Mahakal & Omkareshwar Jyotirlingas

Time: Dec 23-28, 2022

Place: Ujjain, Omkareshwar & Indore

Company: Wife and daughter

Highlights: Well, we wanted to visit some place during school winter hols but was not exactly sure where. A lot of places could not be visited due to an unusual spate of continued monsoon and some of them were too cold due to winter. And some countries/states still were reeling under Covid and that left very less options. So, after much deliberation, we decided on Madhya Pradesh. Initial grand plan also included Bhopal, Khajuraho, Gwalior, etc. but after poring over multiple itineraries, we decided on a simple trip of BLR-UJJ-BLR with an outing to OMK, and IND on the way. Just two weeks before the onset of hols, booked the train tickets. Thankfully we got it.

Day 1 - Dec 23rd: The train departed at 1:15 pm. We had stored enough meals & snacks for that day's meals & next day morning breakfast too. It was nice traveling in train once again on a long route. I think that last time we did a long train travel was almost 3 years ago back in 2018 when we went to Ayodhya and also got back from Kolkata. Enjoyed the scenic route via Hindupur. Thankfully the person who was supposed to occupy one of the side lower/upper seats did not appear and hence we enjoyed the coziness of the side berths.

Day 2 - Dec 24th: Full day train journey. Enjoyed playing games with daughter. Reading novels once in a while. Taking nap. Saw the scenic vistas pass by. Highlight of the day was the meals that I had ordered for the first time using irctc website where it'd be delivered directly to the seats at certain stations. The Kolkata trip lesson learnt was that meals from train pantry were not too tasty & very spicy too. So this seemed like a nice option. We had a variety of options since this was almost like ordering from Swiggy, we could see the menu items, ingredients and even reviews. Also wifey is now inclined towards no-onion-no-garlic food and hence this was the best option. The food that we got was good although bit spicy. And it got delivered within minutes of train arriving at the station where I had ordered for it to be delivered. First experience of such sort. Some more great sceneries, vistas between Nagpur & Bhopal. Got oranges once more at Nagpur just like how we did in 2018. Very soon, right on time, the train reached Ujjain at about 10 pm. The auto driver was surprised why we had booked a hotel at the outskirts when we had umpteen hotels near the main temple. Had a tough time finding the hotel too. But we had booked the hotel since we did not want to search at the nth minute on a long holiday. Anyways, the room was nice, so we didn't repent. Before sleeping, we booked a cab for the next two days to take us around Ujjain and Omkareshwar. We also asked about Bhasmarthi for next day at 4 am but it was not allowed due to Covid apparently.

Day 3 - Dec 25th: Right on time at 9, the cab guy had arrived. Our first stop was, of course, the Ujjain Mahakal Temple. Narrow streets led to the temple until parking lot after that we had to walk the next few bylanes to get to the actual temple. We could have taken the free darshan line since it was empty but the starting point was too far away. So we took the simpler, shorter one by opting for the quick darshan. Within few minutes, we were inside the sanctum sanctorum. We had nice darshan of Mahakal, good thing being a wide screen monitor with live screening which was very helpful especially since we could not go near to the linga.

Darshan got done soon after and we just visited the many temples inside the premises, also sat under the shades of many trees, meditated, took some snaps, participated in a bhajan, etc. and whiled away a lot of time. Reason being we wanted to have annadanam which we were told was at 12:30 pm (but it actually started earlier) outside the temple premises. Food was good. Post that, we went back to our cab guy. On the way, we went to Bharat Mata Mandir (Mother India). Very nice gesture indeed by whosoever conceptualized & constructed it.

The cab guy first took us to Bhartrihari Caves. Seems very simple from outside but once we go in, it is astounding. Especially the part where we have to climb down a set of stairs. Quite unimaginable that great seers sat here for long time to do penance. Such dark areas under earth. Matsyendranath idol also is kept here, who is famed for having left his body through his chakras. There were so many people here that it was getting claustrophobic. Also there was one guy to control the traffic but he lost his cool and went away after which it was complete mayhem - in a cave! You can imagine!

Thankfully the next cave was not too deep. It was a simple bend-your-head, walk-few-steps, return-back thingy. Once we came out, we sat for some time in the open temple premises and meditated for few minutes and returned back to the cab. 

Next stop was Gad Kalika Mandir. It was a very brief stop but quite interesting. Seems like this Devi has lot of energy. When my wife sat within the temple premises, her left side of the lip felt like it was getting pulled! Since she was wearing the mask, it was not easily noticeable but she felt the pull distinctly only when she was in the temple. When she came out, it stopped automatically. One more thing was that Paavani went missing for about 5+ minutes and both my wife and I were searching. Finally found her, and she was searching for us too! 

Next stop was Kala Bhairaveshwar Temple. This was the strangest of all temples. Here alcohol is offered to the idol! When the driver mentioned this, we did not believe him but alas, it is true! Alcohol shops line up completely all the way to the temple entrance and one can see everyone buying it - including the wives, mothers, elderly, etc. like how flowers are bought! And then there was huge queue which led as a direct line to Kala Bhairava. Our last darshan of Kala Bhairava was in Kashi during the 2018 trip and it was brief (few seconds) but this was fulfilling. And here, wifey felt like she was sipping with her lips. So the left-side lip-pull gave way to this lip-sipping feeling, and once again this only happened as we neared the idol. She felt like laughing, experiencing all this interesting twitches on her face especially when she neared these energized idols! And it went away when we left the place, thankfully!

Our next stop was Shri Mangalnath Temple. Quite an astronomical place this, believed to be the birth place of Mars! Also a place where astronomical studies took place. After all, in the ancient times, Ujjain was considered to be center of Earth! There was quite a bit of a queue, but it was moving fast. Took some pics and moved on.

Last stop in Ujjain was Sandipani Ashram. This was a very nice place. Apparently Lord Krishna came here for his studies! So it was his gurukul/school! A small museum-like place yet with potent of a temple. Very nice place, filled with lot of trees. Upon finishing this, we had road-side tea (very well made) and then we were done with Ujjain, and off we went to Omkareshwar. The drive was about 3 hours. At about 8 pm, we had dinner at a pure veg restaurant called Hotel Panchvati (quite good). We reached at 9:30 pm, and retired for the night in the hotel where we had previously reserved. There was some discussion with the driver about us having to take special darshan but we politely declined it and we were glad we declined.

Day 4 - Dec 26th: Our room was very close to the Narmada river ghat. I went scouting to see if it was bath-worthy. To my surprise, the river was super clean! Even better, it was warm! Had a nice time in the river, and the view was awesome, with the Omkareshwar temple right across. After bath, we crossed the river and approached the temple. Quite shocked to see the queue, it was enormous. But it was moving, so we stayed put. And it got done within an hour, so it was ok. Unlike Ujjain, we do get very close to the linga. It seemed like Varanasi temple. Out of the queue, we took some break and imbibed the energy around. The whole atmosphere, scenery was worth imbibing! The flowing river in the background added that much more charm.

After this, we walked back to our hotel, took the luggage and then went in search of Mamleshwar temple. It was within walking distance, not much queue here, so darshan got done in a jiffy. The next stop was for lunch since we hadn't had anything to eat till now except for a road-side banana. We had researched this place called Omkareshwar Prasadalaya and headed there assuming it is temple prasadam. It was not, but more of a Trust's offerings. The food was not all that satvik since they had put some negative pranic vegetables, but it was ok. 

The cab came to where we were and we headed back to Ujjain. Initial plan was also to visit Patal Pani but driver said that it'd be not that good since there were no rains. So we dropped the plan. However, we did a stop-over at Lalbaag Palace in Indore. It seemed more like ruins, and nothing much to write about. Although at that time, it would have been a treasure due to its grandeur. It was more like a museum with all kinds of photos of hunters with their guns on hunted tigers, etc. The kings of the then era showing off their might. All dead now, huh. What of it. After seeing the palace's bathroom, bedroom, living room, etc. we exited. The Mysore Palace & the Palaces in Rajasthan are well maintained is what we felt. 

Unfortunately there was not much time left for us to see anything else in Indore. Heard from driver that Rajwada is only good to visit during night time due to bustling street food nearby (not sure if we were duped by that statement!). So had to skip that, but there was a fair going on at the grounds of Lalbaag palace, so we let Paavani enjoy herself with a number of children's rides. The fair was super big - with rides, eatery stalls, shopping outlets, stage-shows, etc. So we spent about an hour or more just moving around different stalls. At about 7 pm, we left Indore and directly headed to Ujjain railway station. We thanked our driver for showing us all the great places and headed inside the station. Munched something for dinner, got into our train (which apparently came from Indore as well) at 10:20 pm, and retired for the night. This journey back was both side lower and side upper, so we secluded ourselves into our small home for the next 36 hours...!

Day 5 - Dec 27th: Full day train! Kind of like these day trip in train, nice to see different cities, villages, states go past the window! Enjoyed reading Wodehouse book after a long time. Once again, had booked the Jain food for lunch and that sufficed for us. 

Day 6 - Dec 28th: Got up early to see the sunrise. It was picture perfect. Nice to see the misty nature of the morning Earth. Train was right on time, we reached Yelahanka and then Yeswantpur right on time at about 10:45 am. Reached home at about noon, and that was it!

Overview: Well, this trip started off with different itineraries that initially included lot of places in Madhya Pradesh such as Khajurao, Bhopal, Gwalior, etc. and it kind of became overwhelming. And we did not know whether we could sustain all of these since it would have become very hectic. Hence, retained the itinerary to be very simple BLR to UJJ and back although despite it took lot of time in train, and just focus on the two Jyotirlingas. Anyways, wife and daughter do not prefer air travel, and we had holidays, so thought we might as well spend some quality time in the train travel. In fact, we spent over 75 hours just traveling in this trip and the time spent with the two Jyotirlingas was less than 10 minutes combined! But it was all worth it, saw many sunrises and sunsets at different parts of India, different kinds of people, varied set of devotees, etc. And with that, our vacations of 2021 came to an end!

PS: While writing this blog, came upon this article and it shocked us to the core about wife's lip-pulling event at Gad Kalika Temple, and how susceptible she is now for such important places of worship...!