don’t laugh if i say i saw the real sea only when i was 26 … i mean yes; literally … it was marina beach. chennai … i was put up at tirupati, a temple town in southern andhara pradesh … chennai was hardly a 3-hrs-journey by train then … i had never been to chennai earlier and suddenly i got an opportunity to go there … a day’s off and headed to chennai.. that was the first time i saw something so big, huge and vast … water and water wherever my eyes go … first time i felt so small in front of nature … i always prefer hills than sea, because hills get a special place in my memory; however this was an eye opener for me ! and 5 years later, my ten-month-old daughter saw the sea first time … co-incidentally it was again the same, marina beach … in between i had traveled so many other beaches, east coast, west coasts of india … had been on an expedition to walk coasts after coasts by the arabian sea in karnataka …
… i had seen enough… but every time i see a sea, it gives me a different perspective all together… i learn how people are depended on the sea for their living … i see, how a sea protects our livelihood … i see , how a sea pour us with its help for a better civilization … i learn different emotions, different color, different scenes, different acts by the sea …
every time i find an opportunity , i learn something different than previous time …
[ first picture was taken at Mahabalipuram, Tamilnadu, and the second one at Marine drive, Chowpatty beach ]
… and before i could actually head to the office i headed out to karla cave … very near to pune, karla is actually a village by the side of highway … the bare hill can be seen from a long distance and preferably from the highway … this hill stands out amongst the other hills surrounding it … i was wondering how the hell, a bunch of early buddhist monks saw the hill, climbing up to the top and carved out the cave …believe me, it is the largest early buddhist chaitya completed around 80 BC … it is a beautiful cave of 40 mtrs long and 15 mtrs high … inside the cave, there is a stupa and even before entering inside , you can see monolithic elephants standing side by the entrance … most of them are destroyed now, but it is said, those had ivory tusks as well… next to this big hall, there are small rooms carved out the hill, one can get inside this dark 8×8 cellars and get a feel of the time … i had been to mahabalipuram earlier, saw arjuna’s penance, a beutifully hand carved piece of art of earlier agaes .. but i never had been to any cave earlier … it was a different feeling.. add to it, when i came to know that, this piece of work was done even before the birth of Jesus Christ ( counting of years ), i was so surprised… indian historical heritage is just countless … i felt, it was worth of climbing up to the top…