The little one was turning one on October 17th. The plan was made to go to Lord Subramanya Swamy temple on or around his birthday. So the date we chose was the 16th. The place chosen was Ghaati Subramanya Swamy Temple, Doddabellapur. The distance from Whitefield to the temple was around 72 Km.
Packing along stuff for the little one, we started on the journey by car at around 10 a.m. As soon as we hit the roads, G dozed off. We took the budhigere road towards devanahalli airport. When we hit Devanahalli village, we then joined the road going towards doddabellapur. After crossing doddabellapur, there are signposts directing you towards the temple.
The diety in the temple was the highlight. It is a seven headed serpent, the front of which is depicted as Lord Muruga and on the back rests Lakshmi Narasimhar. There is a mirror kept in such a way that we can see the Lakshmi Narasimhar on the behind. The significance of each of the serpents is also explained in the walls around the temple. The various little snapshots of Lord Muruga and his conversations with Lord Shiva and Parvati are painted all around, giving an insight into their lives.
The temple has an anna daanam program which feeds 100s of people on a daily basis. One of the methods they do this is with the fixed or recurring deposit scheme, in which they put the donations that they get from people, and the interests obtained from that is used for the anna daana programs.
Overall, the visit to the temple was very satisfying. The journey to and fro was pretty comfortable, save for some bad roads. The villages that we passed through provided for some scenic beauty. :) And over and above, little G also enjoyed the journey, and the darshan, which happened on the eve of his first birthday.
