The Hampi Diaries : #1 Ha(m)pi Nu Yea
Happy new year fellow bloggers, readers, writers, travelers, students, teachers, Mayans (haha), economists, software professionals, ... people in general. Here's to good riddance and daring 2013 to surprise me.
2012. Many believed the world would end in 2012. And for some reasons, perhaps it should have. But as the world awoke to 22nd December, 2012 - clearly, it was epic fail for the Mayans and Believers and change in plans.
And so, on 24th December, 2012, two of my cousins and I took a trip to an UN-chartered territory - the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi. Yes, the word does sound funny when you first read it or say it out loud.
Here's a mini social scientific background for the UNenlightened (yes, I am having fun highlighting UN wherever possible). I would've gone just a historical background but then a geography lesson would perhaps be required as well.
Geography : Hampi is located on the banks of the Tungabadra river. And where might this be, you ask? Karnataka - which is apparently the state of beaches, hmm. It's in north-eastern Karnataka, broadly in the Bellary district area - quite close to the Andhra Pradesh border, actually.
Travel Magazine Style 'Getting There' subheading : Since my cousins and I had decided to meet in Bengaluru instead of Goa, which by the way is actually slightly closer to Hampi than Bengaluru (323 kms as opposed to 353 kms), we took a train from Bengaluru City Junction. We took the Hampi Express to Hospet. And sure, the name is Hampi Express and you would sort of expect the last station to be Hospet but no sir, it goes all the way up to Hubli! Anyway, wikipedia and travel books tell you that there are state operated buses that ply to the heritage site. While this may be true, I didn't sight any empirical evidence to corroborate the same. Also, lucky for us, the Guest House we were to stay at (Gowri Guest House - more on that later) sent us our ride - a Tata Magic! That shut up the shady-looking-Bob-Marley-tshirt-wearing guy and the many others hanging around the station. Well, I thought he seemed harmless and wanted to believe he was just a villager who happened to be wearing a bright blue t shirt with Bob Marley's face on it and even though we weren't giving him a business opportunity, he would be kind and that the world was a better place than cynics assumed it to be. I did cling on to that hope with dear life later, however. Later, when our Tata Magic was in the middle of nowhere with boulder hillocks on either sides with small fields and songs like Aashiq Banaya Aapne blasting from our littall Magic. Our guest house was an auto ride away from 'Boat Point' - more on that too, later.
History : Quoting the ASI World Heritage Series book on Hampi, '... the remains of the splendid medieval city of Hampi or Vijayanagara, the City of Victory.' Yep - you nailed it. It was part of the Vijayanagara Empire - more like the Capital city from about AD 1343 to 1565. If not the ruins, most of you have got to remember Tenali Raman. He was the court-poet under the King Krishnadevaraya. Stories about Tenali and Krishnadevaraya are analogous to Akbar-Birbal stories. Of course I'm not offering a perfect and apt analogy but it sorta works out. A lot about the empire was known through foreign travelers, such as Domingo Paes and Abdur Razzaq who wrote about its palaces, temples, bazaars, jewels and 'ostentatious festivals'.The World Heritage Series book says, 'Hampi was the epitome of the power and might of the Vijayanagara empire and in that lay its nemesis.' Apparently, it was crushed by the combined might of the armies of Bijapur, Golconda and Ahmednagar in 1565. 'Thereafter the city was robbed and pillaged and left desolate, its pavilions and temples standing forgotten - mute spectators of a glorious past.' Intense, no?
Interesting fact regarding why Hampi is Hampi. I mean, the etymology. So, the ancient name for the river Tungabadra was Pampa. As already mentioned, this capital city was on the banks of this river. Logic obviously dictates that it came to be known has Hampi. Because, yknow, Pampa --> Hampi. Makes sense.
Even though I have a penchant for writing posts enormous enough to be sleep inducing, with gaps that can be compared to the speed with which legal cases are dispensed off in our country (of course I win here!), I've decided to give this travel writing account in pieces, almost every day.
End of Chapter I
2012. Many believed the world would end in 2012. And for some reasons, perhaps it should have. But as the world awoke to 22nd December, 2012 - clearly, it was epic fail for the Mayans and Believers and change in plans.
And so, on 24th December, 2012, two of my cousins and I took a trip to an UN-chartered territory - the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi. Yes, the word does sound funny when you first read it or say it out loud.
Here's a mini social scientific background for the UNenlightened (yes, I am having fun highlighting UN wherever possible). I would've gone just a historical background but then a geography lesson would perhaps be required as well.
Geography : Hampi is located on the banks of the Tungabadra river. And where might this be, you ask? Karnataka - which is apparently the state of beaches, hmm. It's in north-eastern Karnataka, broadly in the Bellary district area - quite close to the Andhra Pradesh border, actually.
Travel Magazine Style 'Getting There' subheading : Since my cousins and I had decided to meet in Bengaluru instead of Goa, which by the way is actually slightly closer to Hampi than Bengaluru (323 kms as opposed to 353 kms), we took a train from Bengaluru City Junction. We took the Hampi Express to Hospet. And sure, the name is Hampi Express and you would sort of expect the last station to be Hospet but no sir, it goes all the way up to Hubli! Anyway, wikipedia and travel books tell you that there are state operated buses that ply to the heritage site. While this may be true, I didn't sight any empirical evidence to corroborate the same. Also, lucky for us, the Guest House we were to stay at (Gowri Guest House - more on that later) sent us our ride - a Tata Magic! That shut up the shady-looking-Bob-Marley-tshirt-wearing guy and the many others hanging around the station. Well, I thought he seemed harmless and wanted to believe he was just a villager who happened to be wearing a bright blue t shirt with Bob Marley's face on it and even though we weren't giving him a business opportunity, he would be kind and that the world was a better place than cynics assumed it to be. I did cling on to that hope with dear life later, however. Later, when our Tata Magic was in the middle of nowhere with boulder hillocks on either sides with small fields and songs like Aashiq Banaya Aapne blasting from our littall Magic. Our guest house was an auto ride away from 'Boat Point' - more on that too, later.History : Quoting the ASI World Heritage Series book on Hampi, '... the remains of the splendid medieval city of Hampi or Vijayanagara, the City of Victory.' Yep - you nailed it. It was part of the Vijayanagara Empire - more like the Capital city from about AD 1343 to 1565. If not the ruins, most of you have got to remember Tenali Raman. He was the court-poet under the King Krishnadevaraya. Stories about Tenali and Krishnadevaraya are analogous to Akbar-Birbal stories. Of course I'm not offering a perfect and apt analogy but it sorta works out. A lot about the empire was known through foreign travelers, such as Domingo Paes and Abdur Razzaq who wrote about its palaces, temples, bazaars, jewels and 'ostentatious festivals'.The World Heritage Series book says, 'Hampi was the epitome of the power and might of the Vijayanagara empire and in that lay its nemesis.' Apparently, it was crushed by the combined might of the armies of Bijapur, Golconda and Ahmednagar in 1565. 'Thereafter the city was robbed and pillaged and left desolate, its pavilions and temples standing forgotten - mute spectators of a glorious past.' Intense, no?
Interesting fact regarding why Hampi is Hampi. I mean, the etymology. So, the ancient name for the river Tungabadra was Pampa. As already mentioned, this capital city was on the banks of this river. Logic obviously dictates that it came to be known has Hampi. Because, yknow, Pampa --> Hampi. Makes sense.
Even though I have a penchant for writing posts enormous enough to be sleep inducing, with gaps that can be compared to the speed with which legal cases are dispensed off in our country (of course I win here!), I've decided to give this travel writing account in pieces, almost every day.
End of Chapter I
Comments
Btw - the Mayans are the ones laughing at us
And hahaha, funny link! May-be it was to be so.