Dwaraka Trip: Somnath and Veraval (Chapter 5 of 5)

Dwaraka Trip: Somnath and Veraval
(Chapter 5 of 5)

Somnath is the first of the 12 Jyotirlingas. Gujarat houses the 12th as well – Nageshwara – that we saw a day before. I wish someone recited a sloka that suggested that if one had darshan of the first and the last Jyotirlingas, it was equivalent to having visited all the 12. Anyway, each member took a tally of the Jyotirlingas he/she had covered including Somnath. Personally we recorded seven.

Located right by the Arabian seashore on Saurashtra, Somnath was plundered sixteen times by the Muslim rulers. In 1951 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel reconstructed the temple in its present form. Apart from a magnificent structure, a beautiful garden surrounds the temple, thus serving both as a place of worship and one for enjoying the sea breeze under shade with flowers blooming all around. From what I have seen, this gigantic idol is next only to Brihadeshwara in Tanjore - leaving no chance to anyone to complain that, back home, he is unable to visualize the deity.

Thanks to Ashutosh and Siva's social networking we learnt that on the day we had planned our visit, the temple would close at five in the evening - something unheard of in Somnath's history. The idol was to get a face-lift in the form of a gold covering, and expert goldsmiths would be at work all through the night giving finishing touches. So we were all the more in a hurry not to miss darshan amidst possible bus loads of devotees that would line up to fit into the timeframe.

Ironically we had a very good darshan; it was less crowded. (Other devotees, had better foresight; they postponed their visit to the morrow - to have darshan with gold covering.) After darshan Siva collected all of us to sit by the side of the sanctum sanctorum, and together we spent about twenty minutes chanting slokas in unison in an intonation that the crowd in Gujarat was not accustomed to. In other words, it attracted attention.

As we came out we saw a replica of the presiding deity being decorated with an artificial gold covering to be taken in procession on a chariot for people to have an advance glimpse.

Spontaneously we decided we would visit the temple again to see the idol with gold covering. We did so the next day and had darshan amid a teeming crowd.

Then came the last leg of our pilgrimage part – visit to Bhalka Teerth (in Veraval) where Jara, the hunter shot Sree Krishna's red foot mistaking it for the face of a deer. Krishna was seated on a peepal tree. The lower portion of the tree is now covered with a silken dhoti so that people did not touch it. The roof of the temple had been built around the tree so that its jet-out skywards was unhindered. Near the tree-bed is a statue of Jara kneeling down with folded hands, apologizing for his blunder. It is said that soon after the shot, waves from the nearby sea swept Lord Krishna heavenwards. We had the privilege to spend a sun-setting session on the seashore the previous evening.

Family members who had been to Bhalka Teerth earlier, had cautioned us of a possible scene. There would be sudden wails in anguish by lady devotees at what had befallen the Lord. But we were in for a different setting. The Security Guard was shouting at a person taking video shots of the premises. The offender countered it with a matching volume that the prohibitory orders had not been displayed prominently. But finding it of no avail, he switched over to English hoping that that would settle things because of the possible inability of the Guard to retort. But it boomeranged. The Guard asked him to collect the Camcoder from the office of Archaeological Society of India. The offender's voice suddenly acquired a pleading tone. We wish we had stayed on till the end of the episode.

Earlier in the day we had gone to Gir forest to keep our date with the Asiatic lions. Normally all the open-safari jeeps are booked months in advance, and only about 35 are kept open for 'current' booking. So Siva and Ashutosh hurried at four in the morning to try their luck. Fortunately they were among the last to be accommodated.

Ashutosh and family got into one jeep, and us in another. There are eight dedicated routes, and each jeep is allotted one route at random. Ashutosh got route 5, and we 7. All through the route our guide prepared us well for disappointment saying that for the past five days nobody was lucky to spot lions. As a compensation he showed us different migratory birds, deer, peacocks, langoor, owls... Towards the fag end of the safari, there was a sudden hushed exchange of cell phone talks among the various guides. Then our Guide announced that if we were lucky we might encounter lions, though he might have to change the course from 7 to another, at the risk of his job. We took it as a ploy for a larger tip. Suddenly our jeep, as well as a few from other directions, stopped and switched off engines so that there was no purring sound. One jeep at a time made a detour from its designated route, into the deep forest where three lions were relaxing in a semi-sleep pose probably after a heavy lunch. Two of them raised their heads repeatedly to ponder whether the human species didn't have anything better to do than disturb them from their preparation for a siesta. On reaching a place where we were allowed to break our silence, we complimented each other at the day's catch. Siva tipped the guide and the driver rather liberally. All all of us celebrated the success with a freshly cooked sumptuous Kathiawadi lunch.

On comparing notes with Ashutosh, he said they heard a heavy roar of lions, though they didn't spot any. But they passed through a lake where they saw crocodiles.

At night we boarded the train to Ahmedabad where we had earmarked a whole day for shopping. Again, the organizing duo suggested that we should end the trip in as grand a manner as we began it, and took us to the famous Goardhan Thal. It was something that would stay in memory for years – so much of fare and so unending.

For return journey, it was in three groups – Ashutosh and family leaving by the same evening, Siva and company visiting Baroda to meet Dr Murali Krishna's brother, and the two of us leaving for Bangalore next early morning.

Before parting ways, one spontaneous sentence hung on everyone's lips: “So, when and where next?”

San Jose

28 January 2013