Murudeshwar

October 2008

I had taken a 4 month break in my career, after CSC-FCG and before Sumeru.
Melvit(Melvit Violet Gomes! nice name na?), a dear friend had 10 days holidays(we were roommates in this PG when I was living on Airport road). This blood sucking company called Huwawei that she works for had bestowed a little mercy on her.
So Melvit went to her hometown, Thernamakki, near Bhatkal, near Mangalore. Myself and two of her colleagues had been invited to visit her place.

We let her spend 6 days with her family alone and then decided to attack their privacy.
I cannot thank aunty and uncle enough for their hospitality! Food prepared specially for us, unlimited fruit salad, juice to keep us cool in that heat… everything served with a motherly affection…
Truly, small town people are the best in the country!

So the first day, we visited Murudeshwar which was less than 3 kilometers from her place. We went by a van crowded with the local folks. It was very hot and we were sweating like anything. The sun was preparing to submerge in the waters of the Arabian sea. We had sometime before we could catch the drama.

The temple loomed large before us. It was so much more than I had expected.

Anybody visiting Murudeshwar can expect to see something spectacular. This businessman called R N Shetty surely has a fancy for extravagance and magnificence.
The ground for his work is a small hillock called Kanduka Giri surrounded by the sea on three sides, which he owns!

If you go now, you will see on this hillock, a shiva temple with a really tall Gopura(249 feet tall – tallest Gopura in the world), a huge Shiva statue(123 feet high) and other smaller statues and interesting work of art surrounding the Shiva statue on all sides.

Murudeshwar is a place that offers many a good in one package.
Since the hillock projects into water, on both sides of Murudeshwar you will find the sea beach bordered by coconut groves. There are ferry boats that will take you sailing into the sea.

There is a restaurant built close to the beach, but well into the waters. As you enter the restaurant, you get this feeling that you are floating on water. If you sit really long, you could feel dizzy.

You can see it in the picture below.


The shiva statue …




Artwork surrounding the statue

View of the temple as you climb up to the statue.

At the base of the shiva statue is a cave in which they have depicted the sthalapurana, legend of the place in the form of sculpture.




Beyond the shiva statue is the vast sea.
All tourists eventually assemble here to watch the drama of sunset.



We went to the restaurant and I recollected vaguely, memories of my previous visit to Murudeshwar more than 10 years ago with my parents, when we had dined in the same restaurant, probably at the same table! Of course, we were much younger then and had been way more excited about floating on water than this time.

We strolled around the area and saw some more artwork. It was dark already. The moon shone clearly.

I tried to capture the temple Gopura and the moon in one shot.


We returned home and hogged some more fruit salad.