A Trip down South - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I undertook a small albeit interesting journey to a few places down in the Southern most part of India (South Tamil Nadu). I spent about 4 days going around various temple towns. 4 to be precise. I'll write more about the place and not so much about the gods and deities there. I'll write about things that I agree with and those I don't. I might also make a few generalizing comments that some people might find hurtful. If you're one of those people, you should not go any further!

We started off on a Tuesday afternoon in a train that made the phrase moving in single digits equivalent New Horizons. It took about 20 hours to travel 800k to reach Rameshwaram. It is located on an island called Pamban (if my memory serves me right) and is connected to the mainland through a bridge called Pamban bridge which was about 2ks long on the sea. The prospect of traveling on which got me excited. Well, I wasn't disappointed.

At the start of the bridge near Mandapam
(mainland) 

View from the train at the middle of the bridge

This made my day. The seemingly endless body of water and a man made structure on it, it couldn't have been any more magnificent. It seemed like vast amount fishing was being done very near to the coast. (Captain Obvious to the rescue!?)

You can see the land far in the background

Pillars of some old bridge?

The temple located in Rameswaram is called the Ramanathaswamy, the principal deity in which was supposedly built by Rama and Sita to absolve their sins after the battle with Ravana. We  stayed in the vicinity of the temple. The temple's main entrance faces the sea. We stayed in a small place on that road.

A view of the main Gopuram from the road to the shore

One of the corridors in the temple

There are 22 wells in the temple and the water from those have different tastes. Some custom dictates that anybody who visits that temple should also bathe in water from those wells. There were some temple appointed people who had to help you in that bath ing by drawing water from the wells. The ticket for that has been fixed at Rs 25. Now the interesting part starts. There are additional brokers who charge about 100Rs who supposedly gave you more amount of water to bathe (I didn't get the point too). I wasn't surprised when people who only had taken the 25 ticket were just sprinkled upon a handful of water. This seemed like an indirect way to bolster the entire enterprise of brokerage they had going on.   Inside the temple were some of the most beautiful corridors with exquisitely made sculptures. The whole outer corridor was being repaired and repainted was looking very majestic. I think, post-completion, the whole area would be a feast to the eyes.

Apparently, the temple that we see now was constructed in different eras by different kings. The main shrine was built in some millennia BC and progressively, additions were made to it, with the final corridors being built in 18th century AD. The outermost corridor, I think, is one of the longest in the world with dimensions given in the picture next to this paragraph i.e., the four walls are 690ft, 435ft, 649ft and 395ft long. Along one of the inner walls, were a large number of Shiva lingas of various shapes and sizes.

One of the corridors being painted

I took a bath in the sea too. It was definitely one of the most calmest seas I've ever been to.  There must have been at the least a couple of hundred people there at the shore in the morning.

From Rameswaram, we went to Madurai. In the next post, I'll try to talk about the next couple of days of this trip that included Madurai, Thiruparankundram and Palani.

Cheers


Part 2: A trip down South - Part 2

A Trip down South - Part 2

Link to the first part: A Trip down South - Part 1

We started from Rameswaram to Madurai in a bus. It was a 180k transit, which owing to the tremendous quality of the bus and the heat, that jaded us out. There are two things about Madurai

• It hot there. When a Telugu dude tells you it is hot, it is hot! 
• It is hard to survive there if you don't know Tamil. You'll be robbed by every fellow there. 

It is one of the oldest cities in India dating back to at-least 2-3 BC. I went there to visit the famous Meenakshi temple, which has been around for about a couple of millennia now. The best part of the temple were the sculptures in it. Luckily, I was allowed to carry my camera inside and hence was able to click a few pictures.

The temple complex was again gigantic, though not as big as the Rameswaram one. When I went there in the evening, there was an evening ritual going on. There were lots of people attending it and with all the lights on, I was able to click these  pictures of the corridor. 

                                                                                                        

The detailing of the works of arts there was something that astounded me.  There were several hundred dainty carvings.  One other spectacle in the temple was the thousand pillared hall, of which about 980 remain. On each of these pillars are carvings of delicate details. 

One of the doors that has been dismantled

The famed musical pillars

One of the pillars in the 1000 pillared hall

Inside the hall of thousand pillars itself, are exhibited some old albeit beautiful carvings of various gods and goddesses. The usual Nataraja ( form of dancing Siva) standing on the right foot with his left foot in the air (like the one below). But in here, there is a form in which Nataraja stands on his left foot with his right foot in the air. 

Something else that is rather special to this temple is the Gopurams. 

The North Gopuram

I think this is the East Gopuram

From Madurai, we went to a small place called Thirupparakundram, which is about 10k from Madurai.  It has a temple of Lord Subramanya and the story goes that he wed Indra's daughter in that place. It is situated right at the foot of a small hillock on top of which is an another temple which I didn't visit. I was robbed in the most debonair of fashions here. There was a small shrine and next to it was a person who was giving some white balls that looked like butter. I, in all my naivety, thought that someone was distributing some prasadam. I was taken aback when he asked for 10 Rs. On inquiring the reason, he said that he was selling that butter for a ritual there. He wouldn't take it back because it was for "God" and I've touched it. Never been robbed in a better fashion. The main temple in that place is a rather dungeonous place, pitch dark save the few lights they had in place. This temple, like the others, was also very crowded and packed. I came back to Madurai after this expedition and the left for Palani in the evening.

Palani, again, was the abode of Subramanya. This time, the shrine was on the temple. In the town of Palani was a large Malayali population influence to the level that almost all the shops had their names written both in Tamil and Malayalam. The hill-station of Kodaikanal is very vicinal to this place. The level of crime (I like to call it that) was very high here too. One had to pay 50 more bucks after buying the actual 10Rs ticket. The tonsurer (!) was very much ready to pick-up a fight over that money. 

There are three ways to get to the top of the hill, to where the temple was. The first one was the usual take the stairs. There was also a winch and a rope-way. I didn't take the rope-way because the alighting point for it was a bit far from the town. The winch moves at a snail's place that at a point I thought I would be faster taking the stairs. I went to the temple twice, once the evening I got there and once the next morning. I took the stairs while coming down in the evening and both ways the next morning. 

Saw these guys while climbing down.

View of the Palani town from the top of the hill

I would like to make some general observations about that trip and the place. These are not intended to  be racist or regionalist. It was very very hot even in the mid of September. If you like idlis and sambar, you are gonna have a gala time. The bus transport there has to be avoided as much as possible as it is very tough to travel in that heat in those buses. 

That is all that I can recall about that trip. 

Cheers