This was my second landing at the Madurai Airport (what looked more like a private hangar when compared with the bustling hubs at Delhi-Mumbai) and my first chance to visit the city. It had rained moments ago and the wet roads were glistening in car lights like the highway to heaven! Yes, I had reached the temple city of India.
During our 30 minutes ride to the hotel two distinct features caught my eye; one - the innumerable temples / shrines that jutted out of nowhere and two - the cut-outs of Amma. The irony that the most divine and the most corrupt, namely the God and the Politicians, are omnipresent dawned over me and, you will understand, the feeling was not so good.
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| Gopuram - Meenakshi Temple |
After settling at the hotel we decided to explore the local markets and were captivated by the sight of street flowing in the radiant colors of the traditional temple saris. The liveliness and hustle near the temple area filled our otherwise energy sapped bodies with vibrancy as we window shopped for the local specialities!
Next day early morning (what I argued was still night! - 6 a.m.) we headed for the darshana of divine on the payment of a small fee (an intriguing aspect of most temples in south India) at Meenakshi temple. The temple in itself is a museum of architecture and a feat which could be envy of civil engineers even today. The six gopurams (gates) of the temple stand tall, as if guarding the citadel of almighty, with intricate sculptures and carvings telling the tale of gods. In what was an utter injustice to the work we spent only about 3 hours in the temple as the itinerary poked us to move on.
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| Pamban Bridge |
Although our next stop was to be Rameshwaram, the way was punctuated with several short stops at beautiful temples. The high point of the onward journey was a bridge that connects Pamban and Rameshwaram Islands. As Pamban tails off (I mean literally!) you can see ocean on both sides of the narrow strip of land finally giving way to the water mass only to be connected with Rameshwaram by a 2 k.m. bridge. The site was so enthralling that we had to stop for a few minutes clicking feverishly to capture all we could.
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| Chruch destroyed by the cyclone |
On reaching Rameshwaram we decided to move on to Dhanushkodi (the last point in the ocean where the Yug-Purusha constructed the Ram-Setu) which was accessible only through a 4X4 drive as the last road had submerged a few years ago. After waiting for an eternity and haggling for the price we boarded a rickety Commando Jeep in which everything but the horn made noise. Just before starting off, the driver screwed the bolts into the tire rim with bare hands and my doubts about us reaching there in one piece increased further. For about an hour we sailed over sand and cruised through water in that piece of steel (shit?) which only our driver could steer. On our way we passed the remnants of what once used to be a prosperous town before the cyclone in 1960’s and a small hamlet of fishermen located at the end of the world. To our astonishment we found a school, where we couldn’t have imagined even life, alive with charming & innocent faces (I later came to know that our former President Kalam hails from this place).
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| Dhanushkodi |
Dhanushkodi was definitely worth all the trouble. Surrounded by ocean on three sides, we seemed to be small and insignificant in this grand creation of nature (probably the cyclone was just a reminder to that!). No words or pictures can justify the serenity that was in the air and in the music of waves. After staying there for an hour we went back to Rameshwaram to wash a few more sins at the famous Ramnath temple, the grandeur of which is second to none. Whether it be the intricate sculptures or the pillared corridor, all seemed to have come alive from the painting of an eccentric artist.
Savoring the delights of the day we headed back to our barracks in Madurai for a good night sleep before continuing journey to God’s Own Country.
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