Sunday, December 26, 2010

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 8 (Kamakhya temple)

I should once again state that we were all jam packed in a Alto car to reach the foot hills of Kamakya temple, the driver stopped the car and asked me to hop on to a doorless (no interiors too) Tata Sumo (socio) taxi just to reduce some weight in the Alto :-) he he he. Look at the Socio Sumo with Mahindra Scorpio grill.


It was a short drive and we all landed in the top of the Kamakya hills, we had a fast food to feed our hungry stomachs. In the whole trip we really missed good cuisine. My parents wanted to take some curd to mix with the rice and we only got sweetened yogurt.

While the Alto was resting in the car parking we moved to the temple bay which was fully colored in red color with the ribbon kind of cloth used for pooja purposes.



Much of the shops have had either the pooja items on showcases or souvenirs for the tourists visiting the temple.



Overall the temple and its surroundings were in red color theme, be it a colored goat or the Sadhu requesting for alms at the entrance.



The temple had lots of goats inside and the entire temple was filled with lots of goat droppings, some of the goats have even entered in the Hanuman sanctorum.


Due to lack of time my family wanted to get into the temple with paid Darshan ticket, and the tickets were quoted Rs. 500 per person and Rs. 100 per person. That’s it, I backed off from the plan and searched for free Darshan entrance that’s were the miracle happened, someone pulled us into the line very close to the sanctorum entrance and with in 10minutes we all presented in front of Kamakya sanctorum. Till that second I was thinking Kamakya means the Kaman (cupid) and Pandit inside the temple revealed the goddess as Kamakshi an avatar of Uma.

I also must say that the Pandits in the sanctorum seem to be highly corrupted and money minded converting the pilgrims to pour money into their basket. I have witnessed the pandits keeping Rs. 100 Rs.500 and Rs.1000 bills spread in a basket and asking every individual to donate their part.


After praying the god to give these pandits some good grey cells I slowly moved out of the temple.

The outer wall of the sanctorum was decorated with sculptures and they were beautiful, as once again we clicked couple of pictures before ending the Guwahati city tour.



Coming up next Chill Chill Chill Shillong, Stay tuned.

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