Day 15: Temples and Bananas

Day 15

We decided to head out in the morning and check out one of the area holy places.

Undavalli is supposed to be a place with caves were monks lived in the 2nd or 3rd century BC. There was supposed to be a large stature of a recligning Shiva there also.

It took some finding with narrow back roads through little villages and up a rocky hill. We found a guy that seemed to understand more of our intent from our sign language and poor pronunciation then most of the locals. It occurred to him that we'd be continuing to stop for directions as we made our way and to help he wrote down the temple name in Telagu for us. We'd roll up to someone, say "Undavalli" which left them dumb founded. Showing them the written name brought instant recognition. This is a good system.

The temple was simple and amazing. We had some trouble getting the gear in as the guard seemed to be saying that we'd need permission from the Archaeological Division on Hyderabad. Knowing India that would take years. We paid a digital video entrance fine and he waved us through.

The temple was little more then a series of shallow caves, hollowed out into sleeping cubby holes with 3 foot square pillars between them. There were multiple levels in the slopping side of the rocky hilltop. The upper level was a little deeper creating a pillared hallway with a small gated room on the side.

There for a small donation, a care taker would tell you about the statue of Shiva taking up most of the room. Shiva was about 25 feet long, 5 foot wide and 4 feet tall. The statue was lying on it's back with angels and other gods around carved out of the wall. Flowers and offering were sprinkled all around. The care taker presented you with a small bowl of bright red powder at the end and you placed a thumb print in the middle of your forehead. It was amazing.

This was our first really spiritual place and aside from the ever present smell of urine, it was very calming. From the archways in the cave entrances you could see for hundreds of kilometers to the neighboring hilltops, past fields of rice, bananas, palm trees and grass. Water buffalo and goats were just dots grazing in the squares of green.

Just off to one side was a small creek where women in bright saris were beating clothes clean on the rocks.

We got some photos and some video work here and decided to head on down to the creek. Maybe we could get Michael washing his sport coat in the water.

Turns out a local sewer pipe runs past and was leaking right were the women were washing clothes. It had the smell and look of instant plague so we decided Michael shouldn't get in the water, no matter how dedicated to his art that we was.

Just then some older men came up the road and posed for some pictures. They were really enthusiastic about it and got super excited when we gave them a polaroid of themselves. They kept motion up the road and insisting that we go with them.

Our learned tactic of saying "next time" didn't work and we follow them with their leader sitting next to Adam in the driver's seat of the rickshaw.

We weren't going to join them in homemade whiskey as we'd been offered before, thankfully. Instead we went to this guys grove of banana trees. It was incredible. None of us had seen banana trees up close and they created a shady world underneath their perfectly spaced leaves.

We decided to try another photo and came up with the idea of Michael trying to reach up and take some bananas. Another local that was watching was carrying his curved blade hand scythe and we got our banana grower to hold it menancingly. Despite the language barrier, our banana guy "got it" quickly and even added a head wrap to his costume for effect. The hardest part was keeping everyone from laughing.

This shoot should be fantastically funny and went on to prove to us that you can't plan anything in India. You just show up ready for something and go with what presents itself.

That proved itself true again in the evening as we went up to the Indrakilla Hill temple on the western edge of the city. Up top we found out you couldn't shoot at the temple. It was packed with devotees, monks and tourists and we naturally got some attention when we set up at the end of the parking lot.

We'd thought that it wouldn't be a total loss as we had a spectacular view of the city and the sunset. We got some shots and Adam captured some video of some monks all in black. I think the monks are in it for life as they had numerous small boys in training with them. They were black robes and avoid cutting their hair and beards. They have white rectangles painted on their forheads with yellow and red spots in the middle. They look quite dramatic. Living a sheltered monastic life they were very taken in by the photo gear.

Right then a whole procession of them came walking down the hill chanting. One of their fellow monks told me to take a picture. They saw the camera and got really, really excited. The whole procession ran down to us and we did a series of group shots with the cityscape as background. I even shot some digital stuff with my small camera. The screen turns around on mine so I let them see themselves as I shot. They were like little kids, yelling and pointing in wonder at themselves on the tiny screen.

Afterwards we got many, many thanks and they lined up and all shook my hand. It was humbling.

Another successful day in India.

Anthony //