Our train pulled onto the platform on a foggy morning five before six. Bengaluru on a crispy wake-up phase, traffic was still stretching off last night's slumber as our auto zipped past sporadic lit buildings buzzing with school children getting ready to start the new year's syllabus.
Was it just five days ago in Hampi that we warmed our skin and basked in the dry comfortable breeze encircling the ancient Vijayanagar Empire? Of course you could stay in many padi field-facing huts, equipped with a swing and a mosquito net that was put to good use in a lot of stunning locations around the world - but it was also not in many places you will get an ethereal feeling walking along a spiritual Viru River, with temples and monumental walls that once saw bustling bazaar life and fervent worship intermingling along daily pursuit for some rice snacks, cooling coconut juice, some bananas for the temple nandi and being blessed by Laxmi the temple's elephant.
Along the 12km trek cutting past the villages, it was as easy as breaking an egg to catch huts built from mud and straw, wiry women carrying water urns, last night's crockery and laundry for wash. Some younger maidens see-sawed drying their saree while many a man sat underneath a charpoy sipping a small cup of chai, a perfect remedy to escape the day's increasing temperature.
Hampi is a strange city. Putting aside some really basic accommodation, bed bugs and deadly painted do-not-touch-me spiders, and yes a loony guard dog and some aggressive hippy wear peddlers with the river crossing boat cartel, Hampi is a unique city that seems to leap into life once you find your own groove here. We did each side of the river alternatively on a motorbike and met arms of green young padi fields that extended out to the horizons beyond, energizing villagers inviting us to partake in chopping firewood and shifting rice grain... I got a lot of big toothless laughters from the older women with my poor skill but the fun was priceless. High numbers of oxen and donkeys wandered or stood in the middle of village roads as we moved in between flying cockerels and sprightly puppies. Yes we had to put up with power cuts on the dot on 3am as part of the local BJP's lack of planning to supply sufficient power, hence Plan B was to divide and divert - but Hampi at night took on a shadowy figure as quiet as a grave where a flutter above you and a blobbing sound below you indicated that you were indeed, far away from a city and that the padi fields were very real. In the middle of the night's darkness, I heard a dog howled away while a baby woke up with a few grunting attempts at complaining to mum about the cooling heat of the hour. The blueness in the still air actually took on a spooky feel as my imagination ran wild. I tried to sleep hard... or went back to the escape of my slumber.
You can read a lot about Hampi from online and printed literature, but nothing could articulate a more meaningful way to begin a new year by revisiting a glorious past in the forms of ruins. For isn't it in our mistakes and downfall that we learn the most? For isn't it imperative to rise after each defeat? This place is rich in culture despite having their kings breathed their last many hundreds of years ago, but the villages, reeking with young energy as lads played cricket off green plains along Kamalpur village lanes and faithfuls making their way down to the ghat to bathe and wash, you'll be pained not to find many a nandi statue keeping by itsShivalingam, and just around the corner, on a slab of stone, a garuda carving stood out amongst the water weeds. As the last gurgle of the river gave way to a silent current washing off the day's memory, I sat down and looked beyond, to somewhere far away within myself, propelled by Hampi's romantic setting and knew that wherever I may be, I was exactly, again where I should be right now.
As I close here I realise quite suddenly the fatigue I have gathered over the last couple of days. There were rocky paths to climb, the heat to cool off from, and just battering yourself among the crowd of tourists, worshipers and locals who live there. Some will try to sell to you, some will try to take from you, heck, some even assume that you are an ATM machine that prints money to give at anyhow. There were cow dung patches to jump hopscotch over, slippery washed pavements to skid along, fantastic fresh fruit juices to indulge and incense-filled air to wander off to your mental chambers. Hampi, just like India on a bigger scale, take a lot out of you but in return, gives so much back to you too. I can rest well now knowing that I am so glad I did succumb to the lure of the fresh air and mineral smelling air from the old chapters between the rocky plains.
You may not obtain enlightenment but you may come close to it.
