NE India trip day 2..

Svaroop- Svaroop my father knocked the room. I looked beside to see my brother sleeping. Papa 5 mins, I said, it was a bit cold as well. After 5 mins, my father called me again and said it is already late, I got up and saw the watch, which was showing a time of 6:00AM. We got up and did all the necessary things, had breakfast And were waiting for our vehicle at around 6:45.

 Our first visit for the day was the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, which is situated on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River. There are twelve shrines which are dedicated to Shiva—Kali's companion—along the riverfront, a temple to Radha-Krishna, a bathing ghat on the river, a shrine dedicated to Rani Rashmoni. There is  chamber in the northwestern corner just beyond the last of the Shiva temples( near the exit), is where Ramakrishna spent a considerable part of his adult life. The temple is packed with lot of devotees( well some say even thieves) almost every day. Since there were a lot of people standing in queue we coud'nt go inside the main kali temple. However we just had a glance of it from the outside and moved towards the shrines. Each shrines consisted of Shiva-linga and lots of devotees were offering their prayers there. Photography was prohibited, but then, that is when we all try to do it more... We then turned to the bathing ghat, where we had an awesome view of the famous hoogly bridge, the mist covered morning was perhaps an embellishment to the view. Then after clicking lot of photos we moved towards the exit where the room in which ramakrishna had spent most of his life was situated. After seeing it we moved out and got into our vehicles.

An view of the Hoogli bridge.

Belur math was our next destination ,it is the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, founded by Swami Vivekananda. It is located on the west bank of Hooghly River, Belur. The temple is quite famous for its achitecture and style of construction. The Sri Ramakrishna Temple, Swami Vivekananda Temple, Swami Brahmananda's temple are located near by each other. The view of the hoogly river is also quite fascinating. By the banks there were some women washing clothes. We could see a lot of boats and motor boats carrying different goods and people all around. Then after taking some snaps, we headed towards the Ramakrishna Museum. The two-storeyed Ramakrishna Museum contains artifacts and goods used by Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and some of his other disciples. Actually it was quite boring for me and my brother( particularly after getting to know that we shall be going to another kali temple in the afternoon, perhaps there was a lot of excitement to follow.)

Hoogli river as seen from Belur Math.