*The Inner Child in Assam
Guwahati
Her precious daughter had just left home to study abroad. Sleepy Shobha had been crying everyday non stop for the last two months, imagining and dreading the future loneliness in the empty nest. Sunny Shobha just prayed to the universe , looking forward to a life of traveling freely to new places. And almost at the last minute she was invited to join this group of seventeen people to a trip to North East India!
Sunny Shobha just about made it on time for the flight to Guwahati airport, flying past the majestic Himalayas and actually admiring the beauty of Mount Everest from the skies!
Everything about Guwahati airport fascinated her, including an unusual sign for the ladies rest room!
A late lunch for our VIP Mangalorean group was at a place called Mangalam on the VIP - Airport Road at Guwahati… a sign that very important things would soon happen in our otherwise routine lives.
White hairy tall plants caught the attention of Sunny Shobha, something she had not seen in the rest of India. Later she was told that these were used to make brooms for cleaning! We drove past the sprawling campus of the University of Assam… and also the funny shaped Cricket stadium.
Our first crossing of the Brahmaputra river with the beautiful sight of the setting sun was just around 5.15 p.m. Sunny Shobha realized that we were in the eastern most side of India where the sun sets early and also rises early! The local driver told us that that the specialty of the area was its meat products. Sleepy Shobha wondered at what kind of vegetarian food we could get here.
On the return to Guwahati after a week in the wild jungles, Sunny Shobha was happy to enjoy the comforts of a modern hotel in Guwahati!
We got up as usual at 4.30 a.m. to get ready to see its main attraction – the famed Khamakhaya Devi temple. Sleepy Shobha went around the temple complex and felt sad for the innumerable goats roaming around. They would be surely offered as sacrifice, every single day.
The local belief is that the Kamakhya Temple denotes the spot where Sati used to retire in secret to satisfy her amour with Shiva, and it was also one of the fifty one holy places where the body parts of her corpse fell on the earth. It is said that her yoni fell here after Shiva danced with the corpse of Sati. We walked down the narrow steps to reach the dark inner chambers called garbhagriha. Inside the cave like place, there was a downward sloping depression that was constantly filled with water from an underground perennial spring. It is this hollow place that is worshiped as the goddess Kamakhya herself and considered as most important abode of the Devi. The immense energy of the place can only be experienced but cannot be explained in words.
Many years ago my spouse had visited this place, a book about this temple was lying in the Gods room for years and Sunny Shobha was grateful to be actually called to this temple. The Kamakhya temple was situated on top of the Nilachal hill and on our way back, we stopped at a vantage point to get a panoramic view of the Guwahati city. The feeling of being on top of the world with the Brahmaputra river in the distance was another memory that was etched in the mind of Sunny Shobha.
Sleepy Shobha resented that there wasn't much time to do some local shopping, we had to go to the airport to catch our flight out of Guwahati. We left with the feeling that we had to come back again to see more of this wonderful city of Guwahati.
Tezpur- Sonitpur Elephant Reserve.
Sunny Shobha loves to sing whether it is picnic songs or even holy songs. To pass time in the darkness during the long drive from Guwahati, we sang bhajans in our Tata Sumo till we finally reached Tezpur for an overnight halt at the very basic looking Annirudh Hotel. Sleepy Shobha was told to ignore the obvious faults in the hotel room. Sunny Shobha preferred to remember the glow on the face of the room boy when he got an obviously higher tip than expected.
Later we were told that Tezpur was the place of a raging fight between the supporters of Krishna’s grandson Annirudh and his prospective father in law and hence the name Tezpur in memory of the immense bloodshed that had taken place here, hundreds of years ago.
We visited the Goudiya Mutt at the Tezpur chowk and saw colourful images depicting the story of Lord Krishna.
We interacted with a local woman in her two-piece typical Assamee Saree who still used firewood for most of her daily cooking.
We drove through the forests of the Sonitsar Elephant Reserve and even saw two elephants on the way. This was the so-called troubled Bodoland that we had only read about in the news and we were glad to do this drive in the day time!
*(There is an inner child within all of us. One that we were born as - warm and happy, optimistic, capable of serving and loving others, believing in the possibility of extra-ordinary achievements, filled with a kind of inner light and positive energy, taking initiative and action...I will call that your Sunny inner child.
And then we are exposed to circumstances and experiences. Depending on the way we react to our situations, a new inner child emerges. One that we create - cold and sad, pessimistic, capable of being indifferent or hating others, believing oneself to be trapped within ordinary limits, filled with a kind of inner darkness and negative energy, lazily whining, not taking action, I will call that your Sleepy inner child.
You have a choice on which inner child you want to encourage in your life - your Sunny inner child or your Sleepy inner child
I will call my inner child as Sunny Shobha and Sleepy Shobha. Together we will travel around the world).
Guwahati
White hairy tall plants caught the attention of Sunny Shobha, something she had not seen in the rest of India. Later she was told that these were used to make brooms for cleaning! We drove past the sprawling campus of the University of Assam… and also the funny shaped Cricket stadium.
Our first crossing of the Brahmaputra river with the beautiful sight of the setting sun was just around 5.15 p.m. Sunny Shobha realized that we were in the eastern most side of India where the sun sets early and also rises early! The local driver told us that that the specialty of the area was its meat products. Sleepy Shobha wondered at what kind of vegetarian food we could get here.
On the return to Guwahati after a week in the wild jungles, Sunny Shobha was happy to enjoy the comforts of a modern hotel in Guwahati!
The local belief is that the Kamakhya Temple denotes the spot where Sati used to retire in secret to satisfy her amour with Shiva, and it was also one of the fifty one holy places where the body parts of her corpse fell on the earth. It is said that her yoni fell here after Shiva danced with the corpse of Sati. We walked down the narrow steps to reach the dark inner chambers called garbhagriha. Inside the cave like place, there was a downward sloping depression that was constantly filled with water from an underground perennial spring. It is this hollow place that is worshiped as the goddess Kamakhya herself and considered as most important abode of the Devi. The immense energy of the place can only be experienced but cannot be explained in words.
Many years ago my spouse had visited this place, a book about this temple was lying in the Gods room for years and Sunny Shobha was grateful to be actually called to this temple. The Kamakhya temple was situated on top of the Nilachal hill and on our way back, we stopped at a vantage point to get a panoramic view of the Guwahati city. The feeling of being on top of the world with the Brahmaputra river in the distance was another memory that was etched in the mind of Sunny Shobha.
Sleepy Shobha resented that there wasn't much time to do some local shopping, we had to go to the airport to catch our flight out of Guwahati. We left with the feeling that we had to come back again to see more of this wonderful city of Guwahati.
Tezpur- Sonitpur Elephant Reserve.
Sunny Shobha loves to sing whether it is picnic songs or even holy songs. To pass time in the darkness during the long drive from Guwahati, we sang bhajans in our Tata Sumo till we finally reached Tezpur for an overnight halt at the very basic looking Annirudh Hotel. Sleepy Shobha was told to ignore the obvious faults in the hotel room. Sunny Shobha preferred to remember the glow on the face of the room boy when he got an obviously higher tip than expected.
Later we were told that Tezpur was the place of a raging fight between the supporters of Krishna’s grandson Annirudh and his prospective father in law and hence the name Tezpur in memory of the immense bloodshed that had taken place here, hundreds of years ago.
We visited the Goudiya Mutt at the Tezpur chowk and saw colourful images depicting the story of Lord Krishna.
We interacted with a local woman in her two-piece typical Assamee Saree who still used firewood for most of her daily cooking.
We drove through the forests of the Sonitsar Elephant Reserve and even saw two elephants on the way. This was the so-called troubled Bodoland that we had only read about in the news and we were glad to do this drive in the day time!
*(There is an inner child within all of us. One that we were born as - warm and happy, optimistic, capable of serving and loving others, believing in the possibility of extra-ordinary achievements, filled with a kind of inner light and positive energy, taking initiative and action...I will call that your Sunny inner child.
And then we are exposed to circumstances and experiences. Depending on the way we react to our situations, a new inner child emerges. One that we create - cold and sad, pessimistic, capable of being indifferent or hating others, believing oneself to be trapped within ordinary limits, filled with a kind of inner darkness and negative energy, lazily whining, not taking action, I will call that your Sleepy inner child.
You have a choice on which inner child you want to encourage in your life - your Sunny inner child or your Sleepy inner child
I will call my inner child as Sunny Shobha and Sleepy Shobha. Together we will travel around the world).
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