Shankareswara Betta facade - serene surroundings

Hectic and fulfilling weekend

It was a fantastic experiential weekend (June 3-4).

Friday night I was still unsure about where I was going and had kinda decided to go to the far away places on Kunigal-Maddur road about 85 km from Bangalore and if necessary stretch the outing to two days. But luckily given the enabling and enthusiastic company I had with me we could complete our list of items on Saturday itself which gave me the time to return home for a good night's rest and another day of biking in Bangalore's backyard.

Saturday morning dawned with misty weather and I got up wondering whether we are going to have a rainy day... soon Dev called and told me that he would pick me up with his friends in half an hour and truely he arrived with Sabin and John. After initial introductions we started off towards Magadi road and 55 km down the line stopped for breakfast in a small non-descript eatery to have lukewarm idly with spicy chutney.

Another hours drive took us to the base of Shankareswara Betta, a quaint and bald rocky hill surrounded by lush green fields, quaint villages and other rocky hills. The area is under attack by the granite mafia and I am sure whatever wildlife which was there has either been killed or scared away by the continuous quarry blasts and so many labourers working in the area.

It is saddening to see the pace with which rocky hills being murdered systematically with the adminsitration conveniently looking away. When are we going to gear up and start preserving our environment and habitats for the wild???

Anyway my lament will always be there on the side of preservation but let us come back to Shankareswara Betta. The temple authorities are doing some major work here in the name of devotion and renovation. The ancient temple is being renovated big time with new building, paint job and the worst thing that the temple trust wants to do is to build a flight of steps to the top of the hill. The gradients leading to the top of the hill is mostly gentle and accessible by everyone.. I wonder why they are building the steps and renovating a temple to which there are hardly any visitors.

I suspect it is the design of the granite mafia. To build/ renovate a temple and thus keep the villagers happy, pay off the inspectors and laugh all the way to the bank, so what if the environment goes to dogs.

Temple & lake atop the hill

The top of Shankareswara hill has a quaint temple surrounded by stone wall and one side of the hill has a fairly deep and large natural water tank, perhaps to harvest rainwater for the use of temple visitors. Surprisingly the water is very clear and clean Dev and Sabin even had a drink and we were ruing that we hadn't got our swimming gear or we could have taken a dip.

From the top of the hill one can get panoramic views of the surrounding hills, fields and of course the granite quarrying.

From Shankareswara betta we moved on and drove further for about 15 km to reach Huliyurdurga - a massive rocky cliff surrounded by a thick forests. As the name 'Huliyur' suggests, this village and hill was the habitat of tigers, a la Ranthambore. Alas thanks to the development the majestic national animal no longer exists here. Instead the cunning and destructive human species has virtually encroached the fort almost upto the first level of fortifications.

Hemagiriyappa temple at base of Hemagiri hill

Having decided to climb Hemagiri first we moved another 2 km from Huliyurdurga to reach the vast forested hill which has a temple at the base, in the middle and atop also. The temple at the base is dedicated to Varadaraja swamy aka Hemagiriyappa and is an ancient structure. The surroundings of the temple is just too heavenly. A sole tiled house has been built for the temple caretaker and priest. A fairly large stone pond with several fish forms the highlight of the place. Large number of trees with comfortable platforms around makes the place highly suitable for a weekend picnic.

But typically like all temple/ religious places people only want to pray, they don't want to keep the surroundings clean and neat. One can see used plastic glasses and plates strewn all over the place. First plastics are being banned all over the world and here we are, using it rampantly without a thought about the harm we are causing to the nature and in turn ourselves.

Acent to cave temple

Well the cave temple dedicated to lord Shiva is located in the middle point of the hill on the far side (about 1.5 km from the Varadaraja temple) and is accessible via a steep flight of evenly laid steps. We went there and decided to do a small gig of rockclimbing too and then head back to Huliyurdurga.

Huliyur durga peak

Parking our vehicles at the base of the hill we started on the steep ascent and soon arrived at the first level of fortifications which is perhaps the largest open/ wooded stretch of land in the fort, housing two ancient temples which are no longer in use. The next stretch was on a fairly beaten path which ended at a small Ganesha temple. The next and final stretch came as a cropper. There was absolutely no path and we were faced by a steep rockface with about 85 degre gradient. There was no indication whether we were on the right path or not... the only indication was the next tier of fort wall which was seen from where we stood.

Our decision to climb was not in vain it gave us a fantastic experience of climbing and Sabin who reached the top first looked back and said "Hey it is a drop all the way to the village, No way I am going to descend this way". John, Dev and me followed and true enough the drop looked quite formidable. Not wanting to get psyched we moved ahead and reached the top of the hill after negotiating two more levels of fortifications. The top provides some of the most panoramic views of the large town below on one side. We can see Hamagiri face to face on the other as if beckoning us to climb.

The remains of fortifications ascribed to Kempe gowda will disappear soon unless protected... but who has to do that... the Archaeological Survey of India and Karnataka State Archaeological department have their hands full and don't have the manpower to do that. We hope the villagers will take some interest in the restoration and maintain the fort. There are several small rainwater harvesting pits built some hundreds of years ago atop the hill. Indeed the kings of the yore knew the importance of water harvesting and preservation which we somehow caught in the 30X40 culture and concrete and cement ideology have ignored.

Temple in Huliyurdurga fort

While descending down the hill we got caught in a small rain which luckily subsided soon and we came down safe and sound, started our vehicles and headed back to Bangalore on the Huliyurdurga-Magadi-Bangalore road which passes through two lush green stretches of the protected Ippadi and Huliyurdurga state forests, a scenic lake and couple of temples before coming to the big bad city.