Ashtavinayaka Tour - Siddhivinayaka Temple Story

Siddhivinayaka Temple

Siddhivinayaka Temple is the second in line to be visited for the Ashtavinayaka darshanam and is placed on a small hill facing north. The temple is located off Pune Solapur highway baout 48 Km from Srigonda, Ahmadnagar district.

The unique thing about this idol is that out of all the 8 ganesha’s idols, this is the only one whose trunk is positioned towards the right. Rest all the idols would have their trunk positioned towards left.

The idol is 3 feet tall and 2.5 feet wide and Ridhi and Sidhi murthys are also present on one thigh. In order to make one round of the temple, or as we call it pradakshina, one has to go round the hill, which takes around 30 minutes on a moderate speed.

It is said that there was one Peshwa’s general, named Haripant Phadake. He lost his position and out of dismay, he came to the temple and did 21 pradakshinas around the hill. After completion of the rounds, his army men came and took him back to the royal abode as the general.

Also, it is said that Lord Vishnu was able to vanquish 2 demons, Madhu and Kaitabh, only after making Siddhivinayaka happy in this pious place.

Ashtavinayaka Tour - Moreshwara Temple Story

Last year I had gone to a long-awaited and long-dreamt Ashtavinayaka tour in Maharashtra. As the name suggests, it signified visiting of 8 ancient Ganesha temples, which houses 8 ganapatis, in their own magnaminous avatars and grandiose poise.

I would be narrating the significance and the story behind each of the Ganesha's avatars. The 8 ganapatis in their religious significance are :

Temple	Location	District
Moreshwar	Morgaon	Pune
Siddhivinayak	Siddhatek	Ahamadnagar
Ballaleshwar	Pali	Raigad
Varadavinayaka	Mahad	Raigad
Chintamani	Theur	Pune
Girijatmaja	Lenyadri	Pune
Vighnahar	Ozar	Pune
Mahaganapati	Ranjangaon	Pune

According to Shastras, we have to visit the temples in the order as mentioned above to finish the Ashtavinayaka yatra. It is said that some of these idols are swayambhus or self-existent effigies.

Mayureshwara (or Moreshwara) Temple

This is the the most important temple of the tour because it marks the beginning and the end of the tour. The temple is surrounded by 4 minarets which makes it resemble as if it is a mosque from a distance.

There is a Nandi (Shivas bull mount) in front of the temple premises, which is quite surprising as usually we would find Nandi's in front of Shiva's temples. It is said the Ganesh idol along with the Nandi was being transported to a Shiva temple and the carriage broke in between. And then afterwards, it was not possible to remove the idols from the current place.

The Mayureshwar name came because Ganesha, riding a peacock, killed a demon named Sindhu at this spot. The idol's trunk is turned towards left and has a cobra poised over it to protect it. The idol also has 2 other murtis beside i.e. Siddhi (which means capability) and Riddhi (which means intelligence)

It is said that Moregaon used to have lots of peacock and hence the name, Mayureshwar came into being.

Story behind Onam - Kerala's Biggest Festival

Come September 9, 2011. The day would happen to be the most popular and big festival of my native state, Kerala. It is called Onam or Tiruvonam. Almost all the local channels, hoardings and shopping malls would be buzzling with the offers, discounts and debits - to happen from the shopping cards !!!

Well, to commemorate the advent of Onam, here's the real story behind the festivities in God's Own Country.

It marks the advent of a great demon King, called Mahabali(grandson of Bhakt Prahlad), who used to reside in Kerala long time ago. It is said that everyone in his kingdom were happy and prosperous and no one was touched with the sadness or unhappy quotient.

His rule and vigor became so famous that he was thought to be a replacement of Indra, the God of Gods. Maha Vishnu then took the Vamana (Dwarf) avataram and came with the intention of tricking him

When he came, he asked Mahabali to grant him some land. The majestic king humbly agreed and asked him to take as much land as he wants. The Vamana then started increasing in size in cosmic proportions and in first step, he measured the whole of earth. On the second step, he measured the whole of skies.

Third step was still to be kept and there was no place to keep or measure anything. The noble king asked Mahavishnu, in disguise, to keep the third step on him and he was pushed to Patala (the nether world).

It is said that Mahavishnu was so touched by his generousity that he asked him any wish he wanted. And the king, as he was attached to his kingdom, asked him to let him come and visit his kingdom atleast once a year.

The day happens to be now called "Onam". To wish any Keralite, here's the magic age-old mantra "Hridaya Neranja Onam Ashamsakal" which means "Heartful wishes for Onam to You"

Story of Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty is one of the old, beautiful and magnanimous sculpture in the present world. It is situated in Liberty island in New York harbour, New York, United States.

The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet.



The statue was designed by Frederic Bartholdi, in France, in parts and there were initial hiccups for raising funds. The statue was made in parts for eg, head, waist , hands, etc. and the parts were later sent thorugh oceanic voyage to U.S. as it was considered to be a gift from the people of France to United States. The statue, since then, became the icon of Independence and freedom.

It has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Spectacular piece of art, indeed!!!

Mojave Phone Booth

Mojave Phone Booth was a phone booth, installed in 1960. So, what's the big deal!!! There were many phone booth's before the advent of mobiles and wireless stuff. But read on to find the uniqueness.

This phone booth was located at Majave National Reserve in California. When it was placed, it was eight miles (13 km) from the nearest paved road, fifteen miles (24 km) from the nearest numbered highway, and miles from any buildings. Its telephone number was originally (714) 733-9969, before the area code changed to 619 and then to 760. It was originally built to provide telephone services to local miners and other living in the area.



In 1997, a Los Angeles man spotted a telephone icon on a map of the Mojave and decided to visit it. After his visit, he sent a letter of his adventure to a local computer enterpreneur, who started the first of the few websites on the phone booth. The booth became an instant hit on World Wide Web



Soon, people started going to the phone booth as an adventure trip. Calls will be received and called from the booth to signal the start and end of the trip.

The booth has been removed at 2000 as it was decomissioned for the obvious reasons and the phone number was permanently retired.

Interesting indeed!!!

What do you mean by a Geoglyph on the ground ?

In NGC or Discovery there would be episodes which would say about unknown mysterious presence in the world. Geoglyphs happen to be one of a kind. Thought of uncovering the real meaning of such figures


A geoglyph is a drawing on the ground, or a large motif, (generally greater than 4 metres) or design produced on the ground, either by arranging clasts (stones, stone fragments, gravel or earth) to create a positive geoglyph (stone arrangement/alignment, petroform, earth mound) or by removing patinated clasts to expose unpatinated ground (negative geoglyph).

Some of the well known Geoglyphs made by Nazca Civilization guys ages ago were :

Nazca Lines


Nazca Monkey


Nazca Desert Spider


Just imagine the discipline and the real-time thinking of these old civilizations. No airplanes or so at that time but still managed to carve and niche their humongous drwaings on the ground...Impressive

Cricket World Cup 2011 Trivia

India -- as we all know is a land where everything seems to be a magic. And one of the magic is called CRICKET...And the magicians in India are named, Sachin, Gavaskar...They are like Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh of Hindu mythology. World Cup 2011 Fever has caught everyone in its frenzy!!! Cricket buffs are always constantly reviewing the Points system which gets interesting after every match completed.

Some of the lesser known interesting facts about the Cricket World Cup is :
1) The official mascot for the 2011 Cricket World Cup is called Stumpy, which is an young elephant.(the image displayed above)

2) Winning team takes home a whooping sum of 3 million $ and runner's home take home 1.5 million $.

3) There are 14 participants in this World Cup version. The 10 are Test Playing nations. Rest 4 were chosen based on their rankings in the qualifying matches...Ireland was first, Canada was second, Netherlands were third and Kenya were fourth. There were in total 104 entries.

4) Sachin, by appearing in this World Cup now shares the most number of World Cup tournament appearances with Pakistan's Javed Miandad

5) Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai would host this year;s World Cup finals. Interesting it was built in 6 months and was opened in 1975.

6) The record for the most number of ‘ducks’ in World Cup is shared by Nathan Astle of New Zealand and Ijaz Ahmed of Pakistan in 22 and 26 innings respectively.