My first Badari Yaatra - Part 3 - 07/11/2024

Day – 3 (07/11/2024)

Our second day's itinerary: Rudra Prayag, Karna Temple, Bairaskund, Lakshmi Narayana Temple - Gulabkoti, Kalpeshwar, Dhyan Badari, Vrudh Badari, Joshimath Night Halt. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we had to drop Karna Temple, Kalpeshwar, Dhyan Badari & Vrudha Badari, from the second day's plan but we visited all of these (except Karna Temple) in the subsequent days.

Recap of second day's places of visit: Karna Prayag, Bairaskund & Lakshmi Narayana Temple -Gulabkoti and reached Joshimath's Neelkant Hotel for the night halt.

Plan for the third day: Narasingh Mandir, Dronagiri View Point, Bhavishya Badari, Auli Hanuman Mandir, Vishu Prayag, Yogdhyan Badari, Kuber Temple, Badari Kshethra (Shayana Aarti) and night halt. Tall order this. Let's see what can we achieve!

Hop on with us for a virtual tour of our Day 3 activities.

This morning, after our first routine of coffee and bath, we shifted the bigger luggage to one of the rooms we retained, as we intended to return to this place after our Badari Yaatra. The previous evening, we had packed our 2-3 sets of clothing and other stuff to take us through for the next night and two days and packed it into our 'limousine'.  

First, we went to Narasimha temple to witness the abhisheka to the main deity. The deity’s Saligrama idol is a sight to behold! The left hand of the deity has grown thin and legend goes that if it shrinks fully, both Badri and Kedarnath will become inaccessible.

Alongside this, there are a few other idols too of Kubera, Uddhava, Hanuman, Ganesha, Garuda, etc. There is a Maa Lakshmi temple opposite this main temple. 

Once Badari closes for the winter, the deity from Badari is housed in this temple and pooja will be performed for the next six months till the temple in Badari reopens.

There were many idols (face only) housed in another building in the complex. These were gathered from various other locations here. 

Sequentially, they were Lord Badari Narayana (below the Lord is Garuda), His mother Maata Murti,  further Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara, Hiranya Kashyapu, Nag and Nagin, Shiva & Parvati, Narasimha, Suryanarayana, Kali Maa, Ravan, Rama, Lakshmana, Seetha, Swarna Mriga and few unidentified ones. The lock of hair of Goddess Durga can be seen too. 

     

    

                    

The complex also houses Maa Kali, Garuda and other deities in separate temples. Special mention needs to be made of the idol depicting ‘Parvathi Parinaya’ (betrothal of Parvathi and Shiva) as Sumithra found this most fascinating.

From here we moved on to Tapovan, where we had our breakfast while waiting for our smaller vehicle to take us to Bhavishya Badari (future Badari) near Subhai. In the years gone by, there was no motorable road to this place and one was forced to trek around 14 km from Tapovan. As the prophecy goes, the existing Badari would become inaccessible and this would replace it. 

After an easy climb of 300 mts, we reached the temple and beheld the swayambhu (self-forming) idol of the Lord.  

 

For comparison of how the idol has been evolving since it was discovered, Suma Aunty had a copy of the idol’s picture taken by her in 2010 (first three pics) and also the view of the temple's entrance then, when she visited over a decade ago and now is clearly distinguishable. We could distinctly see the features being formed, particularly of the hands on the Lord's idol and also that of Kali and Ganesha alongside. Also being formed is the idol of Maa Lakshmi (identifiable as a crown placed on her head).  One of the legs is partially visible while the other is being formed. There is water under the idol where the feet are being formed although there is no source of it near the temple. 

We performed pooja through the priest here, offered naivedya and clad it with the traditional ‘shalya’ as was being done in all the temples we visited. 

Just 2 km down the hill is the temple housing Lakshmi Narayana. We had a chat with the priest over there and he narrated that Adi Shankara who installed the idols here suggested that a temple be built for the idols as this place will occupy the importance of Bhavishya Badari. The ancient idols were removed from the old building and placed in a temporary structure as the main temple is under construction in place of the old temple building. This temple is a part of the Badari-Kedar Administration and follows the same rules as is prevalent there. Though this was supposed to be the Bhavishya Badari, the Lord had different plans as he chose the place a bit higher in the mountains than the one that was thus readied. 

Below is the picture of Lord Lakshmi Narayana.

                                    

Skipping our lunch, we proceeded past Badarinath to Mana village – hitherto known as the last village of India. This was corrected to be perceived as the ‘First Village of India’ by the current government. From the parking spot, we went on foot through the footway that had various shops selling their woolen wares and tea, etc., on either side. We came to a fork where one led to the caves of Lord Ganesh and Maharshi Veda Vyasa while the other led to the place of origin of the Saraswathi River that joins the Alakananda River downstream. We took the second one to see the origin of the Saraswathi river where we could see the roaring river flow down. The lovely idol of Goddess Saraswathi is located close to this and also in a temple dedicated to her with idols of Lords Dattatreya, Vittala and Goddess Rukhmayi, Sants Meera, Tukharam and Tulsidas. There is an idol of Maharshi Vedavyas at the entrance of this temple.

It is believed that Pandavas crossed the river here on their way to ascend to heaven. Bhima placed a huge rock across the river for them to cross (as they didn't want to wade through by touching the holy river with their feet). This bridge is aptly called Bhim Pul (Pul in Hindi, means bridge). The idols of Pandavas have been installed to signify their ascension to heaven from here. As per Mahabharata, only Yudishtira went bodily to heaven while the other Pandavas and Draupadi had to leave their physical bodies behind.

Then we visited the caves alluded to earlier. Maharshi Vyasa's cave (gufa in Hindi) is a prominent one. It was here that the Maharshi Vyas narrated the story of Mahabharata to Lord Ganesh who wrote it on palm leaves. The first three pics were taken by Suma Aunty in 2016. The condition put forth by Lord Ganesha was that Maharshi Vyas must not stop narrating at any point. It is said that the Lord wrote brisky with both hands. The Sage agreed and put a counter-condition to the Lord that he will narrate the Shlokas and the Lord must write it down with all attention towards the meaning and substance of it. Maharshi Vyasa scripted many Puranas and other scriptures here, on palm leaves. It is believed that these leaves are still in existence and since it was feared that the scriptures on the leaves would be stolen, he converted all those into stones. We can see the rock formed in layers even now, signifying the presence of these leaves. The original idols of Vishnu, Vedavyas, Shukacharya and Vallabhacharya are still found in this cave and a new idol of Vedavyas has been installed. A few hundred steps down this cave is Lord Ganesha's cave, which houses his idol too. Pictures of the same can be seen below.

         

       

          

It was getting late for our scheduled Shayan Aarti and we rushed towards Badarinath. We checked into Hotel Charan Paduka for the night, refreshed and started towards the temple for our appointment with the Lord. 

Just before that, we met with the Pandits who would guide us in performing the Pinda Pradhaan the next morning. Suma Aunty had pre-arranged for this through her known sources. Quite a resourceful lady!

As mentioned earlier, this was my first visit to these places and I was still in awe of all these places. What a sight it was to see the Badarinath Temple in all its glory and lighting! We walked our way through a steep climb down towards the entrance and crossed the bridge over river Alakananda while feasting our eyes on the splendour of the temple!

        

                  

                  

                  

                             

Kamadhenu, Lord Hanuman, Kshetrapal (protector of the place, a local deity), Lord Ganesh, Goddess Mahalakshmi and an idol of Adi Shankara flank the sanctum sanctorum of the main temple. There were intricate carvings of other idols too. 

While waiting for the Shayana Aarti, we met a young lady, Suman and her daughter Srishti. They were enquiring about the seva one can do here and other related information and we guided her to check with the Ticketing Office. Apparently, they are from nearby Srinagar (near Rudra Prayag) now settled in New Delhi. Incidentally, this was their first trip to Badarinath. Despite the crowd, we bumped into each other almost half a dozen times during our short stay in Badari for a night and half a day, despite the reasonable thick crowd. Providence!

We managed to have Darshana of the Lord Badarinath a couple of times before we were called out to assemble in front of the Lord for the Shayan Aarti.

The magical moment to be with the Lord finally arrived!

The reverberating sounds of bells during the Shayana Aarti filled the sanctum sanctorum and are still ringing and fresh in my ears! Oh, by the way, no photography is allowed in the sanctum of the temple and a person who braved to test the rule by taking a picture of the Lord, was relieved of his mobile phone instantly, by the authorities. The crowd beheld the Vishwaroopa Darshana of the Moola Moorthy of Lord Badarinath, anointed with sandal paste as the alankaras were removed.

Post Aarati, we proceeded to the hotel and before retiring for the night, kept all items ready for the next day’s pitru kaarya that the three gents performed for our departed ancestors. 

A bit of a tale about the night Anil and I spent in our room – There were neither enough warm blankets nor was equipped with a heater. Additionally, sometime around 1-ish, we heard someone grunting or snoring so loudly that I woke up with a start to find the origin of this monstrous decibel of a sound. It was like a pig’s loud grunt (I don't think there are pigs here) but sounded like a snore. I discovered an open window behind the movable wardrobe and shut it to give us some relief from the bitter cold and the sound. Well, the temperature was close to a negative number that night.

Plan vs. Actual:

We couldn't visit Dronagiri View Point, Auli Hanuman Mandir, Vishu Prayag, Yogdhyan Badari, Kuber Temple, due to paucity of time, nevertheless, as an out-of-syllabus activity, we visited Mana village and the places it held (Saraswathi river's origin, Maharshi Vyas Gufa and Lord Ganesh Gufa). We planned to visit Hanuman Chatti, Yogdhyana Badari and a few others on the return to Joshimath.

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Camp Coordinates: Hotel Charan Paduka. Address: Bus Stand, Behind, Mana Pass Rd, Badrinath,

Uttarakhand 246422. 

Mobile No. :+91-9368959362     Email: info@charanpaduka.com.    

Mobile No.: +91-9389514166     Email: info@hotelcharanpaduka.com

https://maps.app.goo.gl/SUBW3fsM4mpJ2bie6

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Continued..... in Part 4

My first Badari Yaatra - Part 2 - 06/11/2024

 Day – 2 (06/11/2024)

Our previous day's itinerary: Visit Bharat Mandir at Rishikesh and the night halt at Dev Prayag. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we had to drop this from the first day's plan.

Plan for the second day: Rudra Prayag, Karna Prayag, visit to Karna temple, Bairaskund, Gulabkoti - Lakshmi Narayana temple, Kalpeshwar, Dhyan Badari, Vrudh Badari and reach Joshimath for night halt.

Let me narrate our Day 2 activities:

This morning, we woke up early and were greeted by the ever-ready coffee maker, Suma Aunty, as we had our first cuppa before bath (this became our routine for the rest of our trip) and then had a breakfast of Aloo Parathas (Suma Aunty had her muesli), with a cup of masala tea.

Our first halt was at Karnaprayag to aid Anil in scouting hotel accommodations, for his proposed tour next year. While Anil and Suma Aunty were at it, we found our way to reach the holy confluence of the Pindar Ganga and Alakananda rivers and had a ‘prokshane’ of its waters.

Confluence of Pindar Ganga and Alakananda rivers

Different views of the confluence

Hereon, we went to Saankari village, Kwirali also known as Bairaskund (a distance of around 45 km from Karna Prayag), where legend goes that the 10-headed mighty Ravana cut off his head one by one, in the Kund (tank) in front of the ancient temple, to beget a boon from Lord Shiva and succeeded in getting it from the Lord. We could see the place where Ravana used to perform Sandhyavandana. There are temples of Lord Vishnu, Shanidev, Lord Ganesha, Maa Parvathi and the Shivalinga in the main temple was the one worshipped by the mighty Ravana. It is said that the Shivalinga has the outlines of both Lord Shiva and Maa Parvathi. The impression of Ravana's ten hands too, can be seen on one of the rocks. 

This place is quite a distance and elevation from Karnaprayag and the roads were challenging (mainly due to rain damage) to our big vehicle. The temple has remained untouched by any modernity and continues to exist with its ancient structure of slate roof and stone walls.          

           Old temple at Bairskund                        The pond where Ravana used to cut 

                                                                                off his head while doing penance

                Impressions of Ravana's 10 hands          Place where Ravana used to perform                                                                                                                         Sandhyavandana

                                        

                                   Lord Vishnu                              Lord Ganesh

                                Lord Shani                            Maa Durga

 

Mural of Ravana's Penance       Shiva Linga with outlines of Parvathi and Shiva          

Suma Aunty kept tracking the package couriered by her twice a day.

After Bairaskund, we started to explore other places in our daily itinerary. We encountered road blockage due to landslides and the authorities could pave the way for a single carriageway as we started from Karna Prayag. We refueled at a petrol pump, on the way to Joshimath, where we negotiated to hire a smaller vehicle (due to the narrow roads) to visit the ancient Lakshmi Narayana Temple at Gulabkoti. The legend goes that there was a competition between two neighbouring Kings as to who would build the most beautiful temple. While one of the Kings built this temple, he was prevented by the other King’s evil intents (who saw this temple and was jealous of his counterpart’s accomplishment) who conspired to kill the King and his courtiers. No further details on this.

Way to the temple                      Lakshmi Narayana temple views          

The temple is approachable only by foot and the vehicles could only drop us around 100 mts below. Added, the dusk was fast approaching and we had to hasten with our visit. Despite this, by the time we finished our visit to the temple, it was quite dark and we had to use our mobile phone torches to aid us climb down.

We then proceeded towards Joshimath for the night stay at Hotel Neelkanth – a distance of around 80 km from Karnaprayag. The night’s dinner was our typical ‘Saaru-Anna’ and curd rice.

Plan vs. Actual:

We couldn't visit Karna Temple as we were busy helping Anil in scouting for his forthcoming activity (yes, I know that's a flimsy reason), nevertheless, as an out-of-syllabus activity, we had a close look at the holy confluence and had a shower of its waters. Due to the road conditions to and from Bairskund, we lost a lot of time and couldn't get to see Kalpeshwar, Dhyan Badri and Vrudha Badari (but Suma Aunty was determined, like the legendary King Vikramaditya of 'Vikram and Betaal' fame and she planned our visit to these places, post our Badari visit).

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Camp Coordinates: Hotel Neelkanth - T.C.P. Bazar, Joshimath, Uttarakhand 246443

Phone:+919634367500  

https://maps.app.goo.gl/xiNbXhNfb678Xwqv8

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Continued..... in Part 3

My first Badari Yaatra - Part 1 - 05/11/2024

 Prologue:

This was my first ever visit to this holiest of holy places for Sanaatanis. The idea came from Suma Aunty sometime around June and I just said ‘Yes’, without a second thought or as much as a blink! She said that one of her known persons, Anil, wanted to scout the places for him to organise a discourse trip next year. What better person to accompany us than Suma Aunty, as she had traveled to those places many times and knows around like the back of her palm. Another advantage was that she had extensive contacts in those places and could do accommodation booking, on the fly, which was what she did for our sojourn there.

So, around August-September, the tickets were booked and a special darshan at Badari was secured to see the Lord being offered Shayan Aarti before the doors were locked for the night.

Unbeknownst to me, I was told to accommodate one more person, Sumitra Padagi, into the group. I had no clue about this person until I delved deep to find her coordinates. Lo and behold! She was my second cousin with whom I had lost contact over the years of my drifting across the country and overseas. We were indeed very happy that we could get together again after decades. She then persuaded her husband Dwarkanath (ex-CMD of BEML) to join the group as he would have me as company. Thus began our 5-wo/men troupe to explore the Dev Bhoomi (as they call the province of Uttarakhand).

Towards mid-October, I was told to sneak one more person, Radha, a friend of Suma Aunty, into the fold and thus we became a group of six. Preparations for food and other pooja stuff were getting on by the womenfolk for the 10-day journey, courtesy of Suma Aunty, Sumithra and Radha. Suma Aunty (as I had experienced and described in my blog of September last year), was meticulous in planning and preparing all pooja items like drapery over the Lord’s idols, bead garlands, assorted dry-fruit bits for Naivedya and Prasada, et al. She had also prepared dry fruit globs, to nibble, for our sustenance during the treks and long-haul drives. As a preparation, she also sent a carton load of eatable stuff by courier to New Delhi so that the package can be picked up by our vehicle before reaching Dehradun. Sumithra and Radha too, had chipped in with a variety of nibbles from our part of the country.

All reservations done we waited with bated breath for the D-Day to fly out to the North. Checked the weights of the baggage and off we went to the airport to catch our 13h55 Indigo flight to Dehradun. Our transport for the next 11 days was to meet here, Sanjay - our Saarathi (Driver) had preloaded the vehicle with sufficient potable water, milk and curds. 

The Story:

Day – 1 (05/11/2024)

We landed in Dehradun as scheduled, around 17h00 on the 5^th of Nov. Radha had arrived here a couple of days earlier and was at the Airport ahead of us. While waiting for our transport to arrive, we could glimpse at the sun, setting a tad earlier than normal with the winter approaching. Luggage secured, passengers found their places with their handbags, in the cozy (1+1) seating arrangement of this 10-seater luxurious capsule that became our second living quarters for the next 10 days. The parcel sent by Suma Aunty had not been delivered yet and we were deprived of our main breakfast/lunch and other nibbles sent by courier.

So, off we went on our first journey together, with the intention of visiting Pancha Badari, Pancha Prayag and as many other places as we could see as per Suma Aunty's itinerary, chanting 'Jai Badari Vishaal'!

Our first stop was Mann Ichha Devi Temple around 8 km away, just a km deviation from Rishikesh Road. Our exercise of climbing up & down started from this temple as we had to climb the winding stairs to reach the top. Monkeys present were a concern for a few of us but didn’t deter our resolve to have a darshan of the Devi in Pindi form. Sought blessings from the Devi for a trouble-free journey and visits to all the holy places in our itinerary.

                

    Mann Ichha Devi Temple                                        Mann Ichha Devi Temple

Enroute, we had our first cup of masala tea at Shivpuri, while coffee aficionados had their cuppa and we proceeded towards Srinagar (yes, there is a Srinagar in Uttarakhand too!) where we had dinner at a roadside restaurant and then on to our night camp close to Rudra Prayag, where we had our first of the ten-night halts of the tour at Hotel Blue Orchid. The place was quite comfortable and we couldn’t have asked for much as it was for just a night. 

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Camp Coordinates: Hotel Blue Orchid - Jhirmoli, Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand - 246171

Email: info@hotelblueorchid.com  Web:www.hotelblueorchid.com  Phone:+918273708462   

https://maps.app.goo.gl/trrU4NSCgHGGXAem6

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Continued..... in Part 2

Amchi Mumbai!

This write-up is of 2019, my sojourn to Mumbai after a long gap of over two decades!

It has been a long time since I visited Mumbai though I lived here in late 1990s and my work took me away from it in Sept 2000. This was my second innings of life in Mumbai (earlier one was in 80s).

Now that I have returned to this city after nearly two decades, I am enjoying the city and its offerings of Nostalgia to people like me. In a sense, it is deja vu for me.

The hustle and bustle of the city has grown in geometric progression, no doubt, over this period but some of the things have remained undisturbed.

In the decades gone by, you could board a BEST bus even in the wee hours of the morning and the conductor would offer change to your Rs.100 note. Auto and taxi drivers were very honest in giving you the correct change if you didn't have it, after completing your journey.

I remember eating Paav Bhaaji opposite CST Station (VT Station, in the days gone by) and this was enough to carry on for the day. I haven't been to this side of the city yet in my current sojourn and I long to do this before I return to Bengaluru.

Back to the present, my experiences with the current day Auto and Uber drivers have been nothing short of very pleasant. Having taken a couple of trips to the city and locally in Navi Mumbai (where I am currently based), I found that Mumbaikars (Auto and Uber drivers in particular) haven't lost out on their integrity.

A couple of cases in point:
On a fare of Rs. 588, I would have had to shell Rs. 600 or (best case scenario) Rs. 590 in Bengaluru, in the garb of 'No Change'. To my surprise, I was given a full Rs. 12 back for my Rs. 600.
In another instance, I had taken an Auto to Vashi Station the other day and though the fare meter read Rs 34, the driver took Rs. 32 as he had taken the wrong turn and had traveled about 50-100 meters extra. Can you imagine such instances happening in any other city? I don't think!

Maybe examples like these are rare for everyone but fact remains that such instances make you feel more welcome to the city and also reinforce your faith in people.

Being in Mumbai during the Ganapathi festival is an icing on the cake. This time around, I couldn't enjoy much as it had been raining incessantly since the evening of 30th August. Even yesterday, the last of the days for Ganapathi Visarjan, it had rained continuously, preventing my movements.

I must admit, I didn't have the (earlier) zest to move around in the monsoon showers and was in the cozy confines of my aunt's home, which has been my base since the 22nd of last month.

The weather has cleared a bit today and hopefully, I will move out and meet a few friends in the city.

Keep reading and don't forget to send in your views and comments to this post.

P.S. I don't know why I didn't publish this 5 years ago?

An encounter with Miss World Contestants in South Africa.

Circa 1994 

Sushmita Sen had just won the Miss Femina India – Universe, by the skin of her teeth, snatching victory from another very eligible contestant – Aishwarya Rai. Her streak of luck continued in the Worldwide contest, as she went on to win the Miss Universe Pageant for that year. Most of us were ecstatic by her winning the World’s beauty title after 28 years of Rita Faria winning the title in 1966.

At the same time, many, if not most, of us thought Aishwarya got a raw deal by the judges as she was adjudged 1^st runner-up in Femina’s contest and she was more deserving than Sushmita. Be that as it may, on that day, Sushmita overshadowed all the contestants at the pageant and won the Miss Universe title that had eluded India for almost 3 decades.

While rejoicing in her victory, our immediate attention was on the Miss World title that Aishwarya was contesting, scheduled a couple of months later, in South Africa in October 1994.

A bit of background on our trip to South Africa:

As luck would have it, I was in South Africa then. We were on a tour to South Africa for a conference to celebrate our target achievement. By the way, we had to struggle our way to this coveted overseas conference, as the Finance function was easily the least important function to be invited to such conferences where Sales, Marketing and Technical functions ruled the roost.

We were a huge team of around 120 people from different functions. I still remember a few of the issues we encountered in getting the formalities before embarking on this trip. I was working in the Brewery in Goa and we were told to get the yellow fever shot. Now, not all cities in those days had the facility for getting the yellow fever shot, but Panaji in Goa was fortunately equipped with one. This done, the next step was to get the mandatory warning on all Indian Passports during those years “Not Permitted to Travel to South Africa” endorsed as the Government of India lifted the travel ban a year earlier. So, we rushed to the nearest passport office to get this endorsement done. Again, we were lucky as we could get this done at the Panaji passport office, with the least inconvenience and sent the passport to get our visas. The hindrances behind us, we then congregated in Mumbai, to collect our passport post issue of visa, tickets for our travel and a princely sum of US$ 200 for our out-of-pocket expenses.

Strategically, we split into two groups and flew two different routes (the first one via Dar-es-Salam to Johannesburg and the other that I was in, via Nairobi to Johannesburg). This being my first overseas trip, I walked out very confidently through the immigration and into the transit area at Jomo Kenyatta Airport, Nairobi. The experiences I had heard of international travel, from my cousins, gave me empty confidence whereas I had that strange tremor inside me. On the way from Nairobi to Johannesburg, we had Peter Kirsten (former cricketer of South Africa and Gary Kirsten’s brother) as our fellow passenger. We had no cell phones those days yet we could click pictures with our gigapixel cameras (eyes) and I’m sure others did too. This got stored in our petabyte memory (brain) for any time recall!

On landing at Jan Smut International Airport in Johannesburg, we were amazed at the facilities at that airport. We waited for over an hour at the airport for our shuttle to the destination, which was over 140 km away. We understood that the first batch had already reached the conference destination. Our batch boarded onto two extremely luxurious buses (mind you, most of us had not seen such machines earlier) and eased onto our seats. The inner cabin was so quiet that even if someone gasped or breathed heavily, we could hear it. As we started to our conference destination, we were amazed to see that the drivers of our two buses were communicating over wireless radio headsets (another first for us from India of those days).

As we drove at a high speed of over 100 km/hr on the freeway, we were amazed to see that the first set of traffic lights was almost 120 km from the airport where we started. UB Group had just then invested in a few ventures in South Africa and Mabula Game Lodge, including a 14,000-hectare game reserve, was a significant one at that. This was the destination of our conference where we spent four nights and three days. Mr. Vijay Mallya, our chairman, presided over the conference, which had many a first for us in terms of work, entertainment, food, drinks, fun and frolic. One amongst them was the safari drives inside this massive game reserve. Another one was a night dinner in the wild – a spit-braai where a game (Impala or other antelope) was hunted and cooked over naked flames, after skinning and cleaning it. We watched so much of the game meat (Venison) being served during the night out in the wild, while in the camps we had a plethora of food consumed by normal people. We, vegetarians, in small numbers, were well taken care of by my colleague Ramprakash, who was deputed to this place from Bangalore Brewery and was a vegetarian too. He served this entity for 4-5 years and returned to Bangalore to assist Mr Mallya’s Secretariat. He was my boss during his second innings in South Africa when I too went on a two-year contract, stretched to 16 years and lasted till 2017. That is a story for another day!

Post our conference, we were huddled in shuttles (luxurious, to mention the least) for the next place in our itinerary – Sun City. We stayed in a hotel called ‘The Cascades’ opposite to the casino. This hotel was obscenely opulent with luxury cascading in every nook and corner of this place (an aptly named hotel indeed). Another first we encountered in the whole of Sun City was the experience of jolts of electric shocks on touching any metal surface. The railings, door handles, you name it in metal and it gave us a shock. Later, we found out that it was due to static electric charges on the highly polished metal surfaces.

We then were taken to a cabaret show in a huge auditorium that was very well performed by over 20 women artists. We indulged ourselves in the casino and a few other water-based theme parks. One, worth mentioning is the ‘Valley of Waves’ that created artificial waves at regular intervals. Then there was a 50-meter slide that brought us down into the water and so on.

After two nights there, we started packing our stuff and checking out of the hotel. It was then that we caught a glimpse of the beauty queens from various countries around the World, congregating at our hotel, checking in for their stay. Sun City was the host to the Miss World Beauty Pageant that year and as the contestants walked in, we were on our way out, with a heavy heart – of missing out on being with them in the hotel, for one and sad to see that we were forced to move out of this lovely place, for another.  

As we made way for them to stay in our rooms, we moved on to our next destination, Johannesburg about 180 km from there. We were housed in a couple of hotels across Sandton, a posh business suburb and the location of the renowned Sandton City towers, a huge mall and business complex. We were warned not to venture alone or in twos due to the high crime rate in the city, hence, we always used to go out in groups. On one such outing, we were flabbergasted to see our humble Ambassador car in the Sandton area and I still have a photo of it in my archives. Probably it was the original English Morris Oxford or so or maybe someone was brave enough to import one.

The next day, we visited an old and abandoned Gold Mine called ‘Gold Reef City’. There was a show of melting Gold and pouring it into a block and some comedy around lifting the block with two fingers and if one could do it on the 30^th of February, they could keep the block. This too was a theme park with rides like roller coasters, etc.

We also went about 100 feet down the old shaft, guided through the tunnels and shown the veins in the rocks that contained gold.

Then, there was a short chopper ride that hovered for a minute or so, for those who were generous with their pockets.

Our next stop was the Oriental Market, a mall where the shops were owned and manned by persons of Indian origin. A few of us bought mementos here. A trip to Pretoria (the capital city of South Africa – hitherto most of us had thought that the capital city was Johannesburg) and drive past the parliament building (designed by the architect one Mr. Herbert Baker, who designed our Parliament House in New Delhi too) and return to Sandton Sun hotel.

The next day, we again flew in two batches back to Mumbai, en route to our home destinations.

The Miss World title:

Now comes the interesting part. I am unsure if we had a live telecast coverage of the contest, but I remember seeing the clippings of this and was mildly amused, not surprised at all, to see Aishwarya Rai winning the Miss World Pageant comfortably. Few of us had already guessed that she would win hands-down, as our point of contention was, ‘If Sushmita can, Aishwarya must’!

Still Wondering Whether That Was An Out Of Body Experience!

Drama In Real Life:

The year was 2015. A team of functional heads from the Head Office visited one of our Breweries at Butterworth, near East London. We were all holed up at a bed & breakfast close to East London and had to drive up and down to Butterworth. 

Working a couple of days to complete our assignment, we all headed back to Johannesburg. The flight was late in the evening around 7:00 pm. It was an hour-and-a-half flight to Johannesburg from East London and it was a SA Airlink Jet, not a big aircraft and the flight was full.

We settled down on our seats and the first half-an-hour was an eventless flight. The flight path was clear when we started in East London. However, it being summer, the storms were always looming around. After a bit of nibbling, I eased into my default (sleep) posture to catch some sleep. 

Then, we were caught in a thunderstorm, sooner than expected. The captain advised us to fasten our seatbelts and instructed the crew to follow all mandatory steps to ensure the safety of passengers. Drowsily, I straightened the backrest of my seat while folding the tray table. The aircraft maneuvered through thick clouds amidst thunder and lightning. 

For a minute, I slipped into a slumber with my thoughts going through the incidents of that day. In an instant, the whole aircraft shuddered and all the passengers screamed when we heard a loud sound. At the same time; while my eyes were wide shut, I subconsciously felt like I was floating around the bottom of the aircraft. It was then that I could see the lightning strike near the landing gear, and that was the sound we heard in the cabin. The sight of the lightning strike was so vivid and it kept haunting me for days. I knew that aircraft were quite insulated from lightning strikes we were safe inside the aircraft cabin.   

The next moment, I was back in the aircraft, waking up with a jolt and fully conscious of the surroundings in the cabin. Those who tried to sleep were wide awake and I could see the fright and anguish on their faces.

Thereafter, wading through the thunderstorm, we made it safely to Johannesburg. None of us spoke of the incident as we were all too shell-shocked to talk about it. There was no rain (it had already rained here and I could see the wet tarmac) to greet us as we made it to the parkade where we got into our cars and drove away to our homes.

While I try to think of all the happenings on this flight, I don't know whether I can call this a dream (but then, how can I know where the lightning hit the aircraft) or was hallucinating (I wasn't on any drug or alcohol) or can it be ascribed as OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE? 

I have had my share of premonitions earlier in my life (a topic for another day). But this incident can't be considered as such, since I happened to witness this incident without any pre-warning. 

Fortunately, this incident neither deterred me from flying again nor caused any fear of lightning anytime thereafter and with the grace of God, I have clocked miles and miles of travel with a lot of smiles. 

My next write-up will be about my premonitions.