Had been to the Kolampak (Kulpakji) Jain temple last gone Sunday for an outing. Its around 75kms. & a good 2.5 hrs drive from the city.
With not many options left nearby the city limits, thought its good to pay God a visit once in a while too. :P
As it was really long since the last time I'd been there, almost 7-8 years; I was pleasantly surprised to see the change in the temple's surroundings. It's been expanded & beautifully done with all the intricate marble work & all...& also maintenance of neat surroundings. Temples always manage to get donors. We are such bound by faith. [That makes me think of how I support privatisation in many places....err...let me not get deviated.]
Had good darshan & had yummm prasad within the premises. [Whoever misses that!?! :D]Thankfully it was peaceful with not many people though it was a weekend.
The only source of entertainment there are the Tanga rides (Horse cart) just outside the temple. We too went for a ride & our cart man asked us if we would like to visit a nearby museum.
Having never heard of it, we assumed it would be a chota-mota museum with some history about the temple. Anyways, since we were there, we decided to visit.
As we reached the museum through an almost non existent track. (No roads there) I was shockingly surprised.
It was a really old stone structure, which was converted into a museum & temple. As we parked, my shock turned into disbelief & dismay at the unusual state of management of such a beautiful edifice.
As expected, but for the pandits, beggars & stray dogs, there were no visitors there. Though I was most surprised at the presence of a decent number of beggars at this forlorn place. Is there any place spared by them?
Getting further, once we were in, fresh greens greeted us. Thankfully those were well maintained.
There is a main Shiv temple in the premises, which is worshipped & there are couple of adjacent temples in the premises too...but those didn't need worshipping.
The people who manage the place were maybe told by God, not to keep those temples in good order. I can think of no other appalling reason for the sad upkeep of those temples. It was a very contrasting & horrid fact to look at.
Apart from the temples, there were a lot of old stone idols lined up, from different eras. Idols upto the 10Th century A.D. Yet, none of these could be related to any kind of history as there was no information about any kinds regarding these relics. It seemed as if they were all amassed together & placed at the nearest given site.
The whole place mostly constituted of stone pillars & with craftsmanship that would give a peek to the quality of work in those times.
Looking at this it makes me believe that there must be so many more places like this all over our country, places which are just left off to the care of handful of people, with no proper maintenance & most importantly no apt promotion of it.
India has such a vast & dissimilar culture from region to region, that if well maintained, our past treasures can fill up our national vaults with enough wealth. Moneywise & heritagewise.
I truly believe:
The way we represent our history shows the way, what our future will be like.
Except these mundane observations, I was very glad to have chanced upon this comely place. History is always very arresting for me, I love to learn about cultures & time periods. So, even though there was no much information on it, I did absorb into the beauty of the stone pieces which had stories of their own.
After spending quite some time there, we proceeded towards home, only to find the weather so beautiful, that the Bhongir fort that is on the way, made my quest for historical sights only deeper & we stopped by for a while.
Like in a race, we zoomed upto the fort, said, 'Yipee, we climbed up in record time' ; & then zoomed down again as dusk was falling & we had to yet almost a couple of hours to reach home.
Yet one thing that stayed with me was: Why are most historic places not well maintained & why are they not well promoted... provided sufficient information on?
Is it that becoz as we are advancing towards more & more fast lives, either the Govt. deems it unnecessary to update these places..or is it coz they as well as we, aren't plain bothered?
'Aren't plain bothered', can't be the case as we spend a bomb on archaeological findings all the time. Only to be left off like this?
Then am I correct in my observation that they are not 'Ruins' but 'Ruined' in fact?
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