This year it was Karnataka. We decided to explore the state famous for sandalwood and elephants. It is not rich as Gujarat or as industrious as Maharashtra or as literate as Kerala but when you combine everything, it would easily top the charts as the best administered state in India. Tourism, culture, food, roads, public transport, primary health.. you name it, the state stands tall in it. To top it all, I am surprised to see how cosmopolitan Bangalore and its people are. It must be the only city in India where you can survive with any one of 4 different languages namely English, Hindi, Tamil or the native Kannada. I can at least say with certainty that Bangalore is more cosmopolitan than Chennai or even Delhi. For our trip from B'lore, we hired Royal Enfield bullets from our good friend Anand Dharmaraj of Indimotard adventures. He and his manager Sriram were very nice as usual and let us take the bullets a day in advance and return it a day later than schedule. This helped us bunk up in Kolar the night before we started the actual journey and come back leisurely on the last day when hit by monsoons.
The destination for this year's trip was Coorg (Kodagu in native lingua, Madikeri is the district HQ). A major hill station in the western ghats, it is famous for its Coffee plantations. 700 Kms over 3 days was not exactly what one would like for a riding trip but the sheer size of our group (11 members) only permitted us this much. Next time we would plan something longer and larger. Speaking of Coorg, it was a princely state during the Raj. After independence, it was clubbed with the newly created state of Karnataka. However, there has been a separate statehood claim from its native people ever since. It is said that of all the statehood claims in India, Kodagu is the only claim that is based on culture alone and not a poor economy. Home to the Koda tribes, Kodagu is also the birth place of the legendary Field Marshal General K M Cariappa. The kodagu cuisine mainly includes chicken and pork, hence the casteist morons from India's jurassic age consider these sons of the soil inferior to themselves (the kodagu ppl dont give a damn about losers anyway). Pork eaters in our tour group had a field day.
Another attraction in this district is the Tibetan buddhist monastery at Bylekuppe near Kushalnagara, between Mysore and Madikeri. As such moving from Mysore to Coorg, we found it interesting to see the distinct mix of dravidian people like me (dark skinned) and the kodagu people (fair skinned) living side by side, then suddenly pinkish fair mongoloid people started appearing from nowhere. We were amused to see this and later surprised to know that Bylekuppe down south in the western ghats is the second largest Tibetan settlement outside Tibet. The people have adapted themselves so well leaving one to wonder if it is a refugee settlement or a model town for development. There is a monastery, some nunneries, and a magnificent golden temple. For people interested in Buddhism, it is obviously a mahayana temple with statutes of Buddha, Buddha Amitayus and Padmasambhava (the 38th king of Tibet who introduced Buddhism to the land of snows). They call their religious establishment the Nyingma school. There is a huge picture of Dalai Lama in his younger years to greet visitors to the monastery. It is a delight to see little buddhist monks playing around the temple with zeal and laughter. After long photo sessions in the 'Golden Temple' as they call it, we had a hearty Tibetan lunch complete with chicken, beef, pork and ginger lemon tea. Yeah you heard it right, beef is served in Bylekuppe in Karnataka which is ruled by a right wing hindutva party. For people who have a problem with that, please refer to articles 14 to 18 of the constitution of India. Also be informed that beef is the second largest consumed protein in Kerala after sea food and none of the south Indian states could dream of banning it for reasons whatsoever. The illiterates who can't read or understand that and want to beat me up, can leave a comment here ;p. After the original Tibetan lunch, I promised to myself never to eat "chinese" food in Delhi again. Surprisingly, in all of Kodagu known to the world for its coffee plantations, lemon tea is amazing. Also amazing was the young maiden who made us tea near Thala Cauvery (no offence meant). As a group of four we made her day by eating up some 35 vadas and drinking up a couple of cups tea each.
Thala Cauvery (literally head of River Cauvery) is believed to be the birth place of the river. River Cauvery is the life line of southern Karnataka and almost all of Tamil Nadu. There are not many perennial rivers in peninsular India, of late massive urbanization and irregular human settlements only make matters worse. Cauvery is the last straw holding Tamil Nadu from becoming an inhabitable desert. In spite of its great cultural and religious significance, the Thala Cauvery as a tourist attraction was a disappointment for many years. People naturally expect a big lake or spring fountain or something when you say this is where a huge river begins from. It is actually nothing but a small man made square sump/tank not more than 2 feet wide each side with water appearing to be still for the naked eye. Kudos to the Karnataka tourism department, they have built a larger tank nearby that collects water from the original spring and people are allowed to take a dip now. There is also some neat landscaping and a marvelous temple constructed around the spring. It gives a really nice feel to visit the place now and there is a small walk way around the temple giving a lot of photo ops. One eyesore was blatant sanskritisation of agathiya munivar (believed to have created river Cauvery for the benefit of southeners, also the first man to pen down grammar for ancient tamil) into rishi agasthiya and such things for vested interests. It is even an insult to the native people of the region who are not even hindus themselves and the scores of farmers of all religions that consider the river to be their lifeline. Common sense and slightest reference to history would tell you Agathiya munivar is not Rishi Agastiya in spite of what wikipedia says. Agathiyar, his writings, historical references on Agathiyam the grammar book and folklore about him predates the aryan hindu culture, entry of Indo-European language family in India and hence the vedas.
On our way back from Thala Cauvery, the monsoons burst on us. Tragically one of our bikes took a slip on a downturn and both rider and pillion were hurt. Good heavens, we were in Karnataka. We took them to the nearest Primary Health Centre that was less than 5 kms from the accident spot. Surprisingly, it was a neatly maintained, well run establishment with the staff nurse proficient in English. He refused to take anything more than the stipulated government fees of Rs. 2/- per patient for the treatment that included a TT injection and dressing. We were so impressed with the facility that we spent some time to shoot a small video tour of the place, only to be caught up in heavy downpour later. The monsoons were too heavy forcing us to move at snail's pace. Frequent stops on the way back due to rain made it impossible to drive through to Banglaore overnight and we bunked up at Chennapatna for the night. We reached Bangalore in the morning and navigated through the traffic slowly and steadily to return the bikes at Indimotard's Mahadevapura garage. It was a nice experience yet again after last year's wayanad trip. Learnings from this trip were few but important. On a lighter vein, we learnt that for a riding trip, we must take only bike enthusiasts and proper protection is necessary on bullets even if the trip is short and terrain not so dangerous. We are hoping to travel across West Bengal or Kashmir next year.
