India never stops inspiring and surprising you!

There's a surprise round the corner, be it... Nature, Culture, People, Places....!

After the 3-day-stopover in Dubai, which provided its own surprises, I was heading into quite a contrast of scenes, straight to 2 Full-nights-out first-time-Live-for-me Kathakali, the classical performing-art of dance-drama, at Kottakkal AryaVaidyaSala's family temple where they have a long-established Kathakali institute..

[ I got this excellent opportunity, courtesy Kathakali Guru Kottakkal Sasidharan Nair who trained and grew up as an artiste at the institue in the 60's. He invited me for the event and hosted my stay there. He retired from Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Ahmedabad, where he worked and performed with 3 generations of the Sarabhai family who established it. Had met him during his stay in London while he was touring UK on invitation by some universities to give demonstrative performances.]

{ 2 Candid Shots: They seemed to be expressing Adbhutam - Surprise/Wonder.. fleetingly for a moment, wchich I quickly attempted to capture }

(Raudra-)Bhima and Dushasana starting fierce fight in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. [Play: Dushasana Vadham ]
Bhima goes into a frenzy of rage, assumes the form of a Narasimha, defeats Dushasana, rips him open and drinks his blood. Thus takes the revenge by killing Dushasana for insulting his wife Draupadi by disrobing her in public.
Draupadi enters, Bhima rushes to her, smears Dushasans's blood on her hair and binds her hair with his entrails.. Draupadi's curse on Dushasana is fulfilled!.

Hanuman about to burn down Lanka. [Play: Lanka Dahanam]

Then a trip thru Chhattisgarh- (Raipur, to Bhilai to attend a wedding reception), and onto MadhyaPradesh- Kanha National Park/Tiger Reserve, where for the very first time after 10yrs of jungle trips, treks and safaris, met those most elusive stripes in real wilderness!!!!, a Tigress in its Natural habitat- up close, with some other exciting safari sightings and birding... including dozens of Peafowls, Red jungle fowls, Crested Serpent Eagle, Orange Headed Thrush, Black Ibis, Lesser Adjutant Stork. Mammals sightings include SwampDeer(Barasingha), Four-horned Antelope(Chowsingha), Sambar, Spotted-Deer(Chital), Barking Deer(Muntjac), Gaur(Indian Bisom), Wild Dog(Dhole), Langurs, and even a sensational sighting of a Sloth Bear(which crossed our path in a village on the periphery, when driving out of Kanha late night) . [For Nilgai(BlueBull) sighting, had to wait till next morning's safari at Panna National Park.]

Then thru Panna National Park for a single morning safari.. on the way to... the magical, mystical,philosophical, and Tantric-erotic World Heritage monuments- the awe-inspiring beauty and scale of Khajuraho temples..

Poetry in Stone. Archytectural wonder. [Above, clicked handheld as no tripod was allowed, during the impressive Light&Sound show ] Kandariya Mahadeo temple, the largest and most typical of the Khajuraho temples, uniquely conceived, highly imaginative recreation of the rising peaks of the Himalayas, abode of the Gods. Built between 950~1050AD, of the 85 original temples 22 have survived till today.

[Photo courtsey, a Swiss French reporter who offered to clicked me in return for a 'souvenir shot' of Khajuraho that he requested me to take for him]

Though Benares was pulling me heavily from just 5-6hours away, (and I tried to pull in friends who arranged Kanha and Khajuraho trips to do it, but they didn't have any room left with their tight leave plans. So I thought of doing it proper planned trip to Benares later..

..and chugged onto Delhi where other friends left to fly south, I hanged around for a day for another World Heritage site of Qutb Minar (above) and Red Fort(below) on the banks of Yamuna with all steeped in History and shaping up of Mughal empires and modern India's socio-religious and political make-up.. though had transited through Delhi during previous trips to Rajasthan, Himachal etc, it's the first time stopped by to sip the hot chai from the melting pot of India's history of recent centuries and marvel again at the cross roads and confluences of cultures that India is..

Then another "surprise" came my way towards the end of the trip, in the form of a chance to watch another first-time-Live, Krishnanaattam performance (one of the older classical dance-drama forms from which Kathakali evolved during the 16th century)..

In the classical dance forms, the expression[Rasa] that denotes 'surprise'/wonder is called 'Adbhutam', which literally means, no-bhootam[past], meaning "something that wasn't there earlier", can be used to also refer to something that you've not seen/heard/experienced before and therefore something that causes an expression of surprises or makes you wonder about it! ..and time and again, India does that you!- There's no surprise in the fact that it keeps giving you Adbhutam!! :)