I had heard a lot over the years about the temples at Chamba and Bharmour in their mountainous Himalayan settings, so went in May to see them for myself … Continue reading
Tag Archives: temples
Jodhpur RIFF (and Jodhpur Straight Up)!
Early in October I traveled to Jodhpur (in Rajasthan state) for a couple of days to take in the RIFF – the Rajasthan International Folk Festival, a yearly five-day long music festival that brings together Rajasthan’s storied folk musicians with musicians from around India and the world. Continue reading
Shahjahanabad I: Khari Baoli & Katra Neel
A Brief History of Shahjahanabad
Carrying on with my Dilli Darshan posts, I’m going to put up a series of them about Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi). Shahjahanabad is the 17th century Mughal walled city that also contained the Mughal palace and court, and which was the occupied part of Delhi during the time the British took increasing control of the city throughout the first half of the 19th century. Which means that Shahjahanabad was what they took increasing control of, and was the core area that Delhi grew out of in the late 19th c. and throughout the 20th c. Continue reading
Tungnath idol procession video finally up!
When I wrote the post about my trip to the Himalayas earlier this year, I didn’t put up the video I took of a procession taking the Tungnath temple idol up from it’s winter “seat” to the temple itself, which was “opening” for the spring while I was there. I’ve finally put up the video, though it’s really grainy. Click here or on the image below to view the video, or go to the original post about my Tungnath trip. Keep the volume on your speakers up to hear the women’s wonderful singing! Continue reading
Temples in Technicolo(u)r
A while back at one of Delhi’s vanguard ethnic-chic stores, I found a novelty postcard on sale (very tongue-in-cheekily), with an image of a gaudily decorated goupram from the Sri Ranganathaswamy temple at Trichy in south India. I bought the postcard thinking the goupram must be uniquely kitschy in it’s sculpture and color palette, and was planning to post a scan of it on my blog as stand-alone kitsch. Here’s the postcard image: Continue reading
Bangalore & Somnathpur
Back in August I visited a friend in Bangalore, and while I did not have much time to explore the city, I took some on-the-fly photos of the places we drove by, through his car window. I wanted to get a sense of “contemporary” and “changing” Bangalore, i.e. the high-tech city that is supposed to be India’s answer to silicon valley. Continue reading
Hiking in the Garhwal Himalayas
I went for a solo hiking trip to the Garhwal Himalayas during end-Apr/early-May. The plan was to visit two temples that are middling pilgrimage destinations. I say middling because Garhwal has some of the most visited pilgrimage sites in India, and my two destinations were not among those! Continue reading
Jaunpur/Varanasi trip
As always, click on an image to go to its flickr set
I’ve wanted to visit the mosques at Jaunpur ever since I first read about them in the second or third year of architecture school. This is primarily for the oversized central pishtaqs (a protruding central element on the facade) on the main courtyard facades of the mosques. Since it makes sense to take a train to Varanasi to get to Jaunpur, I decided to visit Varanasi for the first time as well. Continue reading
Sarson ke Khet 