14 July, a Sunday. I must have been either very bored or very much out of my mind. For, the afternoon found this lazy home-happy hobbit asking his sis if she wished to go out. And so we landed up visiting the mumbai-famous Mahalaxmi temple. Her idea not mine. Not that she is very religious or anything - on the contrary, she is the least religious one in our home. But for some personal reason, she wanted to have the goddess's good grace on her...
This is not the first time i will be visiting this famous holy landmark of Mumbai. And it certainly wont be the last. So why did i decide to write a blog about it? Not that the trip had any special highlights. But because i suddenly discovered that i hardly remembered any of the details from my last trip. Alas, the betrayal of memory... How i wish it was as easy as inserting another chip or hard disk... But it isn't. So i decided to record my experiences here, before they leaked out of my weak memory.
Before leaving, I was about to ask my grandpa (our own personal Mumbai wikimapia) the directions to the temple. But my sis claimed she knew the way.
Which was gross overconfidence on her part as i found out outside the Mahalaxmi railway station. When we alighted from the train, exited the station on the west side and stood by the road with the station on one side, the famous race course on the other side, and traffic right in the middle of it, i asked her, now where to? And she says, we have to catch a taxi...
If you plan to go to the temple from the Mahalaxmi railway station, and you don't mind a little stroll, then i recommend you avoid the taxi.
The taxi took us straight along the race course until we reached a big circle. From here one has to go straight ahead, with the heera panna market to your left. But a taxi will have to take a detour left turn, then a u turn and then back to the heera panna market where it will turn left to get back on the straight road to the temple. When asked, the driver claimed the straight way was blocked for some insane reason by the traffic police...
From there you pass the Audi showroom to your left followed by a cadbury chocolates building. Right opposite to this building there is a right turn where another road joins this one in a T-intersection. At this intersection you will notice an arched gateway and an unmistakable dome of a temple. This is the entrance to the Mahalaxmi temple.
As you enter, don't be surprised to discover that the temple whose dome you had spied from outside is not really the Mahalaxmi temple. Its the Tryambakeshwar Mahadev temple. You walk straight ahead with the temple to your left and you will come across a short set of stairs which lead up to another archway. While the outer archway was decorated in the indian religious style, this one looks more british. At the top is written "Prince's Triumphalarch" (whatever that means) with the year of its construction - 1905. For such an old structure it looked pretty new to me. They must have renovated it recently. Right below the name is a giant clock. And to my surprise, it worked, for it showed the correct time... Someone has been busy maintaining this particular part of Mumbai city's glorious but now fast disappearing past.
Beyond the archway, a tiny lane meanders through several temples, stalls, and a few residential buildings, both old and new, crowding both sides of the lane.
The stalls sell all sorts of holy stuff. The lane ends at the foot of a very wide stairway divided in two by metal railings. The left side is the entry.
The biggest problem you will face when entering the temple is where to put your footwear... I could not spy any special footwear deposit kiosks that we usually find near big holy places. So we bought a lotus for 10 bucks and kept our footwear near the lotus seller. At the foot of the stairs, the queue starts. There are separate queues for ladies and gents. There is at least one Maharashtra Security Force guard in their standard light-n-dark brown khaki uniform, who checks your baggage if you have any.
The queue for the ladies was shorter. So my sister got to pay homage to the goddess earlier than i did. At the top of the stairs, we had to pass through a metal detector machine followed by checking done by another team of MSF guards. The guard here was really lazy. He was sitting on a chair. With the metal detector in his hands, all he managed to check was the lower half of my trousers. I was disappointed. How are these guys supposed to protect us with such slack security?
At such famous holy places, i feel like cattle in a herd. One has to pass through a maze of railings, zigzagging back and forth. Then as you approach the deity, you are surrounded by the crowd of so many devotees. When you do reach the front near the deity, you are quickly herded out. Where is the time to pray? To silently meditate and be one with God? I wonder how people manage to find God in all this pandemonium... At least i don't.
This is what happened to me here. Fortunately it was not so crowded today so i did not have to spend too much time in the queue. The statue of the Goddess is surrounded by silver coated arches and columns. The statue itself looks gold plated, and consists of 3 goddesses - Mahalaxmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati (as wikipedia told me later).
The temple is flanked by buildings to the left and the back - owned by the temple committee. To the right are benches along the perimeter wall, which was where my sis sat and waited for me. From there we went along the left side of the temple.
Here, a set of stairs descend down to the rocks and the sea at the back of the temple. As we descended along these stairs, we were treated to the view of the waves and the sea stretching away to meet the horizon. The water was afire with the silver streaks from the setting sun that was partially hidden by a single dark rain cloud. Other than this one rogue cloud, the rest of the sky looked pretty clear... The sun cast its silver rays defiantly into the sky from behind this cloud... Both me and my sister took pictures. But look at the luck. I was spotted by a MSF guard who promptly made me delete all my pics... I am flabbergasted at the ridiculousness of these guys. Their security is slack when frisking people at the entrance. But catch someone taking innocent snapshots and they go over the hill to make him delete them. They probably have a good reason for this, but that good reason eludes a common citizen like me...
The stairs end at the entrance of two temples (one of Lord Hanuman and the other of Ganapati Bappa) and two hotels. Beyond the temples, the stairway opens up in an enclosed opening which affords a glorious view of the sea, albeit through the iron railings. Photography is of course prohibited here. I remember the last time we had visited here, it was just an uneven natural plateau of black rocks which descended beyond the railings into the sea... But now they have built a proper platform up to the railings with place to sit along one sidewall.
The usually salty sea wind was blowing in our faces. The sun was now fully covered by the cloud. For now... There were a lot of birds in the sky. This was either their gym - where they built their muscle by flying against the harsh wind or their extreme sports camp where they enjoyed the thrill sea-wind-gliding rides.
After enjoying the sea wind and the panoramic view, we retraced our steps back out of the temple and onto the road...
This time, we walked back to the station. It takes around 15-20 mins. At the circle near Heera Panna market, we were a bit confused as to which road goes towards the station. For at the circle there are two roads side by side. One to the left, that hugs the sea. This one, we discovered goes to Haji Ali and then on to worli sea link. So we took the other road from where we had come and reached back to the Mahalaxmi station.
As we neared the station, my sister observed with a bit of a disappointment in her voice... "What yaar... The Sunday has come to an end..." And so it had...
This is not the first time i will be visiting this famous holy landmark of Mumbai. And it certainly wont be the last. So why did i decide to write a blog about it? Not that the trip had any special highlights. But because i suddenly discovered that i hardly remembered any of the details from my last trip. Alas, the betrayal of memory... How i wish it was as easy as inserting another chip or hard disk... But it isn't. So i decided to record my experiences here, before they leaked out of my weak memory.
Before leaving, I was about to ask my grandpa (our own personal Mumbai wikimapia) the directions to the temple. But my sis claimed she knew the way.
Which was gross overconfidence on her part as i found out outside the Mahalaxmi railway station. When we alighted from the train, exited the station on the west side and stood by the road with the station on one side, the famous race course on the other side, and traffic right in the middle of it, i asked her, now where to? And she says, we have to catch a taxi...
If you plan to go to the temple from the Mahalaxmi railway station, and you don't mind a little stroll, then i recommend you avoid the taxi.
The taxi took us straight along the race course until we reached a big circle. From here one has to go straight ahead, with the heera panna market to your left. But a taxi will have to take a detour left turn, then a u turn and then back to the heera panna market where it will turn left to get back on the straight road to the temple. When asked, the driver claimed the straight way was blocked for some insane reason by the traffic police...
From there you pass the Audi showroom to your left followed by a cadbury chocolates building. Right opposite to this building there is a right turn where another road joins this one in a T-intersection. At this intersection you will notice an arched gateway and an unmistakable dome of a temple. This is the entrance to the Mahalaxmi temple.
As you enter, don't be surprised to discover that the temple whose dome you had spied from outside is not really the Mahalaxmi temple. Its the Tryambakeshwar Mahadev temple. You walk straight ahead with the temple to your left and you will come across a short set of stairs which lead up to another archway. While the outer archway was decorated in the indian religious style, this one looks more british. At the top is written "Prince's Triumphalarch" (whatever that means) with the year of its construction - 1905. For such an old structure it looked pretty new to me. They must have renovated it recently. Right below the name is a giant clock. And to my surprise, it worked, for it showed the correct time... Someone has been busy maintaining this particular part of Mumbai city's glorious but now fast disappearing past.
Beyond the archway, a tiny lane meanders through several temples, stalls, and a few residential buildings, both old and new, crowding both sides of the lane.
The stalls sell all sorts of holy stuff. The lane ends at the foot of a very wide stairway divided in two by metal railings. The left side is the entry.
The biggest problem you will face when entering the temple is where to put your footwear... I could not spy any special footwear deposit kiosks that we usually find near big holy places. So we bought a lotus for 10 bucks and kept our footwear near the lotus seller. At the foot of the stairs, the queue starts. There are separate queues for ladies and gents. There is at least one Maharashtra Security Force guard in their standard light-n-dark brown khaki uniform, who checks your baggage if you have any.
The queue for the ladies was shorter. So my sister got to pay homage to the goddess earlier than i did. At the top of the stairs, we had to pass through a metal detector machine followed by checking done by another team of MSF guards. The guard here was really lazy. He was sitting on a chair. With the metal detector in his hands, all he managed to check was the lower half of my trousers. I was disappointed. How are these guys supposed to protect us with such slack security?
At such famous holy places, i feel like cattle in a herd. One has to pass through a maze of railings, zigzagging back and forth. Then as you approach the deity, you are surrounded by the crowd of so many devotees. When you do reach the front near the deity, you are quickly herded out. Where is the time to pray? To silently meditate and be one with God? I wonder how people manage to find God in all this pandemonium... At least i don't.
This is what happened to me here. Fortunately it was not so crowded today so i did not have to spend too much time in the queue. The statue of the Goddess is surrounded by silver coated arches and columns. The statue itself looks gold plated, and consists of 3 goddesses - Mahalaxmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati (as wikipedia told me later).
The temple is flanked by buildings to the left and the back - owned by the temple committee. To the right are benches along the perimeter wall, which was where my sis sat and waited for me. From there we went along the left side of the temple.
Here, a set of stairs descend down to the rocks and the sea at the back of the temple. As we descended along these stairs, we were treated to the view of the waves and the sea stretching away to meet the horizon. The water was afire with the silver streaks from the setting sun that was partially hidden by a single dark rain cloud. Other than this one rogue cloud, the rest of the sky looked pretty clear... The sun cast its silver rays defiantly into the sky from behind this cloud... Both me and my sister took pictures. But look at the luck. I was spotted by a MSF guard who promptly made me delete all my pics... I am flabbergasted at the ridiculousness of these guys. Their security is slack when frisking people at the entrance. But catch someone taking innocent snapshots and they go over the hill to make him delete them. They probably have a good reason for this, but that good reason eludes a common citizen like me...
The stairs end at the entrance of two temples (one of Lord Hanuman and the other of Ganapati Bappa) and two hotels. Beyond the temples, the stairway opens up in an enclosed opening which affords a glorious view of the sea, albeit through the iron railings. Photography is of course prohibited here. I remember the last time we had visited here, it was just an uneven natural plateau of black rocks which descended beyond the railings into the sea... But now they have built a proper platform up to the railings with place to sit along one sidewall.
The usually salty sea wind was blowing in our faces. The sun was now fully covered by the cloud. For now... There were a lot of birds in the sky. This was either their gym - where they built their muscle by flying against the harsh wind or their extreme sports camp where they enjoyed the thrill sea-wind-gliding rides.
After enjoying the sea wind and the panoramic view, we retraced our steps back out of the temple and onto the road...
This time, we walked back to the station. It takes around 15-20 mins. At the circle near Heera Panna market, we were a bit confused as to which road goes towards the station. For at the circle there are two roads side by side. One to the left, that hugs the sea. This one, we discovered goes to Haji Ali and then on to worli sea link. So we took the other road from where we had come and reached back to the Mahalaxmi station.
As we neared the station, my sister observed with a bit of a disappointment in her voice... "What yaar... The Sunday has come to an end..." And so it had...
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