Snippets from my trip to Hampi aka God’s Own Lego Land

At the very outset, let me tell you that this post is not a ‘travelogue’. If you are planning a trip to Hampi, this post will be of as much use to you as Rahul Gandhi is to the Congress party. Now that I have linked this blog to current affairs and proved how in the know I am, let’s get to the point.

This Holi weekend, I had the extreme pleasure of visiting Hampi. Most trips are the result of careful and meticulous planning for weeks, if not months, while some are of the impromptu pack-your-bag-and-hum-jo-chalne-lage-chalne-lage-hai-ye-raaste variety. Well, this trip was the fruit of me yelling ‘I WANT TO GO TO HAMPI’ repeatedly in a Whatsapp group till my partner-in-only-the-wander-type-of-lust Nivedita suggested that we make good of the Holi weekend and put an end to my tantrum.

I won’t bore you with details of how to haggle with your auto wala or write a ’13 things you must do in Hampi or you are a loser’ type of post. This is more of ‘to ye rahe Hampi ke mukhya samachar’, a list of things I remember from the trip. More for myself than for anyone else (I’m really living up to my blog’s name)

1. I remember being borderline terrified as the date for the trip came closer. You think it’s because we were two girls going to a strange land on the day of one of the rowdiest festivals in India? Pssshhhh! Such concerns are for mortals. What terrified me is the thought of spending 3-odd days with just one other person, and of course my social anxiety for company.

Put me in a group of people or give me the protective veil of a chat window, and I can smother my anxiety enough to come across as a decent conversationalist.  But 3 whole days of one on one interaction with another human? Gulp.  Doesn’t matter that the person in question is one of my best friends, I will still shudder at the possibility. Turns out, my fears were mostly unfounded.

2. I remember not believing that we’re actually going to Hampi even while packing my bags in a zombie like state at 1 am on the day we were supposed to leave.

3. The random and free flowing conversation with Nivedita in the otherwise silent sleeper bus, aided of course by the lack of data connection on our phones. Tee Hee.

4. The first view of the boulders in Hampi. If Kerala is God’s Own Country, Hampi has to be God’s Own Lego Land. The way in which the HUGE boulders are arranged makes you marvel at the Creator – nature, God, I don’t know. I would like to think that baby Hanuman (who is supposed to have been born here) played with these boulders throughout the land and refused to put his toys back like any other kid, resulting in these incredible formations.

5. The absolute and welcome relief I felt because of the change in scenery – from seeing glitzy malls that were built in front of your eyes and will become ghosts of their present selves in the next few years, to seeing the creations of nature that have been around for centuries and have seen the rise and fall of dynasties.

6. The easy and generous smiles of both the tourists and the locals. From the old, wrinkled woman who needed no permission to smear us with colour accompanied by a genuine ‘Happy Holi!’, to the pretty foreigner who smiled shyly while passing us on the road, it was truly a Hampi, I mean happy place.

7. The local boys who brought their fistfuls of colour to within 3 inches of my face before cocking their heads and asking ‘OK?’ and applying the colour only when I nodded my consent.  

8. Doing the bhangra with coloured (with Holi colours, not being racist) people from many continents, including our own, in the middle of the street as a local band struck up a crazy tempo.

9. Getting my forehead smeared with the most stubborn gulaal by a grinning man. For all I know, I’m still carrying his sindoor in my maang after so many days.

10. Not looking into the mirror for three days (our room didn’t have one) and not caring what we looked like, discovering our tanned faces only in selfies later.

11. Exclaiming ‘What the Hell’ and ‘What the F*&k’ at least twice an hour while exploring the temples and being inwardly thankful that there were no idols in most temples to judge my profanity. The reason for the interjections? The sheer skill and willpower that must have gone into making the Hampi structures.

If God was playing Lego with the boulders, the kings’ favourite game must be Jenga, which they played with huge blocks of stone placed perfectly over one another, making the most breathtaking and enduring structures in the bargain.  And I, who can’t even carve an apple into proper slices in one attempt, have the utmost regard for the long lost sculptors who made living art that has stood the test of time. Hampi – The Most Epic Game of Jenga Ever Played.

12. Making it a point to touch and run my hand along every temple and structure I came across, in a feeble attempt to absorb some of the stories that the stones have stood witness to. We can only imagine the kind of stories that the stones would tell if they could.

13. Climbing the steps of the Hanuman temple, and then going further ahead on the cliff to watch the sunset. At one point, I thought I wouldn't be able to navigate the formidable stones (partly because of my infinite wisdom of wearing a maxi dress curtailing my movements) and paused in the middle. Watching a mediocre view was good enough, better than missing a step and bashing my head open on the cliff. But then suddenly it wasn’t enough, and I continued walking till I reached the edge of the cliff, just in time for the sun to disappear. And as I sat there alone amidst total strangers looking at me strangely because I had the most ridiculous grin on my face, I knew it was worth it.

14. Hearing and understanding conversations of locals in Kannada, my mother’s tongue, the language of my childhood.

15. Sitting in a lawn beneath a tree after God knows how much time, staring unashamedly at people going about their business. Rediscovering my favourite pastime – people watching.

16. The family of women who plonked their toddler with us, then settled around us in a gaggle, and before we could comprehend what was happening, clicked a picture with us thinking we were foreigners. I don’t want to imagine their disappointment when someone with a more racially discerning eye points out that they have a photo with a set of desis, or the vehemence with which the photo will then be deleted.

17. The potential generosity of a group of school children in another lawn, who again thought we were foreigners and debated whether to offer us their food for us to ‘taste some of their Indian food’, and then smiling shyly when I turned to look at them.

18. The caretaker aunty’s whistle protesting noisily when I clambered into a heritage building that was apparently non-clamberable. The look that she gave me later made me feel like I was sheltering Dawood Ibrahim in my sling bag.

19. Lakshmi the temple elephant. Regardless of how many elephant pictures you double tap on Instagram, seeing a live elephant swaying in front of you is an unbeatable experience. Touching the sheer power of her wrinkly trunk reminds you that there are bigger things out there than your human ego, and that elephants are basically just too darned cute for their own good.

On a completely unrelated and mature note, if someone has a spare baby elephant (I know they’re called calves) up for adoption, I’m willing to work three jobs to give it my family name and raise it as my own.

20. The late night *cough* illegal *cough* coracle ride across the river. We didn't reach in time to catch the last boat to the other side, and what followed was a fun, adventurous trip crouched in a small, wet coracle in utter darkness with 12 other people (we later found out that it should accommodate only 6-9 people), which included 3 raucous boys singing songs in Russian.

If anyone from my family is reading this, the above account is totally a figment of imagination, a sad attempt of getting some adventure in an utterly boring trip. I swear.

21. Sitting with feet dipped into the gurgling river, trying to believe that this is actually happening, failing to do so, and then getting ridiculously happy to know that all of it is real – the cool water, your relieved toes, the sun getting ready to set, and the huge smile that creeps onto your face.

22. Dancing and jumping in the rain and experiencing HAILSTONES in March on the day you’re scheduled to leave. Running out as it starts raining might seem like a cheesy, wannabe, Yash Chopra movie thing to do, but when it happens, you have no choice to be all filmy and stretch your arms to catch the raindrops.

23. Learning how to navigate a coracle on your own during a ride, doing it admirably well considering it’s your first time, and then giving up when your biceps, or the fat that resides in that general area, start wailing in protest.

24. NOT TOUCHING MY MUSIC PLAYER FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP. This has to be the biggest phenomenon of the trip. I had charged my music player and double checked the earphones before leaving, in the hope that they would shield me during times when words failed me. They came back untouched. There were conversations and there were silences, but no gaps so huge that they had to be filled with music.

That’s quite enough memories for a trip that lasted hardly three days, and Hampi has ensured that there will be many more such memories in the future. Hampi, you weird place you, you’re like the wise old woman who was a legendary beauty in her prime, and now has all the wisdom of a life well lived, to be shared with anyone who comes with an open mind.

Am I glad that I threw that Whatsapp tantrum.