AFVOA Newsletter May 2020

Section 3 - Memoirs Newsletter No. 1 / 2020 P a g e 44 | 101 The roundabouts in Bali are themselves a testimony to the aesthetic and spiritual Culture! Amazing, clean, white Alabster sculptures, king size, of Arjuna’s Despondency, or Arjuna defeating Karna …. scenes from the Bhagawad Gita are portrayed with clarity, beauty; even the chariots and horses are breathtakingly real! There are statues of Rama, graceful Balinese dancers on every street, in front of big hotels, outside rich homes! Marvellous, aesthetic, beautifully and carefully sculptured with great details! Hanuman is a loved figure though portrayed more Asura like and fierce! Ganesha is another favourite too. We visited the Gaja Ganapathy cave temple which is an excursion as you crawl into the cave! A lot of steps to negotiate till one reaches the shrines; where to my surprise I spotted Krishna avatar, on a cloth curtain quite like our Orissa Patachitra!! Trees said to be over 500 years old draped in sarongs grace the lawns! Ubud, has a forest solely dedicated to monkeys! They are harmless and enjoy the occasional treats from tourists. The TANA LOT temple is unique in that the sea tides submerge the centuries old temple; one waits for the low tide to venture to the small temple on the shore similar to our Rathas at Mahabalipuram! An Albino snake is the guardian! Probably a marine snake it is able to withstand submerging by the sea adapting well to the rise and fall of the waves! the paths are slimy with moss and algae so it is a tricky walk for the not so young. I managed that too. Another temple with an improbably long flight of stairs, the ‘Besakih’ temple takes one extremely high almost into the clouds! The views from there are spectacular I am told! Certainly not my cup of Tea! An interesting and one of a kind in the world is the ‘Nyepi day,’- a day of total silence (mauna) once a year, when even the Ngurah Rai International Airport of Denpasar, Bali, is closed from 6 am to 6 am. the next day! No cars, no traffic, no entertainment, no TV. Everyone sits at home in introspection and contemplation; one simply prays and meditates. Bali is home to about 240 Volcanos! Angung a dormant one keeps threatening to erupt while Kintamani looms over. There is ceaseless seismic activity going on; everyday parts of Bali have earthquakes that rarely overshoot the Richter scale! This reminded me of the chapter in Bhagawada Purana wherein after a Kalpa or dissolution of a Yuga the asuras were condemned to live in areas prone to seismic upheaval! The soil too is black, volcanic residue! Even the beaches sport the same Our drive to the National Reserve park at Menjangyan was a scenic one. The park is home to a special species of deer called Menjangyan too. Equatorial Bali has the most spectacular flora. The road is flanked with vistas of lush verdant greenery by