Posted on: Oct 31, '08
Vacation in Madurai, the Temple City. - Travelogue...
Day-1:
Feeling great. After 14 months, a week breakaway from the Work’s, Home’s and City’s routines. This time we planned to hit South. The Temple City of Madurai. This city has long connection with me. I did my engineering graduation here, passed out from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, exactly 25 years ago. Set at the foothills of Tirupparanundram, with natural small woods called Mayil Kaadu (Meaning Peacock Forest) on the background, the college was one of just 12 engineering colleges in the state of Tamil Nadu during those days. Getting admission into one of these colleges was considered to be quite an achievement. The elegant main building with its dome resembling the Supreme Court dome, used to be surrounded with trees and garden, and from the college campus, the hills of Pasumalai and a small pond adjacent to the hills give awesome view.
We took evening train to Madurai. Reminiscence of our good old train journeys, from Chennai-Mumbai-Chennai came to our minds, almost simultaneously. Back in late 80’s we used to travel at least twice a year by Dadar-Express or Bombay-Mail that takes 28 to 32 hours to make it. All the passengers in the carriage become friendly, as if part of one family, sharing food, family details, experiences, joys and sorrows. Singing and playing, reading and chatting – all happened there. Different lingual, cultural people all there within that confined space, spending their time together. Within that short period of acquaintance, people become so close, many a time, we used to part with heavy hearts at our destinations.
Time has changed and so have people. We could see it and feel it all along. We had lower berths and an aged couple came into the same partition, the man over 70 and the lady over 60. They had one middle and one upper berth. Before asking, we offered my berth to the man and let the lower births for the ladies. There was one railway staff who had another lower birth. The man requested him if he could exchange his birth, for the aged man had to go to bathroom frequently. “Not Possible!” – was the answer from that person who was in his mid-thirties. The aged man swallowed it regretting for asking him a favor and settled for the middle birth. Then my wife and me took the middle ones and offered the man the lower birth. Later he explained to us that the woman was a cancer patient and he had to be next to her for any assistance. The way he nursed his wife, we both had tears in our eyes. In this world of separating at the instance of a sneeze, there we saw a couple, married since 45 years and the man was nursing her like a baby. We both looked at each other with some meaningful exchange of thoughts. She was suffering from blood cancer and treatment was being done in Adayar Cancer Institute. He said that it is completely cured now and they were returning to their hometown Madurai. Even after listening to their story, the ‘staff’ didn’t even offer his seat for name’s sake. The aged man was commenting that this is quite normal here nowadays and they were used to this sort of treatment. He said it looked strange to us, coz, we were away from this country for most of our life.
We reached Madurai, the temple city and checked in the hotel.
The same day was a marriage function we had to attend. A Muslim marriage. I have to say a few things about this person, whose daughter was getting married. His name is Gani. When we were in Saudi Arabia, Gani was our helping hand. He worked in the same company which was running our furnished accommodation compound. He was everything for us. I was working 14-15 hrs a day / 7 days a week, and this man, (I used to call him our Hanuman) was there with us during all our good times and bad times. Now was the time for us to give him back a tiny bit of what he gave us. We knew him for more than 11 years and he insisted that we attend his second daughter’s marriage in Madurai. Well, that made the best possible excuse to choose Madurai as our vacation spot and the timing suited us too.
We arrived at the marriage hall, the groom’s family was already there. It was so heartening to see the way so many elders, relatives and family members gather there. I was seeing so many people past their 80’s, hale and healthy, in the traditional dhotis lungis and shirts, with a small thundu (piece of thin towel), on their shoulders. They were greeting each other, traditional triple hugging, inquiring about their grand-children making jokes of their youth hood and all the fun. Ladies were in a separate room and there was no less fun and laughter there too.
All the elders sat around the groom, the Imam read verses from Holy Qur-A’an, which basically praised about the concept of man and woman living together for each other and the principles of Marriage. The good thing was that the Imam translated everything into Tamil as well, so all the people understood what it was all about. After the traditional “Kubool-Kubool-Kubool”, the Imam again sang prayer songs and everybody rendered “Amen”. The same happened on the ladies side as well and the marriage was over.
We spent the rest of the day with their family and retired to hotel in the night.
Day-2:
The next day visit to Tirupparankundram – Muruga Temple and my college.
The temple, of Lord Muruga, was built using stones, and also carved out of the big rocks at the foot of the hill. Tons of stones standing on carved pillars, and the entire temple rises from ground level to about 50 feet height inside. This is the place, where Lord Muruga married Deivanai , his second wife. Polygamy seemed to be normal those days even for Gods. He married Valli, a Kurathi (Gypsy) girl as his first love wife. In short, he had one wife for fun and one for gyan.
Here (and in general in any Muruga temples), he is the main God at the Sanctum Sanctorum. He has his wife sitting next to him and Parents – Shiva and Parvati, uncle Vishnu and big belly brother Ganesh – all of them are standing around the couple, showering their greetings. It is so beautiful to see the entire family in this temple, just next to each other. The stone buildings and the Gopura (Tower) are more than 500 years old and stands still solid.
After visit to temple, we drove into my college complex. Well, the road seemed to be shorter than before, and the entire place has been surrounded by buildings. The old open view has given way to cluster of buildings. All those trees have out grown the main building and the entire place was looking like a beautiful garden. During our days, the place used to be very dry and the trees were thin and weak. We had as part of our NSS activities planted more than 5,000 tree saplings around our college complex during our days and watered them with great difficulty. I am sure our successors took care of those trees very well, 25 years later we saw the result – a barren terrain, turned into a rain forest. Thanks go Global Warming, Tamil Nadu has been getting extra monsoon rains during the last 10 years and all the trees have grown up very healthy. Those who know Madurai of those days would understand what I am saying. It is unbelievable that this was once a dry barren place. The dry scorching heat of Madurai at around 40 degrees for the summer months, there would be no mercy from the Sun God.
Five years we spent there – 1978-1983. We had fun, we had sorrows, we had fights and we had celebrations. The ‘social-break-up-day’, which normally is the last official working day for the final year students. All the outgoing students dress up in different outfits, just like a fancy dress competition of a kinder-garten. We hire the most famous Vaadipatti Melam, The centuries old drum band from the locality of Madurai, which sounds something similar to the Marathi drums, but unique to this place. We march from the center of the city all the way to the college, traversing 10 kilometers, decorated bullock carts leading from the front, dancing all the way. Once inside the college, we enter every class of our juniors and make all kind of free-for-all fun, throw colors on them, do whatever we wanted with all those students and the staff. The dance continues in the grounds for hours, like Holi. Well, that day we live as if it were the last day of our life.
In fact, it turns out to be the last happy day we get to spend, free from any sorrows. From next day, it all starts. The sleepless nights and scary thoughts of getting good final marks, getting a good job, getting settled, etc. etc. all those times played in my mind like a rewinding, I took some snaps of the college as it is now.
With all those nostalgia flowing over from the memory lane, we returned to the city. And my wife wanted to do some, what-else, shopping. She had her regular shops there and she spent some good times in the Shops.
Day 3:
Next day, we planned to go to either Vaigai Dam or to PazamuthirSolai, a beautiful ancient garden just outside the city. But then, Gani called and insisted that we visit their town, Paramakudi, which was about 100 kms from Madurai. Well, we obliged and changed our plan to visit Gani at his hometown. The road was picturesque, traveling all along the banks of river Vagai, green and cool, clouds kissing the western ghats, it was feeling like heaven. People told us to visit Kodaikanal, a hill station, but, we saw Kodaikanal had come to Madurai, just for us. The temperatures were 29 max and 20 min. The sky was gorgeous, pregnant clouds moving slowly across, showering drizzles every now and then.
When we reached Gani’s home, this little girl Shaina, welcomed us with all her heart. She is the Pari of his family. Very smart, intelligent, doing her 1st standard. When we were talking, we asked her, did you see off your sister on her marriage, she answered, “yes, first, Nargis (her eldest sister) went to her home, crying and few days later she managed. She is happy now. Now, Abrose went to her home, crying too much, but she will also manage in few days."
She continued 'Now, dad is showing me one relative boy and says ‘I have to marry him’. No baba No. I will never marry. I have to study.
Do not spoil my entire life by marriage."
That little mind has seen lot for her age that she got so frustrated about this thing called marriage.
We spent a few hours with them, after lunch, returned back to Madurai the same evening.
Day-4:
This day was to spend time within the Madurai city, including visit to the historical Meenakshi temple. This temple, with four towers rising over 200 feet height, is unique in so many things. The temple’s history dates back to 1600 B.C., when there was one small Shivlinga located by a local king under a Kadamba Tree. He started worshipping the Linga and made a small temple around it. Then many other kings ruled the area built their own portion of the temple. The main structure was built dating from 11th Century through 17th Century at different periods, by different dynasties. The Four Gopuras or Towers, were built between this span of 600 years. If you see them, you wouldn’t discover much different between them in terms of architecture or cultural depiction. The later Kings and their architects ensured that the overall theme and cultural expression has been maintained throughout the temple.
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It had rained overnight and everywhere water logging. We entered through the East-Gate, which was the oldest. There are temples inside the fortified premises, one for Meenakshi and another for Sundareswar (Shiva). Entire building was built with stones and excellent exquisite stone carvings all around, over 500-700 years old, predicting the ancient civilization and culture of Tamil people. After worshipping, we visited the Thirumalai Nayakkar Mahal, as it is called, the dance court of the Nayakkars.
These pillars that you see, in contrary to the architecture in the South, instead of using stones, were built with bricks, and finished with Limestone mortar, to give the marble-look. This is a unique palace, believed to have been designed by an Italian architect, built by Tamilian craftsmen. It combines Italian, Muslim and Tamilian architecture and construction technology. The structure was constructed using foliated brickwork and the surface details and finish in exquisite stucco called chunnam using chunnam (shell lime) and (Mixed with egg white) to obtain a smooth and glossy texture. The steps leading up to the hall were formerly flanked by two equestrian statues of excellent workmanship.
The pillars supporting the arches are 13m tall and are again joined by foliated brickwork that carries a valance and an entablature rising up to a height of 20 m. The decoration is done, (shell lime). The pavilions topped with finials that were covered with gold are on either side of the courtyard. (Courtesy Wikipedia)
This is the main entrance of this magnificent monument:
Restoration work was going on and hence the final finish was not visible. Once finished it would look like pure white marble.
After that visit, we visited just outside the city to snap the famous Anaimalai, which from a distance looks like a gigantic elephant lying down.
The return journey to Chennai went without incidents and we were back home the next day.
Watch out for lot more pictures of beautiful Madurai and its surroundings in my next photo Blog...
E N J O Y ...
Tags: meenakshi temple, madurai, vacation
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