#12288

The Vatican has its own telescope staffed by priests, and has previously been given awards for the pursuit of scientific research. – WTF Fun Facts

Pour ceux qui ont en leur possession le JR Calendar 2014, illuste ce jour une super image du train de nuit 'Twilight Express' ...glacé! J'aimerais beaucoup vous ramener des images comme celle-là de mon futur périple vers le nord du Japon, mais ce sera difficile. Je ne pourrais pas gambader dans la nature, m'aventurer loin des gares; comment m'y rendre? Je n'ai pas de voiture. Le vélo? trop casse...

Source : Densha Otaku 365&;

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I had planned a trip to Ajanta and Ellora on numerous occasions only to defer it on each occassion. I was not going to let another opportunity pass by at any cost. So when a discussion ensued on the topic, a flash trip was the outcome.&;

A flash trip means there is little time for arranging logistics and researching the destination. We ended up boarding a train to Jalgaon in dying hours of Friday (May 4) without reserved seats. Before that, we had scanned almost all the charts on this train, whose final destination was Patna, a trifle over 28 hours away, in an effort to identify vacant seats upto some inter-mediate station on our relatively short 7 hour journey. We found 2 seats that were free upto Manmad ( a stop and 2 hours before Jalgaon) and made our way to those, only to find 4 people sitting there. "We have reservations. 69 and 70", said I to them, a bit hesitantly, and they quickly created space for us to sit. I knew, then, how Ali Baba would have felt when the door gave way on his utterance of the spell - Khul ja, sim sim! For a change I was gladdened by the fact that India isn't a high literacy country, Bihar being particularly lacking in that regard, and that even if the the quartet who had occupied those 2 seats were literate, they hadn't applied their skills and senses in reading the charts. So the battle was won without any resistance and we had berths to sleep on for 4 hours!

The quartet that had ceded the seats to us without a trace of suspicion were pleased with us for we had let them stay seated there, however uncomfortably and they made every effort to remain in our good books. When we decided to get some sleep, they slept on the floor of the coach, happy that we would let them be! When I looked around the coach, as far as I could from the middle berth, I saw people sleeping on the floor and there was no way one could make his or her way to the toilet on either end of the coach without trampling upon a few souls. Some rough math revealed that there were around a 150 people sleeping in the coach meant to accomodate 72! Some would say we were lucky to get the berths without reserving them but I would argue that we made our own luck. In a country where there are 150 candidates for 72 spots, only the sly secures one!

We stepped out onto the street in Jalgaon at 6 in the morning and saw Ranbir Kapoor, in a larger than life poster, promoting a tea brand that I had never heard of before and whose name I have already forgotten. This made Saurabh want a cup, which he wasted no time in procuring and devouring, and we walked away to the bus stop. After having enquired about the bus to Ajanta, we sat down to have a glass of sugarcane juice each. The juice never arrived and the bus did. Saurabh made his way to the rear end of the bus, a choice we regretted as soon as the bus pulled out of the depot, and we arrived a bit shaken up at the T-junction in about an hour's time. We proceeded towards the buses that were dedicated to transporting people between the outer and the inner entrances of the Ajanta caves, paying amenities, having a brunch, buying the bus tickets and the enrtry fee on the way.

The Ajanta caves (Ajintha Leni in Marathi) are basically a cluster of 30 rock-cut caves, dating from 2nd century BC to 600 AD that include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of Buddhist religious art. The Ajanta caves were declared a UNESCO world heritage even before I was born and located at 59 kms and 104 kms from Jalgaon and Aurangabad respectively. Lost to the world for a number of years and serving as home to birds and animals, the caves were accidentally discovered by a British officer for the Madras Presidency on 28th April, 1819. Since then, a lot of scholarly work and research has taken place on each aspect of Ajanta and scores of books have been produced and I have nothing to add on the subject that is not already covered by atleast a dozen books. Suffice is to say that when one gives a thought to what one sees within the caves coupled with the knowledge of the time period in which this work was produced, one is overcame with awe and can only sing odes to the human spirit and its achievements.

Having conferred our share of admiration to Ajanta, we headed out to the T-junction, the same way as we had come in and in no time had boarded the bus to Aurangabad. What happened during the course of the journey is mostly lost on me and Saurabh, for we had dozed away the two and half hours that the bus took on the smelter of the road to complete the journey. However, we opened our eyes at the right time, as the bus entered the Aurangabad. We passed a number of medieval gates (it is known as the city of gates) as well as the Baby Taj ( a monument dedicated to Aurangzeb's wife by their son, the Mughal emperor Shah Alam and built in the image of Taj) before getting off at the bus stop and being confronted by a rickshaw driver-cum-hotel agent. The meeting resulted in us checking into a less-than-ideal hotel, with seedy spelled all over it. Saurabh discovered a few things under the bed and I dared not take a look for myself. We were tired and needed some sleep but the desire to check out was the dominant thought in our heads that day. We checked out early next morning, way before the 24 hour check out time and never turned back. Ellora (Verul in Marathi) was our next destination.&;

Having warded off all the rickshaw drivers, not without traces of contempt, that offered to show us Ellora alongwith 6 other monuments, including the Daulatabad fort and Aurangzeb's tomb, we boarded a bus that dropped us just outside the entrance to this another group of world heritage caves. Having bought the entrance, we entered the enclosure and headed a km south to cave no 1 and began our excursion from there. While the relatively cramped Ajanta is renowned for painting and the miniature art, Ellora's awes one with size and sculptures. Another key difference with Ajanta is that Ellora has not just Buddhist caves, but its tally of 34 is made up of Hindu and Jain caves as well. The work of monk-artists of three different beliefs in such vicinity gives a fair idea of liberal nature of the society that this place once was.

These caves are actually structures excavated out of the vertical face of the Charanandri hills. The masterpiece is the Kailasa temple (cave no 16), the largest monolithic structure in the world. It is a huge temple by any standard but the fact that it was carved out a single rock makes it unique. Imagine, if you will, the master architect conceiving the plan to sculpt a hill itself into a temple. One has to be there to understand this achievement of the human spirit and it is beyond me to produce words to describe this wonder of wonders! Again, as with Ajanta, lot of scholarly work is available on Ellora and I shall resist the urge to add more to this great body of work.

Having spent 7 hours at Ellora, and still feeling that we couldnt do full justice to Kailasa, we gave into the limitations of time and headed out towards the Daulatabad fort, which is midway on the road to Aurangabad. We climbed and climbed, passing the Durga temple and a mosque with a huge minaret, which must have served as watch tower, going through bat-infested dark passages and yet couldnt make it to the top before the sunset. We were a few feet below the apex when the sun began to set and the fort is evacuated at that time. We descended the same way, clicking a few pictures of the largest cannon in the world among other thing on the way, and stood outside waiting for a bus to Aurangabad.

A vehicle with three seating sections (similar to Tata Sumo) and painted in the tazi colors of black and yellow came to a halt besides us. I saw through the window on our side and could see out through the windows on the other side. There were 19 people inside it, if my counting ability is to be trusted and the driver asked us to get onboard. I ignored his invitation as a lame joke but he was dead serious. "How in the world!" I exclaimed. "These people are gettng off at Chavni, the nearby village and then the vehicle is vacant there on. So just tag along at the rear until then you should have seats", he answered without batting an eyelid. Saurabh and I exchanged a glance and we were soon hanging at the rear end of the vehicle, the door kept open for our convenience, alongwith 2 more "co-hangers". True to his word, the driver offloaded 4 people at the next village and the four of us at the back got the middle seats. We realized that a burqa-clad lady was sitting in the lap of a man in the front and that the driver himself had one for company on his own seat. A true Swadesh experience this! We reached Aurangabad safely and well in time for dinner and our train journey back.&;

I remember a while ago a post you did made me laugh so hard i cried. I'm sure it was a gif set of some TV show saying that women don't want to be called Princess because it belittles them. You replied to it with this:

I was literally sobbing with laughter for so long. XD