Some photo-essays on subjects which caught my attention while shambling around the world. If you wanted to use any photographs for your own or commercial purposes, by all means, go ahead, but please just ask me first, I have never said no before :)
On this auspicious day, I wanted to put together a combo post relating to my visit to the Shiv Temple in Bhojpur near Bhopal.
Here are the relevant links in order.
It was a good day out, a good day to be with the Gods.
While driving back home after visiting Bhojpur, I noticed this tiny temple so stopped to check.
Tiny temple, no? 
The tree is wide and spreading over the temple. It has started to sprout leaves. 
Looks like some animals have been using the platform as a place to rest and have dirtied up the platform. 
You can see the temple has been decorated by the Hindu Swastika. 
Peering closely at the statues, the left hand side statue is one of Vishwakarma while the one on the right is of Hanuman. Vishwakarma is considered to be the Divine engineer, the architect. He is worshipped by craftsman, professionals, artisans and anybody who works with their hands or is in the professions. Its the beard which is the most important identifier for me. 
Typically, one finds these prayer flags attached to the tree. This could be just because or some worshipper has tied this to the tree as a reminder for a boon which has been requested from the God. Once / If the boon is granted, then the worshipper pops back and unties the flag (or any other one). Interesting ways of keeping score. The idea being, a good turnover of flags is an indication of power of the temple and of the God. 
Its just next to the road but not many houses around the location. A transient temple then? 
It has been built on top of this parapet kind of thing around the tree. 
The land around is rather barren and as I said, not many houses around. 
See what I mean about the tree? Lovely broad tree. 
A place to sit and drop your cares away in the shadow of the comforting tree. 
Another balding tree. 
There was another temple behind but I didnt want to pop in there, not least because the level of moaning and complaining that was coming from the rear seat from the parental units was getting to be painful. Hence in the interests of keeping peace in the family, I left Bhojpur behind. In my next visit, I am going to try to visit Bhimbetka.
We were driving back to Bhopal when I stopped because I noticed this.
What on earth is a Yoni doing on the side of the road? Its like driving to Stonehenge and finding a bunch of abandoned menhirs near Heathrow. 
I looked up to see the landscape littered with abandoned Yoni’s. 
See what I mean? 
Climbed up on top of the stone and there were at least 20 of these. Just littering the place.
Not like they were dug out there and left. But they were literally scattered around.
Zooming into one of them, there are plants over it so its quite old. 
But not that old that you cant see the marks of the chisel. 
You can barely make out the Shiv Temple in the distance. Cant see it? 
Can you see it now? We are talking at least 3-4 kilometres away as the crow flies and about 8-10 on the road. Highly zoomed in shot. 
Panning left. 
More left. 
Further left. Hello? what’s that on the top left? 
There’s the car and the road. 
Further going around to the left. 
But going back to what caught my eye. Its a dam. Extends to a very long distance.
Walking down towards the dam. A flag. What on earth is happening here? 
This is an actual road which was constructed way back in the dim and distant past. With stones. A millennia back. Like the Roman Roads. Very interesting. 
Here is the beginning of the dam. Dressed stone. 
At least 6 feet in depth on each layer, and from what it looks, three layers of stone. Pretty substantial earthen dam. 
About 25 feet at this point. 
And carries on for about 1.5 kilometres. 
Ah! ha! the flags are for a real estate firm which is presumably selling land / plots.
This is amazing. Some more details from here.
Cyclopean Dam: This dam was a marvel during olden times; the great dam now lay in ruins on the western side of Bhojpur. The dam was built on a vast lake which is no more there. Huge hills enclosed the entire area from all sides, but two big gaps were there that were blocked by different dams. The earthen dams were huge with the bigger one being 44 feet high and 300 feet thick and the smaller one being 24 feet high and 100 feet wide. The construction of the dams was done without using mortar.
As it so happens, in the 15th century, Sultan Hussein Shah of Malwa attacked the Bhojpur temple and demolished the Bhojpur dam, which kept releasing water for 30 years.
Another text from here.
The Cyclopean dam was a marvel during olden times; the great dam now lay in ruins on the western side of Bhojpur. West of Bhojpur once laid a vast lake which was destroyed by Hoshang Shah of Malwa (1405- 34), who cut through the lesser dam, and thus either intentionally or in a fit of destructive passion, added an enormous area of the highest fertility to his possessions. According to a Gond legend, it took an army of them three months to cut through the dam and the lake took three years to empty, while its bed was not habitable for thirty years afterwards. The climate of Malwa is said to have been considerably altered by the removal of this vast sheet of water.
Sort of confused, eh? 3 or 30 years? lol. But interesting indeed to see the remnants of the dam, the road and those amazing abandoned Yoni’s.
After collecting the aged P’s, we trundled back to the car and I took some pics of the shops which lined one side of the road.
Dolche & Gabanna. Very nice. 
So lets see, we have some chinese laughing monks, some glass and ceramic tortoises. Glass pyramids. Some colourful Ganesh Statues on the top. Makes perfect sense to sell them in the middle of India. 
Ah! here’s more like it, some shivlings, some nandi’s, some hand bells, Sai Baba, Ganesh, some globes. 
What on earth? Ma is holding up an egyptian anti evil eye ornament. What on earth is it doing here? 
We also have some chinese coin based key rings, some shell based keyrings, some plastic heart keyrings and some glass astronaut keyrings. Globalisation, here we are. 
Piles of stuff for the gods, coconuts, flowers and leaves. 
The lady preparing the plastic packets of offerings. I thought plastic bags were banned? 
The stall is being setup now. 
And we have a satellite dish, presumably to talk directly to God? well, close enough, the gods seem to be on tv more than in the temples. 
Then we drove off and I noticed this strange box like structure surrounded with some amazing bits on the side of the road couple of kilometers from the temple. What can this be? I stopped the car despite Ma’s caterwauling. The answer is given in the next essay.
