A Slumdog moment?

after quite a few delays, we headed out from the office to try and do some shopping/power browsing. I say power-browsing in that I have a good idea of range of things that I'm looking for, but I'm still browsing.

We end up pulling in the the bottom parking structure of mall. Mall in the sense that it is probably about a 7-story commercial building that has shops inside. To be clear, they don't have anything near the glitz or glamour of a Valley Faire. We pay Rps 30 to park and hop out of the car.

Sachin says "hey... do you want to go to a temple?" I kinda shrug, but realize that I've not really done anything during my time that is associated with the local culture or religion unless you consider the faith that I've expressed in local society as part of my recent travels. There is some sign that says something about a temple... so I go... begrudgingly... I'm a bit tired already and really want to get going.

So this mall, is in the very congested part of the city, off of a main thoroughfare of a road. The pathway is linked to a portion of the underground parking structure of this mall. we walk around this very narrow path and come to something akin to a turnstyle where we need to pay a small amount of money for entrance, I don't remember how much, maybe Rs. 60 total(maybe $1.30 US).

Then there is the shoe check... don't know if you have seen slumdog millionaire, but the little kids in the movie make money off of stealing shoes from temples and reselling them. I think about it for a moment, and I'm planning on dumping my shoes after another day's wear anyway, but giving up my shoes now is not in my plans.

Whatever... fine.. here take them....

a wash station for the hands(no soap), and we funnel through what feels like an amusement park ride with serpetining railings to handle crowds. then there is a narrow corridor with some interesting animatronics in glass cases that go over the different religions or gods? I don't recall as much of my asian american studies class as I should.

Then we wind around to a big open space... and there is this HUGE 40 ft statue. Sachin soooorta got a shot of it, but there was a guy coming after us for having a camera, which we paid extra to bring in, but Sachin apparently managed to lose the ticket in the last 5 minutes, so we didn't get a good shot.














What there is in the background, is roughly a 40 ft tall statue... right in the middle of downtown, access through the underground parking lot of a mall.

Weird.

After a couple minutes, we filed on past and went to pick up our shoes........ successfully.

Not necessarily a typical religious experience, but in place of driving 3-4 hours each way on the weekend to Mysore, this will do just fine.