Rashakai

WE decided to go to Rashakai on the 14th of July 2011. We used the M1 to get there. Drive is amazing the sun was shining and the air clear, one can see rolling feilds on both sides of the road. Every time i use M1 its a different color, golden with wheat, brown when ploughed and this time post harvest green.

Rashkai is so pakhtoon, from the road you can hardly tell that there is a big market inside these unassuming motley shops. Once inside we get so busy shopping we do not even realise how much one is spending. The seemingly bargain fabrics full of vibrant colors and life are just so amazing.

On the way back we had Naan and chappal kebab check out the size of the naan

Raj Mandir Kattas

The temple complex is dated back 300 BC, but buildings have been added in it since then. The First complex was built by Pandau brothers who after loosing the war to their cousins were given a ban baas and came to live in Salt range. They must have had a whale of a time, the area enjoys a very heavy rainfall and is thickly vegetated. One assumes that the area would be very thickly wooded and full of game at the time.

Pandaus built sat garah or the complex of 7 temples one central temple and 6 smaller ones surrounding it.

Later ashoka built a stupa or a Buddhist temple, and much later general amar singh added a haveli i am presuming in the Sikh period.

There was university associated with the complex where there was a library as well as hostel for the students who lived in it. The guide said that in this university albairuni calculated the diameter of earth - wallah ilm bilsawab.

the claim to fame is the lake / chashama right beside the building which is most amazing aquamarine color- i saw a turtle swimming in it it was almost breath taking. But not quite as the lake was full of weeds the lake is cleaned only once a year when Sikh and Hindu yatris come for their annual visits which is in April so that is when i should revisit the place.

we met the sole inhabitant of the lake a turtle swimminga way in his loneliness i wonder if he had any other freinds fishes or other turtle buddies, or he was alone.

The guide was in a hurry to show us the place so that he can move on to the next customer. but he did give us some perspective of the place.

there was a hand pump just inside the boundary where we splashed ourselves with water to rejuvenate. It was interesting to see the crowd there.

My request to students who go to these places ----- please have some sense of history, do not littered, do not write on walls do not mutilate the buildings.

For a minute i closed my eyes and thought of how this place must have looked 300 BC it was calm quite reclusive close to nature i wish i was there in 300 BC a character in Aag ka darya or even Mahabharata away from the sounds of civilisation

The visit was with family tomorrow inshalalh Taxilla

a new start

I started this blog acouple of years back with the idea that if i am nota ble to express myself verbally i should at least be able to write about how i feel, and then being such a private person i did not feel safe writinga nd publishing on internet and here again i am restarting this thing because i just feel suffocated and i want to express myself and yet i am unable to do so. Yesterday i was so suffocated that it became ahrd for me to breath i was panting away, struggling with my pulse racing with no one knows ( least of all me) what stressor on my mind.

Is it the burden of mere existence that pressures me? Is it the various associations, responsibilities realtionships that strangle me or is my pressure just self created.

I have to start blogging about my outer journeys rather than inner ones :)