STORIES IN STONE – THE HINDU TEMPLE OF ABU DHABI

As one cruises along the Sheikh Zayed Highway and takes a deviation at Abu Mureikha, some 30 minutes from the city of Abu Dhabi, UAE, one can spot the Baps Hindu Mandir in the distance like a mirage rising over the gleaming desert sands. 

The closer you approach it, the architectural marvel towers over and above you, its 7 spires set majestically against the blue cloudless sky.  As I stood gazing at the stupendously carved stone structure on a warm morning in March 2024, I remembered a previous post of mine written 3 years ago in 2021 – A temple in Abu Dhabi – a mirage or a miracle . The idea for the post had been conceived in the exact spot, as I stood in front of the about-to-be-constructed temple, then. I was as emotional and awe struck as the rest of the visitors back then, to be witnessing history in the making. For, just a few years back, who in their wildest dreams could ever have imagined a HINDU temple in the heart of the harsh and unrelenting deserts of the Gulf!

This time around, with a special visit permit arranged for us by one of the volunteers – Shri Padmanabha Acharya and a friendly and well-informed young guide accompanying us around the temple premises, to the concluding meeting with the temple-in-charge Shri Umesh Raj inside the cool interiors of the temple majlis, the entire visit was a divine one, and an eye-opener!

My eyes certainly grew round and wide and moist as I gazed at the intricate carvings on the pillars, on the walls and high up on the ceilings; and my breath caught as I listened to the guide explaining the significance of each stone. I realised then that even a stone has its own destiny in the large scheme of things.

In the temple, every single stone is there with a purpose, fulfilling its destiny. If stones can tell stories, then collectively, these meticulously carved pink and white stones tell us beautiful stories – stories of mythology, of legends and of spirituality.

The mandir draws inspiration from the Vedic architecture, sculpture and philosophy, yet it incorporates the culture and ideology of the very land it stands upon. It is a strong and bold testimony to the cordial relations between two nations – India and the UAE. A symbol of love, respect and gratitude from both sides – from the thousands, nay millions of Indians who have crossed its threshold over the years and made the UAE their home, benefitting immensely in the process and from the locals who realised and appreciated the vast contribution of these very people, in the growth of their country.

Besides being a place of worship, the temple serves as a guiding light to the path forward to a new world – a world of inclusivity, of tolerance, of harmony and peaceful co-existence.

The Baps Hindu Mandir, the 1st traditional Hindu temple in the Gulf, is truly a mirage for the past, a miracle for the present and a torch bearer for the future.

image courtesy : Dr. Gururaj Sharma

My Saregama connection with Shankar Mahadevan!

If there’s one wish and desire that I’ve had since donkey’s years, it is to be able to sing; and not just sing, but sing well. 

When I watch the dozen or so music reality shows on TV, where mere babies totter out from their mother’s wombs right on to stage and belt out melodious numbers, I am always deeply impressed, a tad bit envious and all fired up. If they can do it, why can’t I, is the fond belief that courses through my veins.

However, in the world there are some people who are born singers, some are not. While friends, relatives and close neighbours will swear on the holy Bhagwad Gita that I belong to the latter category, I humbly beg to differ. I do believe I have a teeny bit of Tansen buried deep within me just waiting to emerge out at the right place, at the right time. And with the right music instructor to guide me, I’m positive I can hit all the right notes, from ground level upwards.

Read more: My Saregama connection with Shankar Mahadevan!

Finding the right music teacher is the easy part; getting the right notes out of me is the real challenge. As would vouch the string of instructors who came, saw, but could not conquer, through the years. I failed to strike the right chord with any of them.

Until my last instructor – the final one in my quest for a musical mentor who would draw out, if not a Tansen then at least a Himesh Reshammiya, from me. Jai maata di, let’s rock!

This teacher came highly recommended by a friend of mine who was privy to my musical aspirations. She set up a meeting between us. On the appointed day, I spent the morning gargling with warm water laced with cinnamon, a concoction guaranteed to clear the mists from my vocal chords, thus enabling my voice to attain heights as high as the Qutb Minar.

My music teacher turned out to be a pleasant lady in her mid 30s or thereabouts, newly shifted to Abu Dhabi upon her marriage. We hit it off instantly, Guru and shishya, not musically though, but otherwise. We met religiously twice a week in her apartment; and … we gossiped. In the hour long class, I yodelled for approximately 15 minutes and the rest of the time she filled me in on her life stories. By the end of a month, I was still on the first note – sa. While we still had six more to go, I knew her entire autobiography, well almost. Apparently, she hailed from Mumbai and had learnt music from a reputed singer there.

Two or three months into our sessions, my music teacher informed me casually that Shankar Mahadevan and she had learnt music from the same teacher in Mumbai. I stopped braying and gasped. Shankar Mahadevan? THE Shankar Mahadevan? Was I actually attempting to learn singing from someone who had that musical genius as a classmate! My oh my, I thought to myself, feeling quite breathless.

Subsequently, on my next visit to India, I couldn’t help mentioning this point to a couple of people and before I knew it, the news had spread far and wide. More wide than far, I realised when relatives starting congratulating me on this amazing news.

“I hear you’re learning singing from Shankar Mahadevan himself!” said one relative.

“What? Who? When?” I said, gaping at him. Talk about distortion of facts!

No amount of denying, explaining or clarifying could undo this breaking news and I gave it up after a bit. Not long after, I gave up music classes as well, when my teacher left town, leaving me hanging somewhere between madhyam and pancham.

If only she had stayed until I could complete all 7 notes! Then maybe I could have just gotten away with claiming that I was part of Team Shakti that won the Grammy recently.

I am after all Shankar Mahadevan’s disciple, remember!

Duh! Or should I try and say dha?

🙂

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This post was first published under my column The Witty Wordsmith in the Times of India.

MLAs, resorts and our family trip

‘16 MLAs have been shifted from Bihar to the Taj resort in Hyderabad.’  I read in the newspaper.

And why this generous holiday in a posh resort for people whose job profile is anyway one long all-paid holiday? To prevent poaching, apparently! A calculated move that happens whenever new alliances are being forged or a government is being formed, or whatever.

Ah, well! Be that as it may, when I read this bit of news, you know what struck me instantly? No, no … lightening did not, but the one thought that struck me quite like lightening was – how do they do it?

Read more: MLAs, resorts and our family trip

I mean, with so many people involved, how do they all manage to be on the same page?  First of all, who’s in charge of the project? Who actually decides where to go, as in which of the cities in which of the 28 states in the whole country? And what about the resort? Who gets to pick this? And was there an instant consensus among all 16 MLAs on what amenities and facilities they would like in said resort?

These important and pertinent questions crossed my mind as I folded the newspaper.

Because, you see, in a wee little family like ours, we are unable to take a unanimous decision on any occasion. And we’re only four members, mind you! We cannot decide together, even as simple a thing as which restaurant we should go to for our Sunday lunch, without arguments, name-calling and sometimes mild fisticuffs too, if allowed!

I throw the million-dollar question – where are we having lunch today, right after the breakfast things are cleared, and every one instantly fishes out their mobile and starts to search for possible restaurants, fast foods, dabbas and darshinis!  Suggestions from all members flow thick and fast which are rejected by the other members just as thick and fast!

While all this goes on with no consensus in the near horizon, I quietly enter the kitchen and start lunch preparations. An answer has been found to that million dollar question – we’re having lunch in our own home after all!

And this is just a lunch date!

A few years back, we decided to go on a short trip. Just us four. As a family.

The 1^st point that we could not decide on was – when to go! You would think the four of us would find a common ground – at least one week out of the 52 weeks in the whole year? But no, every second of those 31, 536, 000 seconds of the year has already been accounted for, by each member. After consulting diaries, planners, calendars and even horoscopes if I remember right, we managed to squeeze out a whole week for the planned trip. Hurrah!

Once that hurdle had been crossed, next on the to-be-decided list was where to go. The boys went all exotic of course – Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Madagascar … Madagas … where in heavens is that, I asked, surreptitiously hunting out my tattered school atlas.

“It’s on earth, mom!” assured one son, while the other opened his mobile to show me Madagascar on the map. I closed the Atlas and sat on it.

And the discussions continued!

Finally, after weeks of back-ing and forth-ing it was all decided, without a war breaking out in the house – when, where, how to go and what we would do when we got there.

As the weeks rolled by, preparations for the grand trip were set in motion and even the normally taciturn and laconic twins caught the excitement and anticipation fever from me. And oh, in case I omitted to mention, we were all set to fly out to Scotland, the four of us!

The eve of the journey, finally. Just as I sat on my suitcase in preparation to locking it, we got a cryptic message from one son, on our family WhatsApp – my visa rejected! Frantic phone calls revealed that his visa had indeed been rejected at the last minute, for unknown reasons and the long and short of it was that out of the initial four, only three made it to Scotland and back.

Batao!

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This post was first published under my column The Witty wordsmith in the Times of India.

In fond memory of my doddappa!

We, the Sharmas of Kappettu, have a war veteran in our family – my doddappa, a kind and loving soul and an inspiration to the Sharmas of Kappetu and all who knew him.

Late Shri Rajagopala Sharma, my dad’s eldest brother, was born on 4^th Dec, 1921. Living in Trivandrum where his parents, (my grandparents) lived at the time, he began contributing to the family’s meagre income right from the tender age of 12. He would proceed to the pond in front of the famed Shri Ananthapadmanabha temple, Trivandrum, in the early hours of the morning, take a dip in the holy waters and then sit in the temple corridors, distributing teerth and Gandha – holy water and sandal paste – to the many devotees who thronged the temple. The coins which some of them dropped into the tray in front of him would be his day’s earnings which he would hand over to his mother before rushing off to school.

A few years later, when my grand parents decided to leave Trivandrum and return to our native land of Udupi, they left behind a young and impressionable Rajagopala, then just a lad of 15/16 years, at Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu as an apprentice in a photo studio. The hard-working and diligent boy, he took no time to learn the nuances of photography and soon his dedication and talent impressed the owner enough for the latter to name the studio after him – Raj photo studio.

However, with only experience and no wages for all his hard work, his father called him back. The eldest of 8 offspring, consisting of 5 boys and 3 girls,  carrying the load of responsibility on his slim shoulders, out of utter poverty and sheer desperation, the young man looked beyond the fields of his home in Kappettu, Udupi.

The winds of change were already blowing across the country then and with the strong pre-independence movement sweeping through even the remote and fairly unseen and unheard of little town of Udupi, the man decided to follow the call of the country. In the year 1942, at the age of 21, young Rajagopala left home with two of his close cousins, to join the army, without informing their respective families as they were sure permission would be denied.

After completing his initial training with the Madras Regiment in Wellington, Ooty, he was inducted into the Electrical and Mechanical Division of the Indian Army. He was forthwith dispatched to Malaysia for active war service.

The young recruits travelled in a cargo ship for 7 days suffering many hardships on the way, unused as they were to the rigorous life style. They journeyed from Madras to Penang, Malaysia and joined the Indian Army as part of the Allied Forces fighting against the Japanese in the 2^nd World War. They moved from Malaysia to Burma to Nagaland in the course of the war, all the while remaining incommunicado from their family for security purposes. He would later recount some of his war escapades to his family, among which was how they had to survive in the thick and dangerous jungles of Burma, surviving only on an erratic supply of tinned food and condensed milk sent over from England.

By 1945, when the war ended, the strange new lands, harsh conditions, extreme exhaustion and a severe bout of malaria all took its toll and a tired and home-sick Rajagopala was admitted in the Community Hospital in Dacca, Bangladesh where he took nearly 4 months to recover.

Under pressure from his father, he left the army in 1947 and returned to his native town of Udupi where he joined a transport company as a mechanic. However, his work there and the pittance that he was earning did nothing to help his family. Meanwhile, news reached him that the Ammunition Factory at Pune was looking to hire interested candidates and Raj dodappa decided to try his luck there. His earnest and humble nature and with the added bonus of his previous experience at the army, helped him secure a job in the Quality Control Department at the Ammunition Factory at Khadakwasla, Pune. The factory was then one of the biggest small-arms factory in the whole of Asia, under the Ministry of Defence, where he served for 28 long years.

It was no easy job.

Besides a 12 hour demanding work schedule, the workers were required to put in overtime hours without even the regular holidays, to meet the supply of the ever-growing demands for arms and ammunitions due to the frequent wars of 1962, 1965 and 1971.

His expertise and experience with machines did not go unnoticed and Raj dodappa received recognition and awards for innovations and improvements in production lines. He was very popular among his colleagues and the authorities, and he was often called in to other ordnance factories in India for consultations and advice for repair and restore war machinery, even after his retirement.

Later he moved to Udupi and settled down in Ambalpady, but he was still addressed by his various nieces and nephews as Pune doddappa! He was actively involved in all the activities of the Maha Kali and Janardhana temple at Ambalpady and endeared himself here too.

With a slender and slight figure, Raj dodappa always had this gentle smile on his face even when he lost most of his hearing in his later years and could not participate in the noise and conversations at family gatherings.

He passed away peacefully on 23rd Jan, 2017, at the ripe age of 96 in the arms of his patient and loving daughter-in-law.

A more gentle, humble, undemanding, warm and loving personality than our beloved Pune doddappa I am yet to encounter and he remains forever a source of inspiration to us all.

On the 75^th Republic Day of our country, a day to remember and honour our real heroes, I simply felt like sharing this write up dedicated to him.

What jhumka? I said it first, before Alia Bhat.

My jhumka gira re! Yes, it really did. One minute it was dangling merrily from my ear, the next, it wasn’t.

Now, if you’ll are dying to know what jhumka, like Alia Bhat wanted to know in that film Rocky aur Rani ki prem kahani, then you jolly well have to humour me and listen to the full story.

Read more: What jhumka? I said it first, before Alia Bhat.

So, there was a wedding in the extended family some months back, obviously the culmination of a niece and her boyfriend ki prem kahani and it was happening in Bangalore. To do justice to the occasion, I took a good 2 hours to get ready, at the end of which, I emerged out of my boudoir decked in my finest pattu saree and the requisite jewellery – bangles, earrings and to complete the ensemble, a big fat necklace, which doubled up as an anchor and kept my head from floating adrift.

If I had expected gasps of admiration or whistles of appreciation from the family when I swished into the living room – no show. Nothing, nowt, rien! The 3 men had their heads buried deep in their mobiles, so I straightened up from my diva pose and coughed significantly. The husband looked up and merely said “Ready? I’ll call an auto.”

And I said, “What auto?? I am not going bouncing through Bangalore’s dusty polluted roads in an auto and arrive at the wedding like Anjulika. Or is it Manjulika? Whatever!”

So, an Ola was booked and we piled in and journeyed for what seemed like forever from one end of Bangalore to the other.

“The newly-weds will have left for their honeymoon,” remarked one son, an hour into the journey.

“Oh!” exclaimed the other. “Won’t there be any dinner then?”

However, despite the genuine concerns, the wedding shebang was going great guns when we finally arrived at destination. There they were, the happy couple, getting thoroughly married with the priest doing his thing on the glittering stage, while below, there was happy chatter and loud music. It was all so like a mela; only the balloon seller and the fortune teller were missing. And the giant wheel too, of course!

The wedding guests jostled their way up and down the stage or to the dining hall and amidst all that, things got a bit more exciting when one relative stared keenly at me and said, “Where’s your jhumka?”

And I automatically said, “What jhumka?” And I put a hand up to my ear.

And sure enough where was my jhumka? One heavy gold jhumka had fallen off not in Bareilly ke bazaar mein but in a crowded shaadi ka mandap in Bangalore.

Oh, the excitement, I tell you! The world went into slow-mo, the entire hall echoed with ‘what jhumka’ and everyone began looking hither and tither. Even the priest stopped chanting his mantras and the photo and videographer leapt off the stage to lend their services.

Someone advised me to jump and I took a few leaps like a baby kangaroo and one guy dived at my feet. I almost said, “Vijayi bhava!” but it turned out he was not there for the blessings. An instant later, he emerged victoriously, with the glittering earring in his hand.

Apparently, it had come undone, got entangled in the folds of my Kanjeevaram saree and finally fell off when I took that leap of faith.

Ah, what joy, what relief! The world went back to its business, the priest to his chanting and wedding bells chimed once again for the couple.

I put the earrings into my purse and forgot all about the incident until Alia Bhat made a song and dance about her jhumka, which incidentally never even fell off, if you notice carefully!

Mine did and it’s all legit, so can I sue KJo and team for using that line?

And don’t ask me – what line! Or I’ll start the story all over again! Ha!

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This post was first published under my column The Witty Wordsmith in the Times of India.