My first tryst with this word Jaggernaut was when a character was named thus and though he was the most powerful character in the X Men series; his only weakness was his mind!
Later on I got to know that this word in english which literally means a huge, powerful, and overwhelming force was based on the most famous temple of Jagannath or Krishna in the temple town of Puri!
One look at this mammoth temple standing so tall will make you realise why it’s named like this! The intricate and very typical step architecture of Oriya artisans is so beautiful to see!
First things first though…
We started from the city of Bhuvaneswar which itself is named after the temple of Lingaraj where the statue of hari hara came SwayamBHU….!
This temple is apparently more ancient and taller than even the Jagannath temple!
The old building and architecture is so divine and beautiful so say the least!
Then we moved on to the famous temple of Konark! It’s another Mammoth structure originally made like a temple with 24 wheels depicting the 24 hours of a day! It has 7 wheels and three statues of the Sun god in three different poses! Morning awake!, Noon with a covering and night bent face down!
Each idol depicts a story or some teaching! You even have a dragon made 800 years back!
The main temple inside is collapsed though and the guide did mention rather sadly as to how long the structure would bear the onslaught of time.
The drive between Puri and Konark is a traveller’s delight! Add to if you have pristine beaches and lots of places to have fun or pray depending on your mood or candour!
Though we were struck by the constant red coloured spit; the guide mentioned that the situation is much better now after the Swach Bharat initiative by Modi Dada! ( That’s what they call our PM!). Many initiatives like the no paper entry, strict ban on littering and spitting has made some difference according to the guide.
Then a quick visit to some more temples and it was off to Jagannath temple!
The biggest disappointment was that we had to walk a long way just to visit the entrance of the temple! This is real sad since it’s the old who really like to visit temples like this. We did see some free senior citizen drop vehicles later on though. Then again no vehicle can take you all the way to see the main deity! Here the biggest problem which are the Pandas trouble you as soon as you enter the temple! But since the crowd was so much we decided to take one anyway and it was a wise decision! He got us some short ways and we got the darshan in leisure! He charged only around 100 INR! Though later we understood that he would get his cut by the puja and the offering which is a big scheme going on in the temple!
With this amount of rush and popularity the temple management is highly insufficient and this is why you have so many greedy brokers.
Of course any of these hurdles are easily ignored once you get into the marvelous trance of the huge temple complex and the old idols!
Then the scam about the Prasad or bhog is better left unmentioned since it’s better to dwell on the positives!
We did try some of the local cuisines and were mighty impressed with gur or Jaggery Rosogulla and Chenna poda!
Odisha is a cultural rich place with very friendly pan spitting people! Of course there is scope of improvement and hopefully sometime in future we would not have to deal with a middle man to do anything!
Until next time then!!….
ramadocblog 
Nice words
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