A Morning Visit to the Indira Gandhi Glass House, Hubli

We went to the glass house early on when the Sun was not yet bright. There were golden- colored murals at the entrance, which shone bright when the slanted rays of the Sun fell on them. We saw a smiling Sun on the left, and a thoughtful moon on the right. Very tall areca trees caught our attention next, before my camera caught them permanently. The glass house itself was vacant unlike its namesake in Bangalore. There was a big park around it. Unlike in Cubban Park, we found a toy train track with the cute little train being stabled (there's some problem with the machine, we're told). As we moved inside the park, we found benches made of painted wood pieces. There were places to sit, with creepers around them (there were no snakes around, though we spotted a couple of mongooses deep inside). There was a joyride too, but we were far too early to have even thought of it. There was a construction scene which had the woman labourer dressed in a Dharwad saree & blouse, reflecting the local taste in dressing. We also saw a herd of elephants which looked really real.

It was time well spent, better than my first visit to this place, which was just to watch a musical fountain.

Chandramouleeswara Temple Hubli- Forgotten Magnificence

I had not explored Hubballi at all until my cousin googled and wanted to see this temple. Our cabbie had no idea, nor did we. I tried to convince him that it might have been the Channa Basaveswara temple on the Unkal Lake and not the one in Unkal Circle, as he contended. But, the boy held his ground, and pointed out that the elevation of the temple looked drastically different; he even showed me some googled pics. Those were enough to convince me and the historian-in-the-family to go for it. After asking for directions from nearly ten people, and losing our way in the by-lanes and narrow alleys, we found this magnificent edifice of 10th-11th century vintage! It was late Western Chalukyan, and had some additions made by the Hoyasala or even the Vijayanagara rulers! We thought we'll pay respects to Lord Siva on a festive day, but lost ourselves so much that we didn't regret having to give up our original plan of watching the orange sunset from Nripatungabetta. We thought we'd missed it, but got a breathtaking view from an unexpected location. The sunset pics will find place in a different post.