The festival season is here!

Since I've been back in New York, walking around dreary-eyed carrying my jetlag on my already burdened shoulders I haven't had motivation to do much. That also includes an over due account of my experiences in India. For most of the trip the sweltering heat refrained  me from doing anything meaningful besides eating heavy lunches and taking blissful afternoon naps in the blowing A/C. But we did manage to steal a day and take a trip about an hour away from the Gateway of India to visit the Elephanta Caves.

The caves are built on a lush green but steamy island in the middle of the Arabian Sea. Growing up I never got a chance to visit them but had heard much about them. No body knows why the caves were built or when but through some dating they've concluded the caves were built around the time Buddhism was flourishing in India; which makes them very, very old. The journey to get there is less than perfect and when you land on the island you cannot help but ignore the local vendors who are supported through tourism. The entire place before the caves begin feels like a tourist trap with vendors trying to sell you everything from water to food to beautiful elephant motifs and silk paintings.

The fees to enter the caves are reasonable for Indians but there is a spike for foreigners. Much to the dismay of the security there; we passed my husband for an Indian, ha! They were not too happy about it but I guess they couldn't do much. Once you enter the caves  the entire dynamic changes. For Indian standards, they were kept quite well but unfortunately there is still some littering that happens.

There are 5 distinct caves marked as 2, 3, 4 and 5 but the real attraction is in the main cave. Beautiful statues; most of them sadly broken or disfigured remind us of the artistic beauty of a time lost but not forgotten. All the caves house the shiv ling, the eternal representation of the Hindu deity, Shiva. There are many other statues cut out of giant rocks showing Shiv-Parvati's wedding, their children and some that resembled angels. Another rock with a lost bottom part shows Shiva performing the cosmic dance to destroy a weary universe and make preparations for Brahma to start the process of creation. My favorite was the rock cut 3-faced figure of Shiva. Hazy on the details, I do remember that the face to the right is the female face and the other two are male. There is another beautiful statue of Ardhnareshwar, i.e. Shiva in half male and half female form representing the union between Shiva and Shakti or man and woman.



The 3-faced figure of Shiva



Shiva doing the cosmic dance



I expected more of the caves, the rock cut figures were remarkable but I wish the government and authorities would do more to preserve and perhaps re-build some of the art that was lost to time, weather and other unknown anomalies. However, limited in their structure we cannot deny the staggering beauty the figures emit. To see them restored to their former glory would indeed be a privilege. We will perhaps never know why they were built but if we are to take proper care and conserve the beauty we can at least look back and admire the skill of the artisans who painstakingly carved them out of giant rocks in the middle of no where!

On another note, today is Diwali and tomorrow is the Hindu New Year. Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous Diwali and a blissful New Year. I pray we can all get closer to understanding the mysteries of the universe this year and take ourselves nearer to finding the inner peace we often crave.

Happy Diwali!