Few yarns of our Hampi tale

Pooping pigeon. The onset of our Hampi trip a pigeon pooping accurately on the only printout we had about Hampi. The page we were looking at: where to stay at Hampi. We planned to be backpackers..and were deciding on where to stay at that very last moment. And the poop did not matter, we tore the paper around the poop and moved on.

The TVS Excel. We rented a moped to behold the scattered ruins in and around Hampi. At Rs.150 per day and couple of liters of petrol we covered the entire Hampi town. To start with my travel mate had to make sure he could ride the bike. The bike was at its best and neither did the hot pre-winter sun nor did our novice-ness in navigating impact our ride.

Venkatesh. Our little guide during our second day sojourn in Hampi. He was physically tiny for a 15 year old boy. We bumped into Venkatesh, this post-card selling boy early in the day. We had just started a small trek to see a few scattered ruins around the river. This boy explained the relevance of Ramayana and its significance among the ruins in his own words. The naively adulterated words he used jolted us. The terms we don’t use like lovers, villain, ran away, especially when we talk about our religiously guarded epics. He has customized his words to suit his profession and his customers – the people from foreign countries who visit places like Hampi to get a slice of the India that has been portrayed to the ‘big-brother’ nations. His was a sad story… orphaned at an early age he lives now to live. Cheers Venkatesh!

Colonized. India once was. But, pockets like Hampi are still very colonized, not by force of a powerful nation, but by choice offered by the numerable faiths and religions from various nations. The locals cater so much to the non-Indian travelers that they seem to have imbibed the language, food, culture – to an extent. The locals are at ease greeting people and exchanging pleasantries.

Lonely Planet. This book has a mention in almost every other name-board of a restaurant or home stay/lodge.

Others. Our routine idli-chutney breakfast, that pretty much woke me up every morning. The ‘goli’ soda that is not a very common sight anymore was around in Hampi.
The beauty of the twilight and the dimming light by the river side near the Virupaksha temple. The small winding inroads with many hidden pathways, the sheltered and relaxing Mango Tree restaurant, the customized coffees and teas that is made on order, the long stretches of roads without traffic lights, the few road humps, the empty roads sans traffic and the tranquility in the nonexistence of corporates, the sprawling expanse of cultivated land and the rickety mopeds and empty buses… Hampi is still not so far from the madding crowd.