Didaga
The
walk to Didaga was a long one and it was already a late and I pushed along. I
passed a school along the way and as soon as I did, the bell rang. In about 20 minutes there were
about 30 to 50 children gaining on me, and they all shouted and
ran after me and joined, out of unadulterated curiosity. Again the children
were extremely friendly and asked my name (“What is your name?”) and I always
answer it with “it does not matter”, more to provoke them into asking more
questions or to make them ask the same question in different ways. I asked how
far Didaga was and they answered it was another 8 Kilometers. I knew I do not
have much time. There were 5 girls who were going further along the same route
as mine and I started walking even faster and the girls chatted with me, told their
names, classes they attend. We walked another 30 minute or so till the last
girl dropped off. I, as we tried our utmost to make each other understand, wondered
how safe it is for these girls to travel alone all by themselves at that time
of the day. Left over from modern living. Perhaps, none from that place ever
gave it a thought. Such safety was a given thing, perhaps.
After the last girl dropped off, I saw an auto
standing in a small farm house. I thought that the auto could have come to drop
goods and walked into the farm, engaged the auto and asked him to rush to Didaga.
On reaching the temple, I was really sad to see the condition of the temple,
which could fall down any time. I pulled down my back pack and opened the
camera bag only to find the camera missing. I had left it in ‘Vignasante’
 |
| Didaga - In ruin |
I quickly offered the auto a handsome rent to
take me back to ‘Vignasante’. As we rode towards ‘Vignasante’ I was wondering
about the chances of recovering the camera, which was expensive from Indian standard,
equivalent of about USD 800. The thought of losing all the shots I had taken in
the earlier walk depressed me further. As a contingency, I made plan as to how
to return home and also planned how to approach Police. The auto chugged along
and after about 40 minutes or so, we reached the temple. The caretaker was
nowhere to be seen. My heart sank. The only connection between me and the
camera had vanished because the camera was left where I had the conversation
with the caretaker. I climbed up the
steps and only the contractors were there, almost packing to go home. One of
them casually shouted nonchalantly to the crane driver to “give that camera”. I
stood rooted to the spot, reveling in the good fortune the day has brought and
the misfortune I was protected against. Today was a high dividend day.
I
returned to Tiptur with a plan to go and spend the night in Chennarajapatnam,
from where I planned to visit Nuggehalli and Nagalapura the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment