milk was being sold at Rs. 20 per litre (Rs. 7 above the normal price). Even with the higher price the milk is already sold out by 7:30 a.m. There are reports in the newspaper that yesterday in some areas like Urwa the milk was sold at Rs.30/ltr.

Since there was no violence reported yesterday, so I am hopeful that the curfew will be removed today evening.

Updates to continue…

Update:
The curfew has been extended till 6:00 pm on Monday Oct 9.

Update 12:15 PM:
Mangalorean.com reports:

Curfew will continue from 11:00 am onwards through the day and tonight. Situation will be studied later in the day and accordingly if found normal curfew may be relaxed for 4 hours tomorrow morning. CRPF and RAF troupes will hold a flag march in the city tomorrow and decision on further relaxing or lifting curfew will be taken only then.

People waiting in long lines near Janata Bazar to buy milk and withdraw money from the ATM today morning when curfew was relaxed.

Update 10:15 AM:
Latest from the city, many shops are open as curfew is relaxed from 9:00 to 11:00 am. People can be seen waiting in lines in front of Milk booth, bakery shop, vegetable shops, etc, in fact long lines can be seen in front of any shop which is open. Also some roads such as the market road is nearing traffic jam state with hundreds of cars and two wheelers thronging them. There is also a Aaj Tak Mobile Van waiting to cover the situation live, they are trying to find people who can speak Hindi; to take interview. So till now the situation is clam in the relaxed period.

Update 8:00 AM: mangalorean.com reports:

Sial said the situation would be brought to normal within 24 hours but added that prohibitory orders under section 144 CRPC would remain for a few more days as a precautionary measure.

At 6:15 AM
So how is the situation today…our area is as calm as any other day this week. Early morning people would be seen taking their morning walks, many were waiting in front of the two milk booths waiting for the milk to arrive, and the newspaper which costs Rs. 3 was now selling for Rs. 5 due to short supply.

More updates will follow…