Relative Clarity

My last day in Hampi, and I decided to revisit Vitthala temple. 

I set off, and this time I found a lot more clarity, because I was alone and also because of my new understanding of Hampi.

I noticed the people- an old, wrinkled lady without shoes and struggling to hobble up the stone steps just to go to the temple on the way to the Vitthala temple, and in comparison, the tourists arriving to the Vitthala temple in their white shiny golf carts. I looked at the floor and saw things- the majority of what littered the floor was ice cream candy boxes left behind by the tourists after licking on them to beat the heat, and also, surprisingly, dozens of shoes! Shoes of all sorts just scattered all over the place. Odd.

I stopped again for a moment of pause at the dwelling of the poet Purandaradas, and this time counted the pillars and looked all around me at their architecture and their joineries. At the tree of hopes I pondered some more, and also realized the clarity that one gets from travelling to places alone.

Then I reached the Vitthala temple again, and I this time I reluctantly hired a tour guide. I just felt like I needed some sort of ‘expert’, even if maybe a self-proclaimed one, and actually understand. And to be fair, he did tell me a lot. Apart from data and information about the history and architecture, he told me about the restoration process and ASI, and the UNESCO involvement, and tourism in general. I took note of the facts and then made my way back to the Hampi Bazaar.

Later on in the day, I was sitting in Virupaksha Temple, about to call it a day- when this old tourist lady came and sat in front of us. She very cleverly evaded the tour guide who was trying to trick her into an expensive deal and seemed particularly interesting to me and my friend. So, we decided to have a conversation with her. Sally was a 70-year old retired, widowed professor of anthropology from University of Colombia, and she was so utterly full of enthusiasm, she had us grasping for words. When we told her we were students of art and design, and we were in Hampi to research, she started giving us a full-fledged lecture on anthropology, and religion, and kings and rulers and their methods of control and dominance. She told us, ‘Religion is merely a tool of the kings’. Even such a bold declaration, in that moment, with the resolution she spoke with it, seemed unquestionably true. And what was so great about her was, she asked us to come up with the point she was making by giving us context and asking questions.

As we were chatting with the lady, a monkey suddenly jumped onto my back and grabbed my ponytail!

I think after this week I spent in Hampi, I understand it in a way I haven’t understood many places. I went with an innocent eye- spent my first few days simply marvelling at the place with a visor on which clouded my vision- and then after some enquiry and unearthing of facts, I dealt with my feelings of frustration and disillusionment, and then finally accepted what I saw in front of me, and on the last day, went again with an informed, or at least an initiated eye- and was able to look at a place objectively and report. However I also realized the importance and power of stories, and the importance of the romanticism of imagination.

Hampi seemed to me on my first day, a land stagnated in time. But now I realized, it is quite the opposite. And it took some time for me to look beyond the ancient ruins into what really lay in front of my eyes, among the many, many pillars.