Ahila's travel highlights

I have never been fond of the zoo. My recollections of the Dehiwela zoo is basically walking around in the hot sun, tired and the smell of animal droppings unpleasantly wafting in the air, not really interested in looking at the caged animals.. a brief respite seated on a grassy turf, watching some tired elephants going about in circles. No, I have never liked the zoo.

Yet, today I found myself going on an outing to the zoo with my mother, who loves the zoo since her childhood. We started our zoo trip with a visit to the aquarium. We passed the Californian sea lion which was having a nap quietly by the little pool, unfazed by the crowds seated in the audience area, who were watching it and the long queues passing by its residence into the Min Medura Aquarium, opened in 1973.

We walked through a lovely walk-in aviary, with a net covering a large area and a wooden bridge going through it for people to walk in. Though the signboard requested people to be silent, people were just talking loudly and the crowds going through must have disturbed the birds so we couldn't see many, except the friendly mynahs and the ducks playfully swimming in the pond. We could hear them though.

The elephant stalls were empty. I guess they must have gone out for a walk. Only Joa, a young African elephant born in 1991, was left in his stall and he was definitely not relaxed. He kept waving his trunk and head continuously. Some animals kept doing that and I felt they were distressed or uneasy in their surroundings. Most though chose to sleep in a corner with their heads turned away from the prying eyes of the crowds.

Though I still do not like the zoos, at least my childhood impression has improved ever so slightly.

As we drove towards the Trivandrum International Airport from Kovalam, we were slowed down by traffic. Pilgrims clad in bright yellow and floats went by slowly. My friend explained the procession. She said people from all over Kerala visited Sivagiri near Varkala for the annual memorial festival in celebration of Sree Narayana Guru.

Sree Narayana Guru or Nanu as his parents called him was born in 1854 and had advocated his doctrine of "one caste - one religion-and one God"

Excerpt from the Sree Narayana Kendra website:
Whichever the religion,
It suffices
If it makes a better man.

One in kind, one in faith,
One in God is man
Of one same womb, one there is at all.

All are of one Self-fraternity
Such being the dictum to avow,
In such a light how can we take life
And devoid of least pity go on to eat

Ask not, Say not Think not caste

Acts that one performs
For one's own sake
Should also aim for the good
Of other men.

Love of others is my happiness,
Love that is mine is happiness for others.
And so, truly, deeds that benefit a man
Must be a cause for other's happiness too.

Grace, Love, Mercy -all the three -
Stand for one same reality- Life's Star
He who loves is who really lives.

Whatever may be the difference in men's
creed, dress, language etc. because they all
belong to the same kind of creation,
there is no harm at all in their dining
together or having marital relation with
one another.

Liquor is poison
Make it not
Sell it not
Drink it not.

Devoid of dividing walls
Of caste or race
Or hatred of rival faith
We all live here
In Brotherhood

Sivagiri is not generally on the tourist map but a pilgrimage site considered essential to Keralites and the soul of Kerala's modern social evolution and thus worth visiting.

A huge courtyard adjoining the harem of Akbar's palace in Fatehpur Sikri was where the Emperor entertained and was entertained by musical performances. The legendary Tansen performed for the Emperor here, while the queens watched from their specially designed windows in their part of the harem. The platform where Tansen performed is surrounded by water, and was said to have been filled with jasmine and surrounded by lighted lamps during his performance.

Akbar was very fond of music and while having given patronage to musicians, Tansen was the only one considered to be one of the nine jewels of his court. The legend has it that fellow musicians jealous of his skill and favour that he had found in Emperor Akbar's court tried to oust him by asking the Emperor to make him sing the Deepak Raga, which if properly sung was thought to cause all things to burn, including the singer. Tansen is said to have sung it and while some stories say he died in the effort, others say that he survived the trial by asking a fellow singer to sing the raga that evoked rains simultaneously.

Sikandara, the resting place of Emperor Akbar, was a beautiful mausoleaum in red sandstone and surrounded by well-maintained lawns which had deers roaming in the park. We walked into the tomb, after removing our shoes at the entrance. It was a dark passage and we followed some other tourists going inside. The passage became darker and darker as we went further inside and we were a bit uncomfortable. We reached the inner tomb, where Akbar was buried and it was pitch black. I admit both of us felt scared. I don't know why but the place felt as if there was a lingering presence. We decided that we would turn back without going around the tomb. As we turned, a loud out-of-the earth voice called out 'Allah-u-akbar'. We stopped in our tracks, stunned. Though I reasoned out that there must be a recorded voice activated by someone stepping over some particular stone or touching a wall, it felt unearthly. There, we were fleeing the tomb of Akbar the Great, scared of ghosts and a voice tells us that 'God is great' and is omnipresent.

Our fear relieved, we took a nice walk around the premises. There certainly is an atmosphere of calm in that place and more importantly, the feeling of some being present in that tomb. I recalled from my history lessons as a child, that Akbar was renowned for his generosity and his just attitudes towards his subjects. I decided that I liked best Sikandara from all the places I had seen upto then in the two days we had been in North India.

The guide's story on Qutb Minar was that Prithviraj Chauhan, the ruler of Delhi had started building the structure for his wife, so that she could pray to the sun and also have a view of the River Yamuna, but he had only reached the first floor, before the invading army took over and their dynasty collapsed. The remaining structure was then completed by Qutb-ud-din. The UNESCO website on the other hand mentions in their brief description about the place that Qutb-ud-din only finished construction up to the first floor, before he passed away and that it was subsequently built by others.

An incomplete structure stands opposite the Qutb Minar, known as the Alai Minar and our guide mentioned that Alai-ud-din had been jealous of the Qutb Minar and had wanted to build his own bigger and better minar and had started the construction but had passed away, by the time he reached the first floor. Odd, all three people I have mentioned here seems to have died after the construction up to the first floor.

UNESCO mentions that the site was completed from the stones of 20 Brahman temples. The evidence lies in the pillars of the ruins and the stones at the site. Our guide put forth an argument for the Hindu origins of the site by pointing at the hindu bells carved on the pillars, the sanskrit inscriptions, the main gate facing the north as opposed to Muslim practice of constructing doors facing Mecca.

An interesting iron rod stood in the middle of the ruins, tall and upright and looking strong. The guide said that it had been part of the older Hindu temples in the place and that no-one had been able to remove it. He said that whoever tried to take it out, died in the effort. This had finally led to people giving up and letting the rod be.

We walked amongst the ruins and came to the Alai Darwaza, a doorway built by Alai-uddin so that he could have a royal passage to visit the mosque. It was a nice doorway and we passed through it to go to the gardens at the back. The old dome had been hit by lightning and a dome was constructed by a British engineer during the British rule. This newly constructed dome of the Minar, however was considered unsightly and removed and placed on the lawn.

The Qutb Minar is a place for good filming experiments as each angle would give an exquisite shot of the same place.