Addendum to Naimisaranyam tour diary

This point was missed when I had posted the earlier diary on the blog page.

Thanks to my cousin Srinivas for reminding me about it.

When we were going to Naimisaranyam from Sitapur, the nearest town indicated on the milestones on the highway read "Hardoi". Our driver, who is a native of Sitapur district, told us an interesting legend associated with it.

Seems this Hardoi was the place where Hiranyakasipu stayed. Maybe where he did his penance to get those terrible powers that he had. Since he hated Hari or Lord Vishnu, he was a "Hari Drohi". Hence the place was named as "Hari Drohi" which got corrupted to "Hardoi". Sounds logical?

When our driver told this, my friend Amit Verma who is also from Sitapur, and who had accompanied us on this trip told us that even to this day people from that village are kind of unpredictable. They cannot pronounce "r" properly, and try to evade it when they encounter the syllable. For eg. instead of "Mirchi" for Chillies, they say "Michchi". Even "Hardoi" itself is pronounced as "Haddoi".

Interesting?