Mulbagal Days

2010-08-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

Retirement and Revival of blog

Well friends, I retired on 1st February 2010 on Voluntary Retirement basis although two years and one month’s service was left out. I did this support my daughter for purchasing an apartment in Rajarajeswari Nagar where we have moved in now. This is my present address and mobile Number.

R. Nagaraj
1034, Balaji Residency, 4th Floor,
2nd Cross, BEML Layout, 5th Stage,
Manipal Speciality Hospital Road,
Rajarajeswari Nagar,
Bangalore-560 098.

Initially I thought I will take up some job to spend some time productively and gainfully and posted my resume on MonsterIndia.com. But no good offers are coming may be my age profile is a constraint. I had started a blog “Mulgagaldays.blogspot.com” in February 2009 with an intention to write some articles about the young years spent at Mulbagal. Somehow after publishing a couple of articles I lost interest as most of the spare time was spent sitting with a very knowledgeable friend by name Arun kumar who was a perfect match to me in terms of knowledge, intellect et all. I feel we have almost exhausted many useful topics in religion and philosophy.

Now that I am retired and the original intention was to buy the apartment and do something which pleases my heart like reading, writing, revisiting some places which I liked , I thought I will revive my blog and start posting some articles and poems which I had penned when I was a youth and pen a few more and post them also.

Originally I will post all the scanned poems and articles of yester years and then post a few new things.

Hope you will enjoy reading.

Nagaraj

That beautiful town called Mulbagal

2009-02-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

Mulbagilu which has colloqually become Mulbagal has been taken from the word Mudalabagilu which means the eastern-door in the native Kannada language. Mulbagal was supposedly the eastern most frontier (and thereby the entrance) of the state of Mysore and hence the name. Also, it was the eastern gate to Vijayanagara Empire and Tirupathi. A hill near this town is famous for being the first point the sun rises throughout Karnataka.
A legend specifies that the Hanuman temple here was installed by Arjuna, one of the Pandavas, after the Mahabharata war. Sage Vasishta is believed to have installed the idols of the main deity Srinivasa, Padmavati and Rama-Sita-Lakshmana.

Kshetra Palaka Sri Anjaneya Temple at Mulbagal Bus stand, being tired afer war Arjuna went on piligrimage and bought his flag used during war consisting of Vayu Putra image and established in Mulabagal then called shathaka vatipuri. Temple has been renovated recently by Hiranya gowda from USA native of Chamareddy palli a village near Mulbagal.
Mulbagal is the birth place of famous literature D.V.Gundappa. Sri Venkatachala Ex- Lokayukta was born in a village called Mudiganuru near Mulbagal.

Mulbagal is a mythlogically and religiously important place which is surrounded on all four sides by famous temples and a Dargha. In addition to these temples, it has water tanks (Cheruvu) on all the four directions. These were the tanks which we frequented as childen in summer holidays to coll ourselves with a long swim in the waters. Several incidents are linked to these tanks and temples which I will be writing in details in the articles that appear later.

The main temples in and around Mulbagal are:

· Anjaneya swamy Temple

· Someshwara Temple: Apart from the famous Hanuman temple, this town has Someswara' temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The Shiva linga here is similar to that at sacred Kashi or Varanasi.

· Vittaleshwara Temple: Another temple dedicated to Vishnu is the Vittaleswara temple and the idol is similar to Panduranga Vittala at Pandarapur in Maharashtra state.

· Agastheswara Temple

· Ranabheramma Temple

· Kannikaparameswari Temple

· Kodandaramaswamy Temple which also houses Local Gym (Gharadi Mane)

· Gopalkrishna swamy Temple which is at the foot of the Mulbagal hill. There is a well behind this temple, the water of which has medicinal properties and even to-day lot of people from the town painfully walk the distance and bring water to drink even though the whole town has municiapal water supply.

· Draupathi Devi Temple

· Sripadaraja Math: The town was the residing place of Sreepadaraja Swamiji or simply Sripadaraya, a direct disciple of Saint Madhwacharya, who is known as third avatar of Vayu. The earlier two being Anjaneya or Hanuman, second being Bheema; the second Pandava. Madhwacharya established the Dwaita school of philosophy. Sreepadaraaja Swamiji who was the raajaguru (most important advisor) of the Vijayanagara kings, was known to have used kannada keerthanas (hymns) during pooja which was considered holy during those times. Sreepaadaraja Swaamiji was also known to was offering sixty four types of dishes naivedya (offering) to God everyday without fail. He has penned many keerthanas praising God and are still popular even after 600 years.

· Narasimha Teertha: The Narasimha teertha is about 2 km from the town of Mulbagal. It is the sacred place where Swaamiji lived and had his brindavan (sacred resting place for Hindu sages) made, is now the headquarters of the Sreepaadaraaja Mutt founded by him. There is also a Swayamvyakta Yoga Narasimha temple near the brindavan.

· Baba Hyder Vali Dargah: Mulbagal is also sacred for Muslims as the dargah of Sufi Saint Baba Hyder Vali of Mulbagal is situated here here. It is a 700 + years old dargah. Both Muslims and Hindus visit at the darga to get spiritual blessings of the saint. Urs, which is an annual festivity is celebrated for three consecutive days which is very popular even to date.

· Kurudamale Maha Ganapathi Temple: Situated at 8 km from Mulbagal. This place is famous for Lord Ganapathi Temple.the Idol of the lord ganapathi is made of single " Saligrama rock " and the height is about 21 Ft from the ground level , & This Idol as well as temple is told to be 5000 yrs old.

· Virupakshi Sri Virupaksheshwara Swamy Temple is also located in Virupakshi Village about 4 kilometres from Mulbagal. This temple was built in the 1200s by Vijayanagara Rulers and resembles the Virupaksheshwara Temple in Hampi. The pooja performances at this temple has been done by Agastya Gothra's Sri V.A. Subramanya Deekshit and Sons. This is the only family that has been doing the pooja here since the temple was constructed and dates back to about 8 generations.

· Lord Subramanyeswara temple at foot hills of Anjandri hill.

· 15 km from Mulbagal Avani Rama pratistita Ramalingeshwara temple and beautiful hill where sita stayed.

· Avani Sree Sharada Srigeri Temple a temple built by Adishankara and rebuilt last decade.

· Bangaru Tirupathi which is a 30 minutes drive from Mulbagal where Lord Venkateswara’s temple is on a small hillock and just across the road on another hillock the temple of Padmavathi devi is there. Both the temples are very ancient. During the tenure of Late Sri. M.V. Krishnappa who was a central minister lot of improvements were done to the temples and a nice water fountain was made at the foot of the hillocks. Unfortunately for want of maintenance the water fountain is in a dilapidated state. A marriage choultry is also available here where lot of marriages of Mulbagal families are conducted.

Each of these places were our favourite spots which we visited when carnivals (Jathres), Rathosthavas and special pooja’s were conducted threre. I will be writing about each of these places in the articles to follow.

2009-01-02T03:25:00.000-08:00

Mulbagal – My hometown

I was born and brought up till the age of 21 years in Mulbagal, which is a taluk in Kolar District of Karnataka. Of course, I went out to Kolar to do my B.Sc., graduation and Chickaballapur for my B.Ed.,

This blog is basically meant to recall and exchange with my friends the boyhood days spent in that nice town. I will be publishing a series of articles recalling the childhood days, visits to various temples, carnivals, freaking out on NH-4 during the days when jamoon trees were full of fruits.

Although the articles may be most enjoyable to the people who were involved in the incidents, I want to adopt a style of writing in which any other reader of this blog also can imagine the places and events and enjoy reading it just as one enjoys reading Malgudi days. Just like Malgudi, Mulbagal is a small town, which is as much enjoyable as Malgudi if not more.

I am Nagaraj Son of R. Ramaiah, Retired teacher. I lived in Jougupalya. Right now I am in Yelahanka working for Rail wheel Factory.

Warm greetings of the New Year 2009 to all my classmates and friends at Mulbagal, Kolar and Chickaballapur. Please post your comments and provide your contact details.

For the benefit of general reader I will briefly describe the town and its peripheries in my first article “That beautiful town called Mulbagal” which I may post in a few days.

Please keep visiting.