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Showing posts from March, 2008

Thought train

The music is playing from my earphones and i have got one hour of a battery in laptop. This bearably hot evening i am on my train back to Bangalore from Udgir, my native. Humpi Link express, the train, is passing through some part of Andra Pradesh and its 4:47pm. In many Hindu rituals the priests pronounce the historic name of the area where the ritual is performed. I grew up listening to my being called as "Dandak Aranya". As it used to be called since Aryan time. Integral part of the Aryawarta - what we call Indian subcontinent. The Aryawarta as such is an island in every non-geographical sense, being surrounded by the Himalayan sea in the north and by the Indian Ocean, Arebean Sea and Bay of Bengal on the entire south. The stories from puranas tell the ancient stories related to the area - Dandak Aranya. It used to be a forest inhabiting extremely dangerous animals. This area was considered cursed, may be due to its inhospitality. On this day you rarely find a forest here.