Nonavinekere 8th Jan 2013

 Nonavinekere

8^th Jan 2013

Next morning caught the first bus to Turuvekere, stopping at Nonavinekere, where I thought there was a Hoysala temple, which was on the way to Turuvekere.  The bus ran along a very large tank and stopped at Nonavinekere. I limped into the village and all I could see was a locked and very ‘Dravidian’ temple which apparently had ample funding, a large list of Patrons, but little attendance. Nonavinekere was one of the earlier ‘Agraharas’ of Hebbar Iyengars who have built an agrarian economy. Obviously, most of the descendants, with education in Engineering, have gone to different parts of the world, whose names still appear in the list of patrons, a sign that not everyone has forgotten their roots. I am aware of many such people who get back, especially during the temple festival days that contribute to continuation of ties and roots.  The temple (Gopala Swamy temple) even predates Hoysala, is from Chalukya period. I got an idea of how long ago the ‘Agrahara’ as a community had settled around that area.

The ‘priest’ was nowhere to be seen. I, with the sore heel walked back to the bus stop, without getting a chance to get into the temple.

 There was a village south of Nonavinekere called ‘Vignasante’ in which, I had written, there was a Hoysala period temple. I was unwilling to walk that 6 Kilometers and decided to skip it. I did not know that fate was scheming to usurp my camera by tricking me to go back to ‘Vignasante’