My first visit to Bangalore: visiting Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Temple #80

Last month(coincidentally last year) I happened to travel to Bangalore with my family. It was a short trip for 2 days. My family is not at all into travelling so I didn’t have much expectation from the 2 days’ trip. The first day I had to accompany my parents and didn’t have any time left for site seeing.
All I had the second and the last day of the trip to explore Bangalore. My mom and dad were tired of long and hectic journeys. So we decided to visit some nearby temple. We always heard about the famous Iskcon temples all over in India. I looked up in google and found one of the temples nearby- Sri Laksmi Narasimha Temple. As per my little research I had the idea of the idols in the temple. Narasimha means “Human-lion”- it was Lord Vishnu who showed up in Narasimha avatar(human body with Lion head) to rescue one of his greatest disciples. There are many temples where Lord Vishnu is worshipped in “Narasimha Avatar“. I didn’t visit any official website and I wasn’t very sure about how the temple would look from outside. Maybe that would have required a little more effort and patience. We booked an Uber and started for our destination.

Although our plan was to start by 10 a.m. in the morning, after series of discussion, research, contemplating and reconsidering our plan, taking shower and getting ready it was 12 already. It was bright and sunny, ridiculously hot in comparison to winter. It took almost 45 minutes to reach the temple.
The driver dropped us just in front of the gate and I saw People putting off their shoes to enter the main temple. It was a small temple having get-up of any other South Indian temple. I mentioned it explicitly because these temples have certain type of architecture and vibrant colours. The first thing I could see after entering the temple was, people having prasad(food that is offered to God and is believed to be sacred).

The main temple was like a big hall, having three small rooms in one side. Those rooms are under the roof of the big hall and surrounded by the walls of the same hall. There were idols of Lord Ganesha, Lord Rama accompanied by his brother Lakshmana and wife Sita and Lord Vishnu. People were revolving around those three rooms and chanting mantras. Following others, I also did the same except for the mantras. Though it was sunny and hot outside, inside the temple it was nice and cold and just peaceful. That’s what I love most about the temples, specially those which are not crowded, where you can sit for some time. My dad is someone between theist and atheist and when he goes to temple it’s definitely not because he loves God. He is more interested in having parasad than sitting in the temple and murmuring prayers.

After spending nearly 30-45 minutes, we booked an Uber for retuning to hotel. As it would take 15 minutes to reach, we were roaming around the premises. Suddenly I realized that I didn’t see any idol of Narasimha Avatar which was quite unlikely to be true. Our Uber was 5 minutes’ away when Dad started making gesture to come out. Stepping outside the main gate we saw a bigger gate and way more decorated entrance. I don’t know why I didn’t see it in the first place. Very soon, we found out it to be the entrance gate of Narasimha temple. All this time we were in the wrong place. As our Uber was stuck in traffic, we could buy a few moments to have a look. The temple was under renovation, it took a few minutes to figure the main door. When we finally entered into the main temple, it was too late. Generally in temples, they put the curtains down in the afternoon so practically visitors can’t see the idols, curtains are removed once again in the evening.