Halebeedu - 5th Jan 2013

 Halebeedu

 

 5th Jan 2013

Next day I started, at about 6:30 AM for Halebeedu. Halebeedu, literally means ‘house of ruin’  was originally known as Dwarasamudra, .

The distance from Belur is 16 KMs and as soon the Sun was in my eyes as I was walking eastward. The air was refreshingly clean and as the terrain turned hilly the temperature dropped and shades increased. The place seemed to me an ornithologists’ delight though more and more eucalyptus trees are being planted and perhaps harvested also. There was little contact with people most of the way. Around 10 I reached Halebeedu, had breakfast and left my bag in the restaurant and walked to the Halebedu temple.

Stories in wall - Halebeedu

Halebedu is closer to my idea of Hoysala temple than Belur was. The absence of the wall around the temple and the façade belonging to another era could have been the reason. ASI (Archeological Society of India) has taken over most of the Hoyasala temples including the Halebeedu.         This is another temple that has been built over long period of time. There are Hindu and Jain sculptures. The Nandi is said to be one of the oldest.  When Halebeedu was being built, the wise men did not have the advantage of Donald Rumsfeld’s warning on the ‘unknown-unknown’ It came in the form of Malik Kafur on his way back from Kerala with his loot who destroyed Halebeedu, may be out of sheer habit.

The authorized guides tell the stories as a casual visitor would like to hear and one can sense the worn out sentences. The pillars, the multi-layered foundation of the temple, the stories told in stones all require personal visit. Lord Krishna lifting the ‘Govardhana giri’ is a masterful depiction in stone by an artist of very high caliber who has obviously enjoyed the work as much as we do. The one in which Ram shoots through seven trees is a novel idea in sculpturing. There is one in which a woman seems to be looking through a ‘telescope’ and another with ‘missiles’. So uncanny that someone could put in stone things that have not yet arrived in time.

Tired out, I went back to the restaurant, picked my backpack and returned to the vast lawn around the temple for a well-earned snooze.  By then I had not decided if I should stay at Halebedu and visit the ‘village’ that lay a few kilometers to the south or move on.

I was soon accosted by a group of children who wanted to try their English with me. They were little disappointed to know that I was not a ‘foreigner’

They wanted to know what my name was, where I come from, if I would take their pictures all simultaneously that the result was only a bundle of formless cackle of laughter and mirth. This is the first of my interactions with school children who were more than happy to befriend me. The mirth's timeline was before the notion of politically correct behavior with children had contaminated modern mind.

I slept under a tree with the sleeping bag as the pillow (the only use it was put in the entire walk) When I woke up, it was midday and I found myself amidst two or three sleeping dogs.

After finishing my lunch, I debated within myself if I should start walking towards Belavadi, another 15 kilometers away and decided to take a chance. The road to Belavadi turned to a dirt road after a few hundred meters, without any shade. I decided to walk through the coconut groves that lined the road and did that for the next hour or so. It was walking on uneven surface but was surely much cooler. After few hours of walk the road turned even and surfaced and the bite of sun was bearable. Distance to Belavadi was still some 8 Kilometers and toyed with the idea of finding a place to rest.