Across the Road from the River – Srirangapatana, Mysore
I had visited the temple a decade back but the doors had been closed to me. Perhaps I had lingered on for minutes longer at Tipu Sultan’s summer palace at Srirangapatna and He did not want to be kept waiting, anyway it was definitely time for the priests’ siesta and the doors were shut. I reached in time this time, 10 years later. We drove back from Nimishamba temple past small patches of Rose plantations and roadside stalls selling Gulkand, Rose oil and attars. I ignored the verdant appeal of Dariya Daulat Bagh, the lawns and gardens in which is set the Dariya Daulat Palace, Tipu Sultan’s summer retreat that had delayed us the last time. Srirangapatna, Seringapatnam to the British, is a small but historic city almost qualifying for the status of a ‘cute’ city if it hadn’t been so infinitely shrouded in incense and wrapped in war cries from another time – an island situated 14 kilometres from Mysore. The road to the Lord’s abode is narrow but smooth and took me past sna...