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And so the monsoon has come back. It is truly the most beautiful and sublime act of nature if we ignore its capacity for destruction. If in mood for destruction, it doesn’t leave anything or anyone. Disintegrates city life, with flooded roads, railway tracks and drains, mudslide and what not. Not only cities it creates havoc on mountains with heavy landslides, road blockages and the plains with unwanted floods.
But but but. Who regrets its arrival ? Not me. The farmers are happy; the birds start singing, peacock dancing and kids have whale of a time. The monsoon is widely welcomed and appreciated by city-dwellers as well, for it provides relief from the climax of summer in June.

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Have you ever seen bearded Lord Shiva ?? Strain your brain to recollect if you have indeed seen a picture or idol of Shiva with a beard.
No ? Read on….

Despite the Portuguese influence that dominated Goa over the centuries, it is fascinating to see how such a large number of Hindu temples have survived here. Shoved away from place to place, the deities were preserved and worshipped till they were finally installed in their present day hearths.

We happened to visit a few of them; I’ll speak about only one where I saw bearded Shiva.
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Recently I had gone to Goa. It was my first visit to the place but definitely not the last. I need to go there quite frequently to know more & more about that wonderful place. Nice excuse, eh ?

Till my visit there, I knew of Goa as a place of beautiful beaches, churches, Goan food & music and some carnivals. Today, I’ll tell you something unique about this beautiful city of India which I was not aware of.

To experience a new place, I generally make it a point to travel at least once in the local mode of transport. So that day was a ‘bus day’. Nothing unusual happened there but after a tired day when I was getting down from the state run bus at a bus stop, I was suddenly overwhelmed to hear 5-6 male voices calling out “Welcome sister, welcome sister”.

Ahaa ! What luck ! So many brothers in an unknown city !! They were all on motorcycles. I was beaming with joy errr… confusion. Before I could happily hug them like a long lost sister in a mela (fair), I was pulled back to senses by telling me that they were “pilots”.
Pilots on motorcycles ???
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When I wrote about the boat ride to Elephanta caves, I didn’t know it would take this long to actually get down from the boat and enter the caves.
Ah well, I have been traveling for most of the last one month and hence the absence. But I believe in ‘better late than never’. So, here I am once again. Once you step onto the island, a mini train well adorned with fresh nimbu-mirchi to ward off any evil, welcomes you to take you to the main gate. Again, as we always prefer to try the options; we kept the mini train ride for coming back when we would be tired. So fresh and raring to go, we chose to walk to the gate, clicking some pictures on the way.

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