The entire neighbourhoud in this part of old Bangalore has a certain charm to it. One of the prominent locations for visitors including International visitors who can afford to have a little time and interest on a historical temple is the Bull temple. I remember, literally over a decade ago when I was a trainee PR executive in a firm, my role on a particular assignment was to take a few international media personnel from Thailand to this temple as part of their sight-seeing tour of Bangalore. The guide who was taking the personnel had a lot of unwanted information to share and if anything was exaggerate, I would be smiling to myself as to why do generally guides presented a kind of distorted image of Bangalore. But then that was years ago and I too had fun taking those journalists around the city. Cut to 2014, thanks to internet, reviews, traveller feedback, one can no longer present a different picture of tourist spots than what it is in reality. This particular temple Dodda Basavanna devasthana or Bull temple has a lot of visitors, right through the year. There is an open air path that leads to the Nandi statue and is allowed to be photographed. This temple is adjoining to the other temples in the complex that has the famous Ganesha temple and Lord Shiva temple too. But it is the Nandi statue that attracts a lot of tourists. The idol of Nandi is supposed to be carved out of a single rock. A mythological tale says that the bull temple was built to appease a bull that would consume and destroy all the groundnuts and peanuts cultivated in this area. It is also said that after the temple was built, the bull stopped damaging the crop. As a celebration of this incident, the farmers of Basavanagudi organized a Groundnut fair (Kadalekai Parase), near the temple. This festival is continued even to this date and is organized in Bangalore every year. Most Bangaloreans who live near South Bangalore find this an opportunity to just visit once this festival as part of celebrations of Bangalore’s festivals. Will be soon sharing a few pictures taken at the Bull temple a fortnight ago.