Some of the places you visit have some peculiar things which create a lasting impression in your mind. These are not necessarily the things for which you visited the place. They are the secondary or incidental parts of the place. Still, when you look at them, they strike a chord in your heart, create a delicate emotion, or generate a strange thought in your mind.
When we visited Skandagiri last week, among the other things on the top of the hill was a small temple constructed using stone slabs and had a rough hand-sculpted Shivaling inside. There was the traditional Nandi outside the temple withered by the Sun and rain. There was no lamp inside, no flowers, no puja saaman, no evidence of anyone having come there for ages. Just a small 8 ft by 8 ft by 6 ft dark, unventilated clumsy chamber and the God sitting in the eternal loneliness.
I contrasted this with Tirupathi Balaji temple, which I visited a few years ago after rigorously climbing that hill on foot for three hours, exactly like I did at Skandagiri. But there I had to wait in the queue of teeming humanity for 6 hours to have a fraction-of-second view of the deity, which was richly decorated with flowers & jewelry and profusely illuminated by hundreds of wick lamps in the huge semi-dark holy chamber.
As I stood in front of this desolate small temple atop Skandagiri, I felt a strange sense of compassion, just like I have when I see a helpless, poor, orphaned child looking at me with sad eyes at a traffic signal!
I have attached a photo of that dilapidated but beautiful temple of the lonely God, whom I prayed there and will remember forever!