the weekend

saturday:
woke up early morning to catch the 10 o'clock half-price :-) show of
taxi no. 9-2-11. good enuf movie...only tht i missed out on some parts
due to my cell...calls from a friend and then from my parents...thts why
i hate cellphones !
grabbed some lunch after the movie and did some browsing on the net from a cyber cafe till evening...then off to Park Street , the Oxford book shop there was holding a mega-sale...bought all of sidney sheldon (his 'the other side of me' is gr8!), a tale of two cities,jeffrey archer's collection of shorts and a better photography magazine...back to home and browsing- the books this time :-)

sunday:
met up wid my parents and together off for a trip to 'belur math'. awesome place.
never seen a place of worship so clean. the architecture is elegant, a eclectic mix of victorian and indian...the prayer hall is gr8 too...found people lost in thought, some doin sketches, some writing up stuff...

lunch time and we joined around 600 more people in a community lunch of delicious khichri and dum aloo, arranged by the 'math' sanyasis...you could see the hooghly river flow by the math and savour the cool breeze even in the hot sun...
of course the high point of the trip was a visit to he ramakrishna musuem there...stuffed with artifacts used by ramakrishna(hindu philosopher,devotee of kali,worshipped by ppl now...a VERY interesting person) and his disciple vivekananda(he deserves a full blog and more...). for ppl like us who grew up listening to their stories/legends, it's really exciting to really see their handwritten notes, pillows,hand fans,coats etc. used by them! i jumped around the place like a kid :-)

can't get u pics coz photography is not allowed...but visit this link if u will:
http://www.sriramakrishna.org/belur/gallery/tour.htm

then a boat ride across the river to the dakshineshwar temple...it's a typical place of worship, teeming wid ppl (especially coz of shiv ratri), beggars (found a notice instructing not to give to beggars!..first time seen sthg like tht outside a temple for temples hav always been beggars' bread and butter)...the temple complex is huge with 108 (oversrowded)shiv temples surrounding the (overcrowded)temple at the centre...add to tht the scorching courtyard on which u hav to walk barefoot to go from one temple to another...its the kinda experience which u hope remains only once in a lifetime :-)

neways after tht anticlimax, it was back to home and sleep...