Travel Diaries (Part-2)

 

"Our gods have to be blamed for the population explosion in the country," I quip while admiring the flowing sculptures of copulating figures on the temple walls from the tenth century. It is late afternoon and the spring sun hovers in the west, still bright and tepid. Some young local boys have decided to use this scenic Rajarani temple complex in Bhuvaneshwar as the location for a rap number they wish to release on YouTube. In my mind there could not have been a more ideal backdrop than this magnificent exterior which celebrates life in all its facets.

"I think the ancients decided to  carve all the lovemaking positions on sacred monuments for the future generations to learn," my friend has her own take. Happily expounding upon her statement, she adds, "in anticipation of a war which could have destroyed the entire  civilization, our ancestors chose to depict the process of procreation in the most frequented public places. The temples being the most important sites, it is natural that such sculptures should adorn them. It was their way to preserve and ensure the continuation of life." She sounds like a professional archaeologist, expertly mouthing her bizarre opinion. With the evening creeping up on us, the wind makes itself perceptible in the fluttering red flag atop the main structure. A pearl moon is faintly visible. We seem to osmose into the peaceful rhythms of the sculptures and the stark silhouette of the  sacred architecture. Along the stone carvings of revellers in  amorous dalliance, are also panels of Yama, the Lord of death with a bulging belly, of dancing Ganesha, of a woman playing flute,  of Nandi the bull. This surreal juxtaposition of gods with humans, and other earthly creatures succeeds in elevating Life and its myriad manifestations to mystical heights rarely surpassed. We walk around the premises, enthralled. 

The Rajarani temple complex in the state of Orissa is more than 1200 years old and still doesn't cease to mesmerize the onlookers with the breadth of its vision and the extreme skill with which it is executed. One can't help but compare it to the stifling layouts of the various high-rise buildings randomly dotting  the city's skyline, and wonder where did we go wrong. Or, more like, where did we lose ourselves? We cannot always blame the invaders and colonizers for our constant desire to imitate the west and its mammoth capitalist machinery which has reduced the aesthetics of living to a mere utilitarian existence. Aspirations for a higher and more harmonious life have succumbed to ambitions for a bigger house, a better car, a more high-tech phone, and a personal robot to serve. Is this what we call the evolution of human consciousness? Or just convolution in the name of progress? Who can really say...? Yet, here we were, "persuing as all travellers must, inversions without end" upon other souls' journeys into timelessness. We couldn't help but  wonder of our own role in the infinite grid chalked by the irrevocable forces of the universe.

         The Unseen is at ease

         The seen struggles to express itself