My journey to South 😍💓

WHAT’S SOUTH TO A JAMMU GIRL?
                                                                                                   
Exploring South is like a big thing for me and of course for anyone of us, especially when you are from North a totally opposite Culture and Tradition. I and 10 of my friends got this opportunity to visit South through one of the conference conducted by a college in Andhra Pradesh.I always get exhilarated by the name of new place, journey and travel things. From being a travel lover to my fondness for interacting with people, collecting stories, these little things are what I live for.

Day 1st and 2nd were like totally dedicated to the number of competitions.Our first visit was to Sports Complex where the scent of competition was coming from every corner of the ground.Haryana won most of the games.Next was Poster Presentation,I still remember we waited for almost 30-45 minute in a queue to submit our Project. It was so good to see the room full of Paintings, Art and Artists.On next day, Debate, Fashion-show and Dance was going to be held. That day I heard some weird discussions of South professors on J&K that made me laugh to the fullest.They had put up their own concepts and being from the place J&K,
I tried to clear the confusion, J&K are not separate but one. Kashmir is all about mountains and Jammu is about temples and historical places.
Well!!!When we talk about competitions there is one sweet thing, we get a chance to interact with people from different Cultures, their costumes, Folk forms, Music.In Fashion show and Dance we got to know about the different Costumes and Dance forms of almost 24-25 states.The Bhangra of Punjab stole the show. And one strange thing that I can’t forget in my whole life is that we gave our performance by 12 at night, and reached our guest house at 1am. “We get to learn a lot when we reach to anything new and it’s like a big change that take place at that moment”.

Finally Day 3rd, “THE DAY FULL OF ENTHUSIASM  AND THRILL”. We got the chance to cover three amazing places of Andhra Pradesh: Sri Amareswara Swamy Vari Devasathanam(Hindu Temple), The Dhyana Buddha Statue-Amravati, Hailand.

Sri Amareswara Swamy Vari Devasathanam is a Hindu Shiv Temple in Amravati, Andhra Pradesh. This place ensures calmness, freshness under every tree, the sounds of chanting, mesmerised breeze of River Krishna flowing nearby the temple. The things that I exactly recall from the place are:
First I met with a different group of men in attire of black dhoti and shawl and had talk with them about their attire. They were looking divergent in whole temple, they told me they have to follow this for 41 days in order to follow the act of goodness and have Shuddhi(purity). The 41 days of Vruth facilitate that and it explains “THATHVAMASI” (I am nothing but you). Another great experience was with the two old ladies who shared tales of 25 years of friendship with me.The school children who were brought there for a spiritual visit greeted me with name “AKKA”(elder sister), told me about the Shiv temple. My eyes felt so good to see how they were showing great respect to every one in temple who were from different State or Country.

Next we went to see The Dhyana Buddha Statue in Amravati,
According to my experiences, I always remain attach to the Buddha places.It was sudden that we decided to went there.The Statue is 125 ft and is situated on a 4.5 acre site on the bank of the Krishna River with eight pillars on a lotus pandal. The Statue has three layered museum in base underneath, consisting sculptures of Amravati Art, most modern reliefs from Amravati Mahachaitya stupa.There I met with school children, people from another State and some Locals. I captured the best moments of my life with sweet smiling faces, the South children shows keen interest in knowing everything, actually they are genius. They asked me about thousands of questions regarding my State, about Myself. One thing that I never forget is that one girl said me “I look like a South Actress” and asked me for an Autograph. This moment was so funny for me but she was like on the sky. The whole vibe of the place still gives me chills, it was so beautiful to be there. The time changes but memories seriously lasts forever.

The last spot for the day was Hailand,
I remember we took Auto and covered distance of almost 1 hr, it was so exhausting because of the humidity. But still we were trying to entertain ourselves in whole journey. The Auto driver made this 1 hr extra special as he was quite entertaining and knew almost every song of Bollywood and the movies from the 90’s. The Hailand is an endless combination of Thrilling rides, Water Park, Fantastic entertainment, delightful restaurants, fine dining outlets and Shopping Malls.We had very less time left we couldn’t got to enjoy all the things because on next day we had our train for Jammu. The silliest thing that happened to me at the place was I misunderstood a man in ghost attire as a statue and when he suddenly moved I was so much frightened and felt like crying at that sudden moment. He replied me with “ Har Dekhi Chez Sach Nahi Hoti, Parakhna Bhi Zaruri Hai”. It hit me so hard.

While these three days were so busy and hectic for us, but what makes your hectic day worth is Food.
There is a lot of difference between North and South food. If you enter south the food that you will get to enjoy are Idlis, Dosa’s, Uttapam's and Dal mainly. Meanwhile in this list, my stomach was craving for something spicy, the food of south has it’s own essence but being a Kashmiri Foodie I missed my own place to a great extent.We decided to visit KFC same day for more good taste and then for shopping, as Andhra Pradesh has good collection of Sarees in affordable prices.

Talking about Architecture, the interior of the guest house where we were spending our nights was of supreme excellence.The people of south greet their houses as Temples in true sense.I remember all the woman drawing rangoli near their doors, cleaning the courtyard in early morning and Also the fragrance of sandal coming from almost every house.This tradition had a tremendous impact on me.

Overall South gave me so much of memories and new things in my bag, from different Languages, Cultures to Traditions. I count this as one of the fantastic opportunity. I was whole new person when I returned back to Jammu. I still miss the place, the people. I recommend you people to visit over there as the days you will spend over there will be counted as the best days of your life.