Monday, July 22, 2013

Back to the future

Banganga - The GSB heritage site in Mumbai, is a must-visit place for all, especially, we GSBians. Like the place, this fact too, is not so well known. Banganga lake is a beautiful place near Malabar hill in south Mumbai. The lake is a wonder in itself for having sweet water being considerably close to the sea. The lake at the centre is surrounded by as many as 14 temples including two of our maths, the Kashi Math and Kavle Math.
We always wished to walk around the place, not just sight-seeing, but also getting to know more about this wonderful place. It was a dream come true on Sunday, July 21 when a group of us visited this place. As we walked around the place, Nikita Rajadhyaksha shared the history about the place. While Harshada Divekar, who has done a course in Archeology was to join us, we missed as she was not well. It was good to have more information about the temples and the lake. The GSB temple trust was founded in 1879 and has been owning this area. A little that we can to do to know about our cultural past and the ever facinating ancient India. While it was a good fun and knowledge sharing session, due to shortage of time, we were not able to cover all the temples. We have marked the map to for our next visit.
Incidentally, it happened to be "Punyatithi" of HH Shree Shivanand Saraswati Swamiji of Shree Kavle Math. We joined in for the aarti and prasad. The lunch at math is a simple veg diet with no-onion-no-garlic, but the taste is simply awesome. Moongagathi, Dalitoy, Uppkeri...I am sure some of us have already starting feeling hungry. For some reasons, you can't keep GSBs and food separate.
After good 4 hours at Walkeshwar area, it was time to leave. But with such a wonderful company, we all were reluctant to all it a day so early. We decided to continue our talks for some more time. Sipping coffee at CCD for the next 2 hours, we talked about our culture, our 4 maths and how it would be good that we all come together as GSBs. While typing this, I just realized that we did not have a formal intro session and we mingled as we knew each other since a really long time...happens when you are in such a group. We also discussed further plans to meet up and the next upcoming one is an overnight trek...location to be finalized soon.

We want to spread the GSB culture and build a GSB network. Those who met became a part of this great GSB network. Are you are part of it? Want to know more? For details, write to us at mahagsb@googlegroups.com or join us on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/groups/mahagsb)