A Studio by the River

My fourth day in Hampi saw me following the trail of old structures and dwellings to the main attraction, the mascot of Hampi- the Vitthala temple and its famed chariot. Yet indeed, the starrer in my story is not the chariot; but little pieces that came before and around it.

To go to Vitthala temple, one must either take an auto, travel 13kms on a proper cement road for an exorbitant price, or tough it out and walk through some moderately tricky terrain for what seems like forever in the heat of the sun. Obviously, taking the easier softer part was underneath me.  So we set out, trudging through the steep steps and the glistening stone slabs interspersed with tufts of grass. We came across tiny crevices in the massive stone boulders with intricate carvings hidden and quite invisible to anyone who didn’t know to look. It was almost as if the carver wanted an aimless wanderer to stumble upon it and be greeted by the face of Ganesha or Hanuman smiling down at them.

But then we climbed down a side track to a structure right at the banks of a river, with warnings about crocodiles in red paint guiding us there. Right outside the structure, there was a sign which asked us to remove our shoes. We did robotically, and climbed into the structure. Only later did it occur to me that we did not remove our shoes in most sites in Hampi- and it was particularly strange that we’d remove them to enter a place which didn’t feel like a temple at all- It was a drab, mundane platform with rows and columns of pillars- sixty, to be precise, with no explicit splendour compared to the rest of the structures of Hampi. Yet, as we sat down at the edge of it and splashed our feet in some stream of the Tungabhadra, a silence fell upon us. For the first time in Hampi, and possibly one of the few times in my recent memory, I felt a presence- the kind that can’t be described or rationalized and which, had I not experienced it, would’ve been greeted with cynicism by me myself.

But, as we sat there amongst the pillars, a silence fell and everyone seemed to simultaneously dig their noses into their journals and sketchbooks and materialize their own bubbles. I wandered, looking at the pillars and their architecture- they looked sturdy, and simple. Yet I stumbled upon one singular pillar, on which there seemed to be a carving of some sort of musician with an instrument in his hand. Unlike the other carvings in Hampi, I noticed this one had a garland around it- and a fresh one too. 

There were some guards sitting nearby, and upon inquiry they told us that what we were sitting in, was the 60 pillared building where Krishnadevaraya’s poet, Purandaradasa came after prayer to write his poetry and work to channel his creative thought.

Something about this made a lot of sense to me. The place itself though quite drab seemed as if it had been designed and placed in a location so utterly perfect for the creative thought process. Somehow the connection I felt with this place was much more than any temple I’d been to.

I think it really said something about how art and creativity is such a dynamic, yet stable and unmoving, uncompromising presence in this world. And also how finally I found something I could identify with and connect to from all those years ago.

After spending some time there- which didn’t nearly feel enough, we marched on ahead, but on the way we encountered something that made us stop again.

This overwhelmingly mysterious Banyan tree, with its hanging bundles of cloth and plastic and piles of stones underneath, stopped us all in our tracks. When we asked around later, we were told that it was a prayer tree where people hung their hopes and aspirations for a good life, husband, job, or house in the form of bundles of rock or the towers of stone.

Apart from the shock value and explicit strangeness of the tree, I got to thinking about why humans place so much faith in objects, and how is it that they range from massive stone chariots and grand ornate carvings- to pieces of stone wrapped in rags and plastic and hung on an ancient tree.

After these two pauses, the main attraction of Hampi seemed to me quite bland in comparison. The Vitthala temple with its several Mantapas and the Chariot though very interesting, just seemed to me to be too much to take in after what I’d already dealt with in the day.  So, after a quick look around and several sneaky eavesdrops into explanations by tour guides, I made a mental resolution to come back here and dig deeper into the place.

I went home that day still deep in thought about humans, and their need to put faith into things, and also about that poet and that place- and how I wouldn’t mind going for prayer if I could have a beautiful art studio built for me by the hills and the river.