Holy Towns and Temples

Articles about visit to various temples and pilgrim places in India, besides temples you will also find posts about ancient Churches, mosques, and other places of worship of various faiths and religions.

Book Review: Warrior by Olivier Lafont

Dec 162014
 
Book Review: Warrior by Olivier Lafont

Mythological Thriller and a Sci Fi Journey: Warrior by Olivier Lafont Mythology is a very tricky subject that can ignite passions like nothing else especially in a country like India. Warrior the first novel by Olivier Lafont takes the mythological novel to the next level and keeps you in a world that makes you travel not just around India but to many dimensions that most of us never even have thought about. All this while the author handles the subject with clinical precision and poetic passion without falling in the grand canyon that divides faith and science and comes up with [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Book Reviews, Holy Towns and Temples Tagged with: , ,  6 Responses »

Making of Ravana in Tatarpur Village Delhi

Sep 272014
 
Making of Ravana in Tatarpur Village Delhi

Making of Ravana for Sale: The demon king gives livelihood to hundreds of people Navatri or the nine nights is a period when most of the country prepares for Dussehra and is Ram may (राम मय). The stories or Ram’s victory over Ravana is enacted in form of Ram Leela ( no not the Bhansali version with bullets doing ballet with Bollywood belle Dipika Padukone, but the real one with bows and arrows ) across the country, especially north India in form of stage plays with the good winning over evil. But as the good old Winston Churchill said [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Delhi, Holy Towns and Temples, Street Photography Tagged with: , , , ,  9 Responses »

Delhi Street Art – Hanuman jee and a few other thoughts

Sep 162014
 
Delhi Street Art - Hanuman jee and a few other thoughts

Hanuman Jee  in Street Art  Let us once again visit Street Art in Delhi, this time a more structured tiled fresco created in a subway to cross the busy Baba Khadak Singh Marg opposite the ancient Hanuman Mandir and the ever popular Coffee house run by DTTDC. Now acronyms are supposedly designed to help you escape long words and tongue twister, this DTTDC acronym succeeds in doing just the opposite, it is not only a tongue twister but also lazily expands to Delhi Tourism and Travel Development Corporation (or something similar). Don’t agree with me: Try saying DTTDC DTTDC [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Delhi, Holy Towns and Temples, Street Photography Tagged with: , , ,  2 Responses »

Recycled Ganesha in a Car Museum

Sep 032014
 
Recycled Ganesha in a Car Museum

Eco Friendly Ganesha in his Recycled Avatar Ganapati is a very special festival of India, as it is not just a festival it also has a strong association with freedom movement of India. But even before that Ganapati Utsav was celebrated during times of Shivaji Maharaj and later Peshwas of Pune. But with the fall of Peshwas in 1818, Ganapati Utsav lost significance as a public festival till revived by Lokmanya Tilak in 1893.  Tilak a well-known social reformer and freedom fighter wanted to shape Ganapati Utsav to bring like-minded people together and use the collective consciousness to fight [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Holy Towns and Temples Tagged with: , ,  3 Responses »

Evening Ganga Aarti at Varanasi Dashashwamedh Ghat

May 202014
 
Evening Ganga Aarti at Varanasi Dashashwamedh Ghat

 Ganga Aarti at Varanasi: In praise of the River Goddess In Travel Tuesday post today we will talk about Ganga Aarti at Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India. Banaras as the city is known locally is now in limelight because of political reasons due to a very well publicized electoral battle between Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal. Of course, now this is old news and Mr. Narendra Modi emerged victorious in what turned out to be a no contest. But desi Traveler is not a political blog, so we will restrict our discussion to our topic of the post the evening Aarti on Dashashwamedh [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Holy Towns and Temples, Travel Pictures Tagged with: , , , , ,  20 Responses »

Offering Prayers at Mecca Masjid Hyderabad

Dec 292013
 
Offering Prayers at Mecca Masjid Hyderabad

A Visit to the Mecca Masjid Hyderabad: Clicking Pictures and offering Prayers I have been to Charminar and its surrounding lanes many a time to click pictures, soak in the essence of Old Hyderabad, do shopping at the night market during Ramazan. But the place keeps on pulling me back to itself with the force that can rival Bermudas Triangle. This weekend I was lucky enough to visit one of the holiest mosque in India the Mecca Masjid or Makkah Masjid as it’s called in Hyderabad. Just about 200 yards south of Charminar stands the grand mosque that was built by [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Holy Towns and Temples, Incredible India Tagged with: , , , , ,  8 Responses »

Christmas in Bangkok- Picture from the past

Dec 242013
 
Christmas in Bangkok- Picture from the past

Christmas Tree and Snowman in Bangkok As this is Christmas time, our daughters have decorated a small Christmas tree in our living room. Nothing fancy just one of those plastic trees that you get in the mall, but they very lovingly decorated it with lights, colored balls, bells and other toys. The younger one is totally fascinated with the same and spends a lot of time looking at the tree.  Now Christmas is one of the biggest festivals around the wold and though  Christians are a very small population of India, Christmas is one of the biggest festival in [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Foreign Trips, Holy Towns and Temples Tagged with: , ,  4 Responses »

Sri Jagadamba Mahakali Temple Golconda

Dec 232013
 
Sri Jagadamba Mahakali Temple Golconda

Mahakali Temple on The Top of Golconda The first time I visited Golconda  I just visited the  Sri Jagamba Mahakali Temple Golconda as any tourist will. But as got captivated by the fort and started visiting again and again it made me think more and more about the Mahakali temple on the top of the fort. In early days only shepherds visited the top of the hill and that is one of the origins of the name of the fort – Gwala Konda or the hill of the shepherds. It is believed that the shepherds may have found the [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Holy Towns and Temples, Incredible India Tagged with: , ,  9 Responses »

Kartik Purnima On Varanasi Ghats

Nov 252013
 
Kartik Purnima On Varanasi Ghats

     Holy Dip on Kartik Purnima at Varanasi Ghats Millions take a holy dip in Ganges on Kartik Purnima. I was  in Benaras or Varanasi this Kartik Purnima and observed these thousands of people taking a holy dip in the chilly waters.  I was feeling shivers just by looking at them. But what amazed me most was that though most of the people were total strangers to each other in such close proximity with hardly any space between them. Yet thousands bathe together in such perfect synchronization, that one wonders who is directing them? And the colors! Oh [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Holy Towns and Temples, Incredible India, Photography Tagged with: , , , ,  4 Responses »

Traveling and Toilets in India

Nov 192013
 
Traveling and Toilets in India

The state of the Toilets in India: The Unholy side of our Holy Cities Whenever I travel one of my biggest challenges is to find toilets in India, mind you I am not even looking at something fancy. I just need a space where I can go quickly holding my breath and do the stuff and come out. Toilets become much more important when I am traveling with Missus and my daughters, then the requirements are a bit more stringent. We not only need a cleaner place, it should also be lockable from inside, and one needs to be [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

 Posted by  Holy Towns and Temples, Incredible India Tagged with: , , , ,  20 Responses »
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