things credit card cant buy

This incident happened on my trip to Aurangabad, over 2 years ago.
A visit to Ellora caves and the nearby places was the itinerary for the day, I'd hired an auto rickshaw for this trip. On the way back from Ellora, I went to the Daulatabad fort as planned, Daulatabad was also called as Devagiri which once was the Capital of the Mughal Empire during the reign of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq.
There's a watch tower at the base of the fort, a replica of Qutub Minar, a hike up the hill for an hour will take you to the highest watch point of the fort/town. This point offers a breathtaking view of the surroundings for miles!. Most of the construction is in ruins and what's left of the walls are etched with names of a lot of modern day salim-anarkalis n romeo-juliets' :(. The stunning feature here were two huge canons on top of this hill with a bird's eye view, to deter off the enemy attacks, which i was told could fire to the range of 5-6 miles.
There was a young kid, selling drinking water on the hill top, from a pot which he carries up every morning! phew..,he'd quit school as his family had no money and selling water is his bit to contribute to his family's earnings. First tell the story, then force you to buy water n ask you to decide the price you pay for the water you drank, isn't it a catch 22 situation? :(, that's what i was in, and to worsen my situation, a 10 rs bill was all I had in my pocket, half a dozen credit cards i had were of no use at this place.
The disgust at not being able to help this kid anyway is beyond words, I gave him that 10 Rs note I had and also a pen of mine, that made me feel a li'l better, hope it made the kid happy too. As the ad for master card rightly said, there are things, money can't buy.
(Completed a draft that I'd left unfinished since Nov'07 :P)

Ellora caves

Ellora caves are 28kms from Aurangabad, its declared as world heritage centre along with Ajanta caves by UNESCO. Thanks to the Government for the commendable effort and the funds granted by UNESCO, these monuments are well protected, unusually clean and neat although a lot of damage has been done as in case of many other Architectural wonders in this country.
There are 34 caves altogether, products of Buddhism, Brahmanism and Jainism containing elaborate carvings of gods, goddesses and remarkable memorials of the three great faiths of Hinduism they represent. Each system has its individual style of architecture and Ellora presents us with these varied styles side by side. The sculptural work also reveals the contrast. The excavations on a sloping hill-side are spread over an area of about 2 kms, north to south. Caves 1 to 12, making the southern series are Buddisht. 13 to 19 belong to brahminism and the last five caves are of the Jainism style.
These caves have been excavated over a span of 6 centuries, the Buddhist caves being earliest (500-700 A.D.) The main entrance leading into the parking area faces cave 16, in the Brahmanical series and I started from here and proceeded towards the southern side.
Cave 16 is celebrated as the Kailasa, Shiva’s mountain abode, is by far best of all Ellora excavations. This famous monument displays one of the finest rock cut architecture of its time. Built between 8th and early 9th century, it is regarded as greatest monolithic structure. The entire architecture is in fact, a gigantic sculptural piece. It features life size elephants, a victory pillar and the galleries on either side offers renderings of shiva legends, most of them with goddess Parvati to the north and variations of lord Vishnu to the south. There are also a shrine of Nandi, a pillar on each side of it which are among the best works of art in Kailasa and the central shine containing great Linga among others.
Cave 15 is reached after a long climb of stairs. Double storyed, it has a courtyard with several small shrines and chambers. In the upper hall the vestibules on two walls contains reliefs carved with great delicacy. The shrine holds a lingam and facing it is the Nandi , an inevitable feature of all Shiva shrines.
Cave 14 serves as introduction to the Brahmanical order as there is nothing noticeable in Cave 13. It displays Goddess Durga, Lord Vishnu on the left panel, the shrine houses Goddess Lakshmi and on the left panel is Lord Shiva and Parvati.

Buddhist Excavations:
The Buddhist excavations are classified into Viharas and Chaityas, Viharas mostly containing cells for residing people and Chaityas being halls dedicated for teaching, prayers which houses a Buddha image as a main feature.
Cave 1, is possibly the earliest excavation at Ellora. It is a plain Vihara with 8 cells.
Cave 2, looks like a Chaitya hall. A lion-throne holds the huge Buddha image, a symbol of royal state and galleries have figures of Buddha seated on Lotus in the traditional posture of a preacher. There are several Bodhisatvas.
Cave 3, has a chapel. The Buddha here is seated on a lotus supported by snakes displaying the snake heads.
Cave 5, is the largest in series, a Vihara, There a twenty four pillars holding the roof, and there is a chapel with a Buddha image inside.
Cave 6 displays several interesting sculptures including Buddhist folklore, Goddess Saraswati.
Cave 10 is a Chaitya hall, the façade richly decorated, carved roof and figures in the base relief above the pillars are fine creations. A staircase leads to a large pillared court and a gallery.
Caves 11 and 12, are by far the most important in this group. They are large three storey structures. Cave 12 is bigger of the two and most impressive. There is a huge Buddha figure in the shrine here.
Brahmanical excavations:
Cave 17 has huge pillars and interior Garbh Gruh houses Lingam, images of Lord Vishnu, Brahma, Ganesh and Mahishasura Mardhini
Cave 18 and 19 contains Shiva ling in the Garbh Gruh.
Cave 20 houses images similar to ones in cave 17.
Cave 21 has an attractive façade, In front of it, there’s a Nandi on a raised platform, closeby are the figures of the river Goddess Yamuna and Ganga. Inside the chamber, Parvati’s marriage to lord Shiva is set in a panel fitting almost the entire wall.
Cave 25 is huge, its interior contains the image of Sun god on a rath with seven horses.
Cave 27 contains images of Vishnu, Balram, Krishna and also Varaha awatara and Mahishasura Mardhini.
Cave 29 is a massive structure, there’s an image of lord shiva with eight arms and another image of Shiva dancing. There’s a waterfall between cave 29 and cave 28, and a narrow path to cross.

Jain excavations:
These caves are about a kilometer away to the north. The most important ones among them are caves 32 and 34.
Cave 32 is known as Indra Sabha, the entrance has an elephant and a column, the shrine here has a decorative ceiling carved into symbolic lotus, this has figure of Lord Mahavira, founder of this faith. The upper story of this cave represents the finest worksmanship, also the pillars and walls in this cave carry ornamental work of great delicacy. Cave 34 can be reached from Indra Sabha by a passage. It has a separated entrance also, with a finely carved arch. The jain images have a peculiar heaviness and these caves have very decorative pillars.

This ends the tour of Ellora caves, it took me about 5 hours and at the end of it, i feel its not yet over there's a feeling of things left unfinished. You dont get to witness such fine work every day after all. it not only lets you witness the history, one becomes a part of it and so was I, after coming back here and thinking of getting back to my routine of office work and other things, i cant help wondering if i lived in an entire different dimension of time and space during the last two days. Wish it was true and i could continue...

Lost in time - The start

Another weekend passes by. In most parts of this vast and beautiful country, one could see skies lit up with beautiful fireworks and houses decorated and the front doors lined up with lamps lit up, for this is the way Deepavali/Diwali is celebrated here. It’s the biggest celebration in the country as the occasion also marks the New Year in few parts. But for me it would have been nothing but for just another weekend as staying away from home, there were no celebrations around.
I was in no way going to let it happen, so I decided to do what I love the most, Travel. I was contemplating the idea of travelling to a hill station or a beach as that’s the ideal holiday for most people around me. When I realized that I was to have no company, I was free to make my own plans and that’s how the idea of travelling to Aurangabad first occurred to me. It’s only 400 kms from the city of Mumbai and can be reached easily by rail or bus.
On Thursday night I started off from vashi and by the time the bus started to move it was almost midnight. On the move when the rush of air splashed on my face I suddenly realized how much I missed travelling and it was my first overnight journey in over 6 months! The plan was to reach Aurangabad and then travel to Ellora and Ajanta and a few other places around I read about on net and most notably ‘Bibi ka Maqbara’ a replica of Taj Mahal built by the Mughal Emperor Aurangazeb in memory of his wife Rabia-ud-Durrani among them, over the next 2 or 3 days.
In no time I was asleep only to wake up in the middle of the night a couple of times due to cold, again a first in 2 months because all I can categorize the weather in Mumbai is from Very hot/sultry-warm-not so warm.
It was about half past six in the morning, when I woke up to see that the bus was cruising in the outskirts of Aurangabad and after a few minutes I got off the bus at ‘Baba petrol pump’ , an auto rickshaw driver dropped me off at Pushpak lodge near the city railway station. After a shower and watching tv for a while, I started off from my lodge towards the MTDC information centre nearby.
MTDC offers day trips to both Ajanta and Ellora, but the Ellora being nearby was clubbed with half a dozen other places and hence leaving only a couple of hours to be spent at Ellora. So, I decided to do the Ellora trip by myself and booked a seat for myself for the Ajanta Tour the next day.
After having a good breakfast I started my day’s trip. My plan was to visit Ellora and then Daulatabad fort and visit other places if there was any time left. One can opt to take the pubic transportation or hire an auto rickshaw to take you around to the places of your choice. I chose to travel around by auto rickshaw. Ellora was the first place I was supposed to visit.
After about 40 mins ride, we reached Ghrashneshwar Temple just about 500 metres from Ellora, This temple is very famous because the Jyotirlinga here is said be self oriented and according to records, the temple was built in 7th century, the courtyard leads to the main temple with beautiful carvings depicting various mythological stories (please don’t ask me tell you the story now J). The temple has a Shivling infront of which is the marble image of Goddess Parvati. This is the 12th Jyotirlinga of Shiva. (and I have no clue where are the other 11 ;) ). I did visit this temple as my driver insisted that I should start my trip with this. Well, it’s worth a visit. After this we set off towards the cave temples of Ellora.