Dramatic boulders playing a dexterous balancing act, on wayside
hills welcomed us to the magical ruins of Hampi. It was the last day of the
shoot of Lailaa O Lailaa in Bellary and we were on our way to Bangalore with a
detour to Hampi. The early morning drive from Bellary to Hampi was going to be
a memorable one; not only for the experience that Hampi would offer, but we
were accompanying the legend and hero of our movie, Mohanlal. The moment we stepped barefoot on the cold,
stone-laid pathway that led to the Virupaksha temple, Mohanlal was heard
whispering ‘déjà vu’; later he mentioned that the landscape and architecture
resembled Amba Samudram where he had shot for Raja Shilpi.
The ruins are just too vast, magnificent and tragic. We followed him
as he walked down the neatly manicured stone lanes of the ruins, sometimes
deeply engrossed in the architecture and sometimes cracking a joke while being
his usual self.
Walking amidst the ruins, one cannot but feel the glorious Krishnadevraya
kingdom brimming to life all around you; you vainly hope thousands of defaced
Hindu Gods and Goddesses on the walls of the numerous temples regaining the
perfect posture and mudra the artists then etched, and the golden Gopuras
transforming to their grandeur that once shown above the Vijayanagara Empire
with the Tungabhadra river cutting through it.
The sheer majesty and grandeur of the ruins is as overwhelming as
the determination and effort the invaders took, a few hundred years ago, to
chop the limbs off numerous deities, to hammer down temples and to uproot a
civilisation. While leaving the premise Mohanlal seemed to be affected by the
sheer violence that the ruins bore. Hampi, a celebrated UNESCO site is also a
harsh reminder of the ruins in the making, across the globe that could challenge
Hampi in its epic tragedy.
No comments:
Post a Comment