Escapism

Our Plan of escaping from Karmabhumi at the last week of 2009 descend upon charmudi ghat..a small junction “Kottigehara” located 15 km from Mudigere in Chikkamagaluru (district) where coffee was first cultivated in India .we two sisters and our life companions along with one half seat(my daughter) along with 5th head (my brother)who joined hands us in tiptur and journey began towards western ghats.

Through Tiptur-Hassan road, the jolly and jolt ride took 51/2 hours in Daewoo martiz… I wish that car manufacturer would have fixed one tolerant meter in the car so that we can read its temper and in driving seat was Prem (my brother in law) driving carefully to keep its temper cool, Saying sorry for each jerk… but from Hassan ride was very smooth. As we entered Malenadu the roads had coffee plantation on both side…with houses very far from one another… The cool breeze was making our noon journey very pleasant. We reached Mudigere small town where our Kannada novelist Poornachandra Tejaswi spent his last days We halted in Kottigehara, Malaya marutha  forest gueat house as we planned earlier.

Malayamarutha Guest house

                                                                       

                        

Guest house from the starting point of charmudi ghat section 

As we reached IB, Shobha(my sister), Sharadhi(my daughter) and myself settled down to enjoy the glory of nature. Very first scene which struck my eyes were the peaks and cliffs in procession looking at “Simplicity” of humans from ages… discussing some thing in unknown language … which was beyond my gauge. The SUN tired of routine started resting behind them… less than five minutes he rushed out with golden glow making the canopy turn golden green…

As we enjoy golden eve ragu (my brother) and satish(my better half) were busy in organizing the dinner, as it will be pitch dark after sunset and the IB was no supported with voltage.

 

  

Staying with out electricity and enjoying nature in its own color is really a distinct experience for me. The Green valley turned saffron due to the sun and then to silver under moon. Adding to this experience, we saw a small stream of water from forest gets merged with the river down the hill, it was beautiful and “Julllu Julllu” was audible from rooms also…The natural “Laalli”.

Julu Julu ....stream

 

Next morning we visited one interesting place.. a village “Javali”. It was an unplanned place in our itinerary .Morning we started towards Kelaguru to have glimpse of rich tea estate as my photographic husband planned to enrich his collection. On the way we saw a board which read “1 km down visit hemavathi birthplace..Javali”… since Hemavathi river fed Tiptur, to explore it, we drove inside. Their was a Ganapathi temple with 2 ponds next to it. One was smaller than the other. There was a small rock with water dripping over it which was birth place of river Hemavathi. The priest enriched our knowledge about origin of temple by Javali maharshi.

 

 

Ganapathi temple Javali 

He told us that the water dripping over the rock flows into a small pond next to it. 

     

Birth place of river Hemavathi

The water level in pond neither depletes nor rises and remains constant in drought as well during heavy rain, This pond is said to be very auspicious. He also explained the science behind it. Flow from small pond was internally connected to the larger one and in turn is connected to lake down the village …so the basic flow of water for those 3 water bodies was the water dripping from the rock. Because of this reason the water levels of all these ponds remain same round the year. Here we witnessed a natural water table balance

Large pond next to temple

He also gave some trivia of the place…the temple was picturised in some scenes of the kannada movie “Shh”. One fantastic thing about this priest was the way he declared about his happiness. Swinging his body with help of his arms around a poll he said “I got my peace of mind after coming here..and I AM VERY HAPPY here..”. I think he is the first person whom I met so far who can say that I AM HAPPY with out any doubt.

 

Happy priest with Ganapathi

  

 

Kelaguru tea and coffee processing unit

Kelaguru…small place with lush green tea estates and coffee plantations. Sprinklers in the tea estates were adding beauty to it. Kelaguru had its own coffee and tea processing unit also.. actually I tried walking into the tea plantation but it was bit difficult for my untrained legs to walk up.

 

Green and Beauty 

 

Glazing through the beautiful scenery a thought came into my mind that ‘haah! A decent place to spend my retired life’. On the way back to Mudigere my mind was figuring out the definition for “I AM HAPPY”, but paused my thoughts looking at the art of pouring Neeru dose in a canteen. After having Neeru dose, Our half exhausted wheels turned towards Bengaluru and we started planning for another escapism as we got struck at first traffic signal…and escapism ends with reality.

Cool place to enjoy retired life!!!