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In Search of Solitude - a ride to Basadi Hosakote
A place not on any tourist map, secluded alongside the backwaters of KRS, Basadi Hosakote is a religiously sacred place for Jains. The Bahubali (Gommateshwara) statue stands tall in the spectacular background of the Cauvery backwater.
Crossing the KRS Dam and the Brindavan Gardens, continuing on to KR Pete, a deviation at Katteri led me towards Basadi Hosakote. Off the main road, the interior roads are good in some places, but some are very bad. The roads are narrow, but the rice fields and flower beds along the road more than makeup for the lack of road infrastructure.
The place is at the tip of the land, covered on all three sides by water. Apart from a couple of farmers who had come to tend to their fields, there was no other human intervention. It was nature all around, with some birds. The inviting waterbody sees many migratory birds in the winter months. As I visited the place in February, I could spot some of them.
The locals were quite surprised to see some stranger in their interior village. They were pleasantly surprised that I had come to visit the statue. After the friendly chit-chat, I headed back home following the same road I had taken, with the flower fields on both sides for company.
