Road trip – Theerthalli

Mar 31, 2014

We dint want to leave Agumbe so soon, such was the hospitality we received in this wonderful place. I would love to come here again.

The road from Agumbe which goes towards Shimoga takes you towards Kundadri. A right deviation on this road starts climbing the Kundadri hill. An ancient jain basadi is on top of this hill. The road gets extremely curvy and steep as we climb up. The car dint complain too much for the heavy workout early in the morning.    

  

The temple atmosphere is quiet with just the morning breeze & the sounds of the leaves fluttering. There were none, other than the three of us. The priest hinted us to quickly visit the temple just before he could close it after the morning pooja. As we stood praying in front of the deity, the priest, who unlike most of the priests in cities who does the job for money, found time to share the history of the temple. He explained how Jainism established and flourished under several thirthankaras. We listened to him, though with a little hesitation of thinking that he might later demand for money. He dint. We happily offered our prayers and took prasad he later offered.

The breeze on the hill was pleasant and the view of far off villages and farms was brilliant. Summer had just started, with the green patch of land still sustaining all around. The pond next to the temple looks dead and good for nothing. With the notice hung around saying not to swim, I assume the pond is deep enough to drown. Ride down the hill was quick though we took some wrong turns couple of times and then we had to turn back to finally reach Theerthalli road. From here it is easy to reach KuppaLi.

We reached kavimane around 12pm. Took tickets and the guide accompanied us on his own, we dint resist as he seemed to a nice fellow. Even though this was my second visit to this place, I dint mind having some one help us with more details about this place. The place, I feel is more than just a house. And Kuvempu is a gift for mankind. He has gifted us every single verse he has written. He writes in one of those several lines inscribed on one of the walls, which means, "I don't want people in London to read my work, but kannadigas (or Indians) to do so". How many of us even have read a single book he has written, I'm sure not many. I cannot forget to mention here, about a wonderful poem O Nanna Chethana!, which is one of my favourites and every time I hear this song, I am in trance. It is so soothing and meaningful. Every word weighs heavier than any epic, and is so beautifully lyricked.

  Now, not just the man himself but every thing in this house is a remnant for today's generation. Of those several things, I don't think we even have seen them, forget using them in our lives. Like those huge wooden racks to store rice, utensils made of mud, attics in house. We were told that, Kuvemup's relatives stayed in this house, who also have preserved these antiques till date. When he passed away, they were shifted to a nearby accommodation to convert this as his museum.

Just like his writings, the story behind the name of this place KuppaLi is equally interesting. KuppaLisu in Kannada means "Hoping". A frog hops from one place to the other since this place is a set of some hills, people reach here hoping several such hills(not literally), which thus took name as KuppaLi, while most of us stress the L at the end, which is wrong but to be spelt just like we spell the L in "KuppaLisu".

After having seen the house in such great detail, we sat outside the house facing the arecanut farm adjacent to the building. We had lunch in the canteen outside and next visited Chibballagudde, famous for fishes. Behind the ganapathi temple is this calm water spot to relax. It is a common practice to feed the fishes in the pond with puffed rice. We sat watching a father-son duo feed them. Fishes are mammothic in size. They dived one above the other to grab the rice. It was perfect relaxation just before we could start our journey back to Mysore via Shimoga. During my previous visit to Shimoga, we had benne dosa in Shimoga city which was so yummy. We dint want to miss that this time too. We googled for the place and followed our navigator. That was a delicious dosa.

Throughout this trip I must mention that we drove on the best roads. Few of the places it was just laid. It was an easy drive to reach Mysore around 9:30pm.