Wednesday, December 07, 2005
In Madurai, the city of temples...
In Madurai,
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women's hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun
The poets only sang of the floods.
From "A River" by AK Ramanujan. Here's the complete poem. and for good measure, a picture of the dried Vaigai river that I just had to take :-)
So I flew from hometown Mumbai on the west coast (see map!) down to Coimbatore in the south of India, and then a five-hour bus to Madurai. This is a Government transport bus, part of the
Indian Government's egalitarian public transport system. Which, in other words, meansthat the buses thunder with bone-shuddering efficiency across the country, defying entropy and mechanics, since by all rights they look like they should be falling apart. But they're cheap, with a five-hour, 100-mile trip costing less than a dollar. And more importantly, the bus did have a DVD player, with a very loud music system. When you can watch a movie, why bother about other minor things like crowds and comforts? Over these bus journeys, I was compelled to appreciate the distractive potential of over-the-top Tamil movies, especially the histrionics of Rajnikanth.The Meenakshi Temple
Madurai, is a tiny city known for and seemingly build around the awesome
Meenakshi Temple, one of the holiest temples in India. Dedicated to Shiva and his consort Meenakshi (the fish-eyed one), this temple represents the pinnacle of South Indian traditional architecture. The temple itself was completed in the 17th century. but has been progressively under construction for 2000 years before that!The temple itself is a huge complex, with 5 towers (gopurams) adorning the boundaries. Inside, there's a dizzying array of divine overload, with majestic gods and voluptuous goddesses looking on you from every angle. The intricately rainbow-hued towers narrate hundreds of stories from Hindu mythology, some of which are more familiar than others. The physical structure is supported by 8000 pillars, each carved out of single stone in shape of some animal, usually with a lion on the top. Inside, there is a labyrinthine array of smaller temples, each connected to others by dark passages.
Other sights
Other than that, the city is a small bustling human beehive with all the usual sights of an Indian pilgrimage sites: labyrinthine streets, colourful, crowded bazaars, touts and sellers peddling every possible thing imaginable, tour guides asking for a small tip to take you on the shortcut to salvation by bypassing the lines for the temple, overly friendly and underemployed auto-rickshaw drivers who want to take you to every store belonging to their "brother" and "cousin", and so on :)
Madurai, and this part of Southern India, is famous for it's textiles, however. Gorgeous sarees adorn every other store, shimmering in their silks and embroidered fineries. A section is dedicated to the Tibetan women who spontaneously spring up all over India just before winter, selling ridiculously cheap (if you haggle) jackets and sweaters. Sweets, chai stalls and streetside food vendors wait to satiate the more physical hunger of the seekers of spiritual bliss.
Kanya Kumari
From Madurai, I took a one-day trip to Kanya Kumari, the southernmost tip of the Indian mainland, where three seas: Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and Arabian sea meet. This has another couple of famous temples, and the sunrise is definitely watchable, with lots of early morning fishermen adding to the scenic view in their little colourful fishing boats. Other than that, it is known for the temple dedicated to India's "Wandering Monk", Swami Vivekanand, who meditated on a rock out in the sea for a couple of days and found his true calling.