—Categories: culture, karnataka

Hampi Utsava

I was at the Hampi Utsava this year. Hampi Utsava is a cultural festival conducted every year by the Government of Karnataka at the heritage town of Hampi.

The first view of festival I had were not the most interesting. It was swarming with VIPs, politicians and the like and the security arrangements were too much for anyone to move around freely. There were inaugurations every day(!) attended by heads of the state which made things worse. Besides, the crowd was too big to find some peace anywhere. This actually prevented me from attending any of the cultural programs even though many of them seemed to be pretty interesting and watch-worthy.

Also see more about Hampi on paintedstork.com:
* A drive to Hampi.
* Hampi image gallery

As I heard from others who attended, the cultural shows were impressive and very much worth being there. Some one I spoke to described passionately of a play he saw the previous night. Looked at me pityingly and said – ‘you could not see that?’ I spent most of my time walking around the ruins. Highlight of our trip was camping at Matanga Parvata to see the magnificent sunrise from the top.

See the Hampi Photo Album from the trip.

Food at Hampi

You might be surprised to see the kind of food offered to you at any of the restaurants. You are more likely to find pancakes, pasta or bread-toast than idli and vada in the main Bazaar area. No restaurant in Hampi serves alcohol and non-vegetarian food. Not to be missed in Hampi is the Mango Tree restaurant located inside plantain orchards and facing the river on the lane behind Viroopaksha temple. The ambience is excellent and the food is a good match to the ambience.

—Categories: book review

Book Review – Into the High Ranges

Publishers: Penguin Books
Pages: 239

Into the high ranges is a collection of short stories of travelling into the mountains written by various authors and edited by Ravina Aggarwal. The book contains many interesting stories – some about people going into the mountains to explore them, some of them living there and many more journeys with many more purpose.

The collection notably includes stories from Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of Tenzing Norgay attempting to climb Mt Everest, Ruskin Bond’s romancing with the alpine trees, Allan Sealy’s short write-up which includes stories on terrifying leeches.

The stories cover many aspects which includes travelling into the mountains of India all the way from South to North, environment issues, culture and anthropology of people of the mountains. The book offers an excellent collection of stories and is worth a read for anyone with faintest interest in travelling and life in the mountains.