Fading embers of the celestial disc streaked across the horizon as we returned to our hotel room. Supper was still a couple of hours away, so we got a head start on seeing the actual town.

We started with a self guided tour of the town park. The park is probably the most prominent landmark in the town (or maybe a close second to jayalakshmi wine stores :P ), and arguably the largest. During its heyday it was as well maintained as any park of its size could possibly be. Everything from its exqusite rosaries and psychedelic crotons to the ever nascent mini zoo and the deer park, they were all looked upon with pride and admiration. The crown jewel was the horticulure display that reached its crescendo on vanamahotsav, sometime in April every year. Park day, as we called it, was a surprisingly popular event that attracted people from towns and villages nearby. There was song and dance, snack stalls, competitions, movie screening and everything else in between. This was the one day of the year when everyone in town would gather in one place for one evening with the only intention of having fun. I remember close to 8 such evenings, and every one of them were memorable for some reason or another. Strolling through the park, it was all coming back to me. From the Deer park all the way to the Rabbits' cage it was journey through time.

As a kid, swings and slides were my favourite. There is a small canal running through the park, emptying into the river. The canal was always full and flowing during the monsoons. Through out my primary school, I inevitably succumbed to temptation and found myself wading in it. The cold, sore throat throat, fever and the livid reaction of my mom always followed, but for some reason (probably stupidity) that never stopped me from doing it again the next time around.

A visit to Kudremukh cannot be complete without going to the temples. Our first stop was the Shiva temple. Legend has it that sage Agastya used to worship the shivling there, and the temple was constructed around it. There is little to prove or disprove the conjecture, and we leave it at that. As I pulled into the parking area next to the temple I had my first view of the temple. It looked like time had refused to move an inch here. The place was exactly like I had seen it 6 years ago. Absolutely nothing had changed, the most noticable being the abject poverty in which the priest lived.

If my memory serves me right, it was over 8 years ago that there was a proposal to adorn the sacrosanctum of the temple with a large silver facade that cost over Rs. 1 lakh. The donations came pouring from all corners of the community, from employees of KIOCL to the businessmen and contractors there. The money raised was more than what was needed. The surplus went to the temple coffers. Despite the windfall the priest's monthly pay was still a three figure sum bordering the four figures. I still remember thinking about the hypocrisy of it all; if the money asked were for the priest's welfare, I doubt if even a fraction of the funds would have been received. This is not an unsupported statement. The fact that people poured more money into the temple hundi, than the tip-plate of the priest when he brought it out with the aarati or the thirtam is sufficient indication of the outcome of the thought experiment.

I took my sneakers off, washed my feet and walked towards the entrance of the temple.  The concrete ground benethe my feet brought back memories of the vibrant social hive that this temple had been the heart of. People used to congregate here almost every monday, and every hindu festival. Women exchanged gossip, men talked office politics, the kids were just happy to run around the place coz their parents were too busy to restrain them. The boys talked about cricket, school and homework while the girls talked about god knows what (I was never privy to their conversations). I remember my high school years when the guys used this as an opportunity to steal galnces of their nascent infatuations. Somewhere amidst all this there was the worship and prayer to god, at least thats what everyone walked away believing.

The silhoutte of Shiva's statue against the bright light that illuminated the gopuram was view worth my admiration as I stood there for a few seconds soaking it in.  I stepped into the temple and felt like I was 18 again. I could walk around completely blindfolded and know exactly where I was, and where I was going. Its amazing how arrested in time the place was. After a few steps I stopped to look around. The cobwebs on the railings and gate grills recited a sad story of neglect and decay. It is said that the vigor of a community is best reflected in its synagogue. A silent sigh escaped my lips as I reflected on all that this place used to be, and the promise of the bleak future it now held.

I gave up on religion a long time ago, yet I found myself going through the motions of a poius hindu in the temple. The shiva temple had always been one of my favorites. I used to come here to relax my mind. It had an amazing ability to tranquil my most troubled thoughts. It was perfect antidote for all the crap that I had to put up with. This was before I received my licence. After I could drive, I used to take dad's scooter to a place dubbed 'Morning Glory'. It was at the new spillway for the Lakya Dam that let out all the excess water. The view from there was breathtaking. It was the perfect balm to all my wounds. They closed the access to that place soon after I moved to Bangalore, and I havent been there since.

After my folks made small talk with some of the people at the temple we drove to the Krishna temple built on top of a hillock. My first memories of the place are when I was 4 years old. Mom signed me up for some recitation competition that was supposed to be in the Krishna temple. I had no idea what I meant, all I was told was that I had to recite the sanskrits shlokas that I knew by-heart. I was submitted to the protective custody of my neighbor who was supposed to take me to the temple, make sure I took part and bring me back home. I guess she was bored or maybe her friends were going someplace and she was invited too, I dont know what the exact reason was, but she told me that the competition was over and that we should go back home. I just followed back home only to find my mom screaming at me for being so stupid that I didnt event bother to enquire if the competition was really over, and how I could have missed my chance. As it turns out.. there was still time when I came back, but it was too late to go all the way back there and try my luck.

I havent been to this temple that often. It always received a step sisterly treatment due to its location. It wasnt the most easily accessable temple in town. While the shiva temple received all the crowd and adoration, Krishna temple was often the less remembered one. Its only time in the spotlight was on Krishna Janmashtami.

After our brief te-a-te with the temples we got back into the car and drove around the township in the evening. We still had a little time to kill before supper, and so I decided to so some nocturnal sightseeing. Driving around in the night is a completely different experience in Kuudremukh. The place looks completely different after sundown. During the day, the entire is one glorious park with scattered human intrusions. By night, all that is left of the hoards of trees, vast open spaces and majestic grasslands is an empty void. It is only the street lights that remain in sight. They looks like a broken string of pearls. Bright, shining, beautiful, but lonely. Each one of them seeking the other, and the ethereal string that holds them together.

By day, it is the inhabitation that looks out of place, and by night its the void between them that does. What a strange inversion of perception!

Driving around the town, I hit an unlit stretch of the road. It wasnt a long stretch at all; just a few street lights that were busted. The only illumination was the headlights of my car. As the headlights zipped past the trees that adorn the sides of the road, my mind went 10 years back in time. Some of the most beautiful memories of Kudremukh came back to me.

Kudremukh was always a favored town by the Karnataka Electricity Board. We seldom lost power supply, and when it did it wasn't for more than 15 minutes. However, there would be times when something major would fault, and we'd lose power of hours in the night. This, although not frequent, happened often enough for me to remember them. I think I was in my high school when the entire township blacked out due to one such fault. That black out removed all the prisms that I was seeing Kudremukh through. It was for the first time that I saw the town in all its glory, all its modesty, and all its divinity. It was a full moon light. The black out had extinguished all the light that clouded our sight. It was a night as god intended it to be; a virgin display of tranquility in motion. I couldnt resist myself. I had to bask in the milky ether. I took a long walk that night, with nothing but the moon to show me the way. I can still vividly recall the pale roads that looked like satin from afar. The trees looked like a row of white chess pawns with the game just about to begin. The vast empty spaces between the pearls were gone, so were the pearls, replaced by a spaghetti of resplendent cotton yarn that stretched form one end of the valley to the other. It marked the begining of my love affair with Kudremukh's dark side. After that night, every time there was a power outage in the night, I was out and about. It was with a heavy heart I returned home if the town were to illuminate itself before my stroll was over.

It was supper and a good night sleep. There was a town I had to visit next day.