I have been now on the road for over three days and there has been much for me to talk about. The flight to Bangalore was easy and relaxed there was a stopover in Jaipur in between and then the taxi rides from Hubli Airport to Hampi. I slept most of the taxi journey as Ii was hot in the afternoon, unexpectedly so as we are still in the month of February. I was soon to raise that the hotel I had booked by the name of Priyadarshini Inn was very far away almost a forty-minute car journey from Hampi, this I was informed by my friend Ravi who was my host in Hampi and Hospet. After spending one night at Priyadarshini, I decided to move out it was a very uninspiring side of the city only a few shops and a few hotels. It was best for me to move out which I duly did and Ravi and his work mates drove me to Hampi Hotel near the Hospet Railway station. But before that I had the opportunity to visit Ravi’s office and also enjoy lunch with his friends. Ravi is a civil engineer and supplies construction material to the city which Is also a big producer of iron ore and raw iron. It has the biggest iron mill in the state run by the Jindal’s and most of the city’s economy is run by the steel business along with tourism, as tourist from Asia and Europe throng to Hampi to see its ancient ruins and temples which bear testimony to the Vijaya Nagar Dynasty going back to the thirteenth century. The ruins of its capital city, its temples and horse stables are what many explorers come to see.
I quickly took a room in the Hampi hotel and after sharing a beer with my friends I decided to enjoy the food of the city I ordered a chicken biriyani and fried prawns along with a mutton curry. It was very hot and spicy and the masala made my mouth water and tears exploded in my eyes, it was that bad the chilly. This was my first observation of the city and the local Karnataka cuisine. My verdict the food is very hot and I had to gulp Gulaab Jamuns to get the spice off my tongue.
From the hills of Dehra Doon I was suddenly transported to the hot plains of Karnataka and into a bowls of a dusty place, full of duty brown fields and irrigation canals, I could even spot a wind mill when we were driving to my hotel. The city is also blessed and irrigated by the VeerBhadra river which cuts through its land. I took a quite stroll around the city but the thing that struck me most was the Hospet railway station which has a very unique architecture they call it Hospet Junction, and then I walked around the freedom park favoring the mood of the slow night traffic. The city has an efficient auto rickshaw service and also a few buses that run across its many roads, one of the other attraction is a large mansion of a local politician.
The Hanuman temple was where I spent my evening marveling the statute of Hanuman Ji. But the afternoons would get quite hot, thus I decided to make two trips to Humpy and cover it over two days. I even managed to enjoy a local street lunch off chicken rice and onions form an outside stall for thirty rupees only.
It was on the third day that I got hacked my website anujtikku.com got hacked by hackers who seemed to be pissed off that I had written a book on the Shraddha Walker Murder case they were pissed off with me that I had spoken on Love Jihad in the book. The anonymous hackers also left a message as a screen saver on my blog “You have been hacked “Anonymous. The hackers had left a message also that Anti Muslim posts on Love Jihad will not be tolerated. It was a direct threat. This was the first time in seven years of blogging that I have been hacked like this all my data had vanished and my payment gateway was dismantling through spy malware. They had done a good job and someone must have spent an hour doing the entire job and then posting the message. I got in touch with my blog team members and asked him to look into the hack and contact our hosting guys to get the site back and running. But the word from my blog team was that it could take four days to get the site back and even then a lot of the past data would not be completely retrieved. “Get a fire wall around my blog site and see that this doesn’t happen again, also catch the guys who did this hack, their IP address and see if we can fuck their system. “These where my instructions to Vivek who is the team lead for my blog.
Great I seem to be controversies child, my book Shredding Shraddha was on the hit list of Muslim Jihadi’s. My site seemed to be hacked from somewhere in Russia, although it could also be someone from Turkey my team is still trying to figure that one out. It took them a whole two days to get the site up with some data, there is still work to be done on the payment gateway system which was totally made redundant by the hacker’s malware program. These Jihadi’s had done a hit job on my website trying to sabotage my book launch on the Shraddha Walker murder case.
Although it was pain me being hacked I was enthused by the fact that my book had made a sudden impact, their where people who were reading my dark shit and even getting offended by me. That means that I do have some loyal readers out there, that kinda encouraged me a lot. Getting Hacked in Humpy wow! What a Start to my Karnataka Adventures. I had already started making waves travelling to and fro on the streets just watching the locals go by their daily chores. The street walls are littered with famous movie posters of the top films from the state. A famous star in the state just died while doing hectic training in the gym. Puneeth Rajkumar a Kannada Cinema Star was the youngest son of Dr Raj Kumar who was a superstar himself. Puneet’s posters where all over the place his pictures with a garland where on every road, they really miss him it seems.
The heat was another thing that I have felt, so lethargic throughout my trip in Hampi, thank god for sugar cane juice and salted lassi that kept the heat away. I would Start my day be twelve noon after a hearty breakfast of toast cornflakes and poori aloo. The hotel taxi would take me to Hampi the main site the cost Rs 2400. A fifteen-minute car ride and we would arrive at the Vijay Nagar ruins. I would get a guide for another Rs 2000 and the rest was taken care of, I walked across the ruins taking pictures, the most exciting part was being blessed my Laxmi a famous female elephant who blesses everyone who places a Rs 10 note on her trunk. The pictures where fun and my guide would keep blabbering on about the beauty of the place and how the kings had built it over the years. I would often put my headphones on listening to music just following my guide. Till I came to the banks of the VeerBhadra river and the VeerBhadra Temple. At times stopping to have some sugar cane juice, that was one way of getting some walking done through the day, my walking had dipped considerably this week, I need to get that back on track.
Hampi did remind me a lot of the Angkor Watt in Cambodia the dusty lanes there is so much of the colour brown in this city. The locals are very friendly one of them even bought me a ten-rupee entry ticket to the park.
The main attraction is the river and the elephant I also enjoyed the Narasimha statue which was very interesting and also very imposing. I also managed to circle around the Ganesha Statue which was carved from a single black stone a large Ganesha illuminated from natural day light.
The Guide would again start to chatter away telling me about one historical fact after another about the place. But my stamina would soon run out and I would pack up from the day after a short excursion.
In two trips I managed to cover over sixty percent of Humpy, its temples carved of red stone still remain entrenched in my mind. Most of Hampi has a vivid blue sky line with monuments made from red and yellow sand stones. Most structures have pillars with carvings of elephants, horses and deer. There is also a giant shiva linga and how could I not mention the sun dial, there is also a sun dial in one of the temples. The local are friendly everyone understands English the local language is in Kannada and so are all the signage’s in the city.
As I had said earlier the primary colors of the city are dust brown yellow and red the canals are river have a hue of emerald green in them and the dark blue sky does give Humpy its distinct look and flavor. The afternoons are sunny and dry I would often stare at construction workers going about their job in the day as most people strolled the sidewalks of the city covering their heads with shawls, cloth and large straw hats. The foreigners where all in their hats and sun glasses. Keenly enjoying the view and exploring the relics of this ancient city. The Hospet railway station has a splendid rail line and a railway signal as well and I would often walk past it in the evening.
