Taking advantage of the weekend break, thousands of tourists and people from surrounding villages thronged Hampi in Vijayanagara district to witness various cultural and sports events organised on the second day of Hampi Utsav-2023 on Saturday.
The crowd that was thin in the morning gradually grew, and by evening, the UNESCO World Heritage Site was full of people visiting exhibition stalls and the various sports and cultural events. The monuments were illuminated by evening, drawing bigger numbers.
Hampi by sky
The district administration offered a paid service – Hampi by Sky – a programme to allow the people to watch the historical monuments of Hampi from a helicopter. A temporary helipad was created on the Mayura Bhuvaneshwari Hotel premises for the purpose. A tariff of ₹3,800 was fixed for the fly of 6-7 minutes over Hampi, which is often termed as open museum of marvellous monuments.
Peopling boarding a helicopter to have an areal view of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi on the second day of Hampi Utsav on Saturday. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Tourists and people were found enthusiastically waiting in queue for their turn to board the helicopter and take a glimpse of Vijayanagara, the capital of the historical Vijayanagara Empire. Six people were allowed to fly in a helicopter at a time. As per the information provided by the Department of Information and Public Relations, the helicopters made 16 rounds of flying after the programme started on Friday.
Wrestling and other attractions
Traditional wrestling was one of the major attractions on the second day of the utsav. As Tourism Minister Anand Singh flagged off the competition by playing the traditional drum, two women wrestlers took part in the event to mark the beginning of the competition, in which over 100 wrestlers participated.
The recitation of poems organised at Virupaksheshwara Temple premises in Hampi was another big draw. The themes of the poems ranged from protest against exploitative caste system to challenging the State and the ruling class. B.R. Police Patil of Banahatti caught the attention of the audience by presenting in his poem the developments that unfolded after the assassination of scholar M.M. Kalaburgi.
Other events that attracted the crowd included international rock-climbing competition, weightlifting, and water sports at Kamalapur lake. The utsav comes to an end on Sunday evening with a series of cultural programmes.
