Category Archives: Temple

Sri Rajamahamariamman Temple, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

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Located right in the city centre and just a few minutes walk away from J B Sentral is this Sri Rajamahamariamman Temple. Filled with huge, colourful statues and colourful paintings of Gods and Goddesses all through the temple, this temple has such a divine, vibrant atmosphere.

The atmosphere resonates outside the temple also, what with so many shops selling lovely, colourful flowers and flower garlands. The colours continue outside in the form of some shops selling colourful Indian ethnic wear too. 

As soon as you reach the entrance to the temple, beautiful statues of peacocks and elephants on the wall greet you. 

Once you enter the temple, you can see the colourful carvings of Srinivasa Kalyanam near the shoe stand. Next to the place where coconuts can be offered to God, there are statues of men throwing the coconut. With tall statues of dwarapalikas and angels on either side, a series of steps lead you to the temple. 

This temple has sanctums of the presiding deity Sri Rajamahamariamman, Krishnar, Vinayaka, Muruga, Shiva, Durga, Navagraham, Bhairavar among other Gods and Goddesses. The shrine of every God has related paintings and statues in its surrounding walls, vimanam and the ceiling outside it. Every single painting and sculpture in this temple is very beautiful and colourful.

When in Johor Bahru, do spend some time to soak in this divine atmosphere and enjoy all the lovely, colourful art.

Sri Rajakaliamman Temple, Johor Bahru, Malaysia 

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This temple in Malaysia is famously known as the glass temple (கண்ணாடி கோவில்).

The statues of Lord Vinayaka playing musical instruments are on either side of the main sanctum of Amman. 

True to its name, almost every surface here including the walls, ceilings, pillars, mandapams, doors, vimanams and gopurams are plated with glass of different colours, sizes and shapes. Small chandeliers are placed everywhere to light up the glass. 

This is relatively a small temple, but houses the shrines of Lord Vinayakar, Muruga, Rajakaliamman, Perumal, Lakshmi, Durga and also Lord Shiva and Parvati in the form of Sri Arbaneswarar and Thilgavathy Ambal. Abhishekam can be done by the devotees for this Atma Lingam. 

There are statues of many saints like Sai Baba, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramalinga Adigalar, Raghavendra, Buddha and Guru Nanak. 

There are some colourful, beautiful statues like that of Hanuman, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Shiva, Amman and Nataraja. 

This temple is open from 7 am till 12 noon and 7 am till 10 pm . It’s located about 10 minutes walk away from J B Sentral, Johor Bahru. Even on a Saturday morning, there were no visitors to this temple and it had a calm atmosphere.

Kurumugil Song & Gujarat Marvels

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In recent times, if there was a movie that I really wanted to watch after seeing all the initial trailers, it had to be Sita Ramam. It’s another fact that I didn’t watch until it got released on Amazon Prime!

Seeing the trailers and promos, all the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Ram apart, there was this one song that had me going back to it again and again, right from the lyric video release. The visuals, the music, the backdrop, the charming Dulquer & Mrunal – it was one of those rare songs that was very captivating, both musically and visually!

The colourful, animated butterflies flying rhythmically to the soft, opening music full of old-world charm (The role that these butterflies play in this movie, especially till the climax! Sigh!), the simple, poetic lyrics, the veena in the interludes and in the ending of many lines all through the song, the sight and sound of kids singing and dancing in chorus (do we even have such beautiful chorus in songs, nowadays?), the happy faces of Sitamahalakshmi and Ram 🙂 and, besides all these, the locations with some stunning architecture! What a beautiful setting the stepwell with all its mini-gopurams made for all the kids to run around along with the hero and the heroine!

It wasn’t until the full video of this song was released, that the magnificence of the location became fully apparent. The place fascinated me so much that Google search and much planning later, we visited the Modhera Sun Temple just to see that beautiful step well! Hearing the legend that Lord Rama and Sita once visited this place, we were wondering if that was the reason why this location was chosen to be featured in the song of our Sita Mahalakshmi and Ram. 🙂

Visiting Rani Ki Vav too along with this place, I realized that the famed stepwell featured in our Rs. 100 note is also featured in this song!

The surprise came in the form of the streets of this place called Sidhpur, which we took a detour to, on a whim, on the way to Rani Ki Vav, while googling for any other places to visit nearby. Google Maps said that there was an architecturally splendid, ruined temple named Rudra Mahalaya temple. As we were travelling on the congested market roads of Sidhpur, to our surprise, my husband spotted the Europe-like streets featured right from the opening sequences of Kurumugil till the end! Wow! We had never heard about the Bohra mansions of Sidhpur. Didn’t these mansions just add on to the old-world charm brought out by the opening music in the song? No wonder camels were a part of those scenes in the song, since that part of Gujarat had its fair share of camels and camel carts!

Since visiting these places, Kurumugil has become even more close to my heart, since it no longer just takes me back to the world of Sita Mahalakshmi and Ram, but also makes me reminisce about my epic heritage trip.

The Hampi Dream

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There are some places that you keep dreaming of visiting some day in your life. Hampi – the erstwhile glorious Vijayanagara empire – has always been that dream destination for me. It all started with the song, ‘Theendai’ from the Tamizh movie, ‘En Swaasa kaatre’ way back in 2000 when I first saw it. It was the pre-Google days when not every info was available at the touch of a mobile. So it took me some time to find out where the song was shot. I wanted to see the temple ruins and that beautiful stepped tank!

In the years that followed, my interest in temples developed beyond visiting them for religious reasons or generally admiring the beauty. I started learning more about the architectural details and the history. Then came the lectures on temple architecture by historian, Dr. Chithra Madhavan. The passion with which she spoke about temples and their history and architecture and the series of lectures on Hampi and Vijayanagara architecture that I attended at Musiri Chamber and Tattvaloka increased my fascination for Hampi. Hampi was that place where the temple architecture that we see today in most of the temples of Tamil Nadu developed. I really very badly wanted to visit that beautiful place filled with marvels in stone from where it all started!

Then there were all those travel blogs, especially that of Arun of travel.paintedstork.com. His photographs of the place and other travelogues continued to make me wish that I could go there.

All these passion for Hampi and travelling suddenly had to take a backseat after I moved to Singapore and I got completely caught up in my crazed routine as a stay-at-home mom.

Post the visit to Cambodia in September this year, my interest in temple architecture was rekindled in full fervour. Now, all that was remaining was Hampi.

When you come to Madras/ India for just a few weeks during school holidays and have to accommodate several to-dos and consider several other factors, you get only a few days to plan for a trip within India. We had just three days to spare and immediately booked the train tickets lest any other programme comes up.

While our initial plan was to visit just Hampi for three days at a leisurely pace just like how we did at Angkor, Cambodia, in the end, our plan completely went in for a toss and we ended up doing Aihole – Pattadakkal – Mahakoota – Badami – Banashankari on day 1, complete relaxation and rejuvenation at Hotel Shivavilas Palace and Sri Kumaraswamy Temple and Chakrateerta at Sandur on day 2 and almost the entire Hampi (!) on day 3!

Barring a few places at Hampi, we did manage to see all that we saw as fully as possible, though not as thoroughly as we might have, had we had a few more extra hours.

Day 1 was also another dream-come-true for me as Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal and Mahakoota have always been second in my list of dream destinations to visit.

To say that I am so happy is an understatement to how I am feeling now after visiting Hampi! It is the fulfillment of little dreams like these that make some moments of your life very special!

The Angkor Trail

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For the last 18 years or so, Hampi in Karanataka, India, had been that dream destination of my life which I wanted to visit to explore the ruined remains of Vijayanagara empire.

This year we indulged in our first vacation in the last few years – a trip to Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat, the dream destination of my husband. Unlike Hampi or any other heritage site in India, I wasn’t completely aware of the magnificence of Angkor Wat and the other temples. All I knew was it was the largest temple complex and the photos of it looked stunning. In the weeks leading up to the trip and even weeks after it, we started reading on Khmer temples and its architecture and are still reading more and more books on it.

The trip to Angkor Wat/ Siem Reap/ Cambodia turned out to be a trip of a lifetime! We spent 4 full days in leisure taking in as many temples in the Angkor region as possible. With seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat to sequentially visiting temples in each route, we did a comprehensive coverage of the entire place leaving just a few temples. The trip turned out to be exactly how I had always wanted to explore Hampi.

Suddenly, my interest in temple architecture was rekindled in full fervour. Now, all that was remaining was Hampi.

Phnom Kulen 1000 Lingas River & Waterfalls

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We reached Siem Reap from Phnom Penh on our second evening in Cambodia. Siem Reap, as you will read everywhere, is the gateway to the temples of Angkor. Till then, we were yet to get a glimpse of any temple belonging to the times of Angkor Wat. So, the next morning, we started from Siem Reap to Phnom Kulen mountain with all eagerness and thus, began our exploration of the Khmer Architectural marvels.

Visitor Info:

There is an entry fee of $20 (USD) for going to Kulen Mountain / Phnom Kulen (Phnom means Mountain in Khmer) and this is different from the Angkor temple ticket/pass. Phnom Kulen is accessible by a single road which is used for ascent till 12 noon and descent after that.

Situated at a distance of 48 km from Siem Reap, Phnom Kulen has a beautiful waterfalls, 1000 lingas river, Preah Ang Thom featuring a huge, reclining Buddha and some ancient Khmer temples which are inaccessible by car. So, we didn’t visit those temples.
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Dwijavanti

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We went to Sri Srinivasa Perumal today evening at around 5:20 pm. With only a handful of people in the temple at that time, it seemed like the perfect time to pray, relax and meditate. What better company than music in the form of the divine nadaswaram and the tavil to accompany you during those peaceful moments in the temple! As the nadaswaram player started the Dwijavanti alapana, I found myself completely relaxing and lost myself in the prayers and the music. There was only inner peace prevailing. If a raagam like Dwijavanti which oozes out only beauty and happiness not relax you, then what else will!

As the song Akhilandeswari started and proceeded to the ‘dwijAvanti rAganutE, jalli maddaLa jhar jhara vAdya’ part, the inner longing in me to get back to singing returned full-fledged. Didn’t I have a voice which could easily reach those upper octaves when it was at its best and in regular practice? Even if it is not Dwijavanti, I wish I could at least sing the nursery rhymes with my children and relax!

Prasadam at Singapore Temples

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As I mentioned in my previous post, the best thing about the temples in Singapore is the prasadam. During my initial days in Singapore, I used to say that the Senthil episode in ‘Boys’ movie should have been featured here rather than in Madras because you’re sure to get an entire meal itself as a prasadam here if you time your visit to the temple correctly. Even otherwise, you’re sure to get some prasadam most of the times.
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