The Tirunelveli Diaries - Madurai

I did not realise it but when we made the final we were supposed to be put up in Madurai it self and travel to Natham where the ground was - a good 40 kms away. So we hopped on to the bus for a three hour journey from Tirunelveli to Madurai. Jyo had to leave because of Ganesh Chaturthi which they celebrate in a big way at his place. It was a pleasant journey and by 12 pm we were at Hotel Royal Court or something like that. It looked like a nice enough place though slightly cramped but the main thing was that it was right in the middle of the town - a 5 minute walk from the railway station and a ten minute walk from the Madurai Meenakshi temple.

Meenakshi Amman temple

Having freshened up and having partaken of some amazing buffet with delectable non veg dishes, Chatterjee and i set out for the temple at about 5 pm. We walked along the narrow roads, checking out other hotels nearby. Lots of places which had a bold red sign BAR written across. Soon we were in the vicinity of the West Gate of the temple - it has four entrances. No phones allowed so we kept phones in the locker (a very efficient system), chappals in the chappal place and walked in. We bought some speed darshan tickets and walked in - it was quite empty surprisingly. I led Chattu to the Meenakshi temple first and then the Sivan temple and then all the other parts of the complex that I remembered from my last visit - a mere five days ago. We bought some prasadam, walked into the thousand pillar temple for a fee of 5 bucks (2 bucks for children).

Old theatre

Old building

Koodal Azhagar temple

On the way out I found a book store which was apparently started in the 70s and bought two books - one about the hijacking of flight 814 and another which was about a lady travelling across India in 80 trains. I have finished four books during this trip which is quite an achievement. Back at the hotel we chilled out and then hit the sack but not before a walk around the neighbourhood.

Teppakulam

Thrumalai Nayakkar palace

Next day the team went for practice and I stayed back and wandered around Madurai. For starters I walked to the Koodal Azhagar temple which was only 15 minute away. Then I found myself a rickshaw and hired him for a few stops - the Mariamman Teppakulam which is a lovely mandapam in the middle of a tank, the Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace and returned back by lunch time.

Srikanth - gem of a person

One of the most memorable parts of this leg of the tour was meeting Srikanth Narayanaswamy who is a good friend of Chandra and who dropped in that evening. Srikanth has such disarming simplicity and he just blew me over with his good nature. He had played club and college cricket, was in the Combined district team for the Buchi Babu tournament in his days, played all the university games that I did, played for TVS with Chandra in Madurai, worked for Vizag Port Trust for three decades and played cricket in Vizag, speaks Telugu like a pucca local Vizag boy and actively coaches three teams for TVS in Madurai. He was busy watching his boys play a match that afternoon and if I was not tired out by my exertions of the morning I would have gone to watch. Anyway Srikanth came with his protege Madhavan abd spent time with me and Chattu on almost all the days. He and Madhavan also took me to Kumar Mess one day, for jigarthanda at Famous Jigarthanda and even dropped me off at the airport on the last day. His knowledge of cricket and his awareness of the finer points is immense and he and Chattu really hit it off on the coaching parts. I loved his passion for life, envied his life even, and am so glad I met him. I intend to stay in touch with him.        

The Tirunelveli Diaries - Day Trip to Madurai

Madurai is about 3 hours away from Tirunelveli so when we had a free Sunday before the semi final Jyo ad i decided to hire a cab and visit the famous Meenakshi temple. Tanay and Tanmay joined us and the four of us set off early - 630 or so - in a sedan driven by a most interesting chap. We chatted on the way to Madurai and stopped en route at a nice little chai joint which served nice chai. 

Coffee shop!

Boiler!

Further down the road we stopped at a lovely place called Saravana Bhava which served some nice breakfast. I happened to leave my phone on the table when I went to the wash room when our driver gave the first sign of what he was capable of - he spotted my black phone on the black granite and quickly secured it proving that he has the eyes of a hawk and the awareness of James Bond!

Nice drive - blue skies, green country

We entered Madurai and I could not but fall in love with Madura College and its beautiful campus and cricket grounds where a cricket match was in progress. We called the good doctor who was helping us get a darshan and he met us at a place close to the temple and took us in - minus phones - cell phones are not allowed in the temple. This is where our driver showed how good he was - he parked his car at breakneck speed and joined us upfront - beating us to the darshan. I have not seen anyone slicker than this at slipping through. He is the slickest job I have seen in a long time.

Cricket match at Madura College

We walked right in, led by the temple elephant's mahout's son, first to the Meenakshi temple which is the correct way - and then to the Lord Sivan temple. The temple is huge with four huge dwarams with hundreds of images carved on it, a tank full of water, a huge Ganesha idol, long corridors, many idols and small kovils. Thanks to the good doctor we got some VIP treatment and were right up front for darshan. We took a picture at the one designated spot where a person takes a pic with the dwaram at the back for a 100 bucks or so. The good doctor would not let us pay!

Colorful images on bus - all buses are like that

The day being Sunday there was considerable crowd. Also there was some kind of a protest by the differently abled about a recent incident and also about facilities for them. We waited until they finished their darshan.

From the temple we went to the elephant Parvathi and she blessed us. Off we went then outside the temple with some prasadam and stuff they gave us, a coffee and it was only 1030. Our plans of bingeing on some delectable non-vegetarian food that Madurai is famous for went up in smoke as we did not want to wait for a couple of hours. I asked the doctor what Madurai was famous for and he said idlis - apparently idli and fish curry is a sought after combination here.

We headed back tired and satisfied. One break for chai and then back at the hotel for lunch!       

Tirunelveli Diaries - Kanyakumari by Sunset

The entire team was in an upbeat mood and they decided to go to Kanyakumari to catch the sunset. We set off in the team bus after lunch and reached Kanyakumari by about 4. The sky was cloudy and it was raining. Everyone went their separate directions and were asked to report back by 6 pm. Jyo and I rushed off to the Saravana Bhavan restaurant for a coffee with Chatterjee and Subhash and others. Chattu and gang went to get the last boat to the Vivekananda Rock while Jyo and i decided to shed our inhibitions and shirts and actually enter the Bhagawati Kumari Amman temple which is supposed to have a lovely idol.

So in we went clutching our shirts and had a darshan of the Bhagwati Amman deity or Devi Kanyakumari. The deity is Mahadevi in the form of an adolescent girl - the Goddess of virginity and penance - her story being mentioned in the Ramayana apparently. It is one of the 52 Shakti peethas. The temple follows the similar pattern - long corridors (however not as long as the others), not painted, many pillars and musical pillars which give the sound of veena, mridangam, flute and jal tarang. Quite amazing actually.  

Lot of North Indians again in the visitors including many from Rajasthan. Jyo and I went behind the temple after taking a picture by a local photographer who did a bad job and charged us 200 bucks. We walked down to the place behind the temple which is where the three seas meet - Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea - Triveni sangamam. This time I wet my feet in the water - the sea is very rough and there is no beach here. Some pools were made artificially and many people dipped in it fully. Vendors were busy selling corn, samosas, tea and stuff.

We walked back to Saravan Bhavan to have coffee and a snack when Chattu and gang returned from the Vivekananda Rock. We showed them the southern most point of India and then we walked back towards the place where the bus was to pick us up. The sunset time was over and the clouds never parted. The boys went to a place called Sunset viewing point which we somehow missed.

We walked back to the bus - which turned out to be a long walk - passing by many lovely hotels ad resorts which had a great view of the sea, the sunrises and sunsets. Back at the hotel by dinner time and day well spent.

I was planning on a day trip to Madurai - which was about 3 hours away. Maybe tomorrow!

The Tirunelveli Diaries - Tirunelveli

 Tirunelveli is apparently divided into the old and traditional part of the town which is called Tirunelveli and the other part of town called Palayamkottai is across the river Thamirabarani. Palayamkottai is also called the Oxford of the East because it has many schools and colleges and I saw one of them - Schaeffer school - which looked like it was from a British era. The town was ruled by the Pandyas, Cholas, Cheras, the Vijayanagara empire and the British over the years.

The river Thamirabarani

The western ghats

Tirunelveli is also called Nellai and has a massive Nellaiappar temple which we visited twice. Loved it. Apart from the temple there is always this talk of Tirunelveli halwa which we tasted and gave up - I never really liked it very much. Our hotel was well placed - five minute walk from the bus stand, a seven minute walk from the railway station. A wonderful place for lovely filter coffee and an evening snack of appam or idiappam at Hotel Maruti down the road, the nice fruit stall where we would buy bananas and pineapples and apples, the murukku shops with that unbeatable murukku. 

The Nelliappar temple

Corridors

The temple elephant

Jyo and I walked one day to the river which was not far from where we stayed. The western ghats loom in the background and there is an abundance of green, the skies are bluer, the winds hustle. 

Chariots

Corridors again

One rest day we visited the Nellaiappar temple (Lord Shiva, Parvathi and also Lord Vishnu), Jyo, Chattu and I. Chattu can speak decent Tamil so we went in early and were trying to figure our way about when a man who looked like he owned one of the pooja shops told us where to keep our shoes and then when we went back, took us into the temple and gave us a guided tour and some special darshans. The temple is massive with large corridors, many idols, a huge tank, intricate sculptures. It was an amazing one hour that we spent in the temple before we came out.

On another day Jyo and I visited the Uthista Ganapati temple which was being decked up for the Ganesh festival which was coming up. It was a much simpler and smaller place but since there was some activity going on we did not spend much time. 

Uthista Ganapathy temple

I am sure there must have been a lot more to Tirunelveli which i would have liked to explore but I managed only so much. What I saw I liked. 

Fruit Shop

Old Shoe Mart

The hospitality of the staff at RR Inn - Madan who was so friendly and helpful, Sanju Khan who was ever smiling and helpful in the restaurant, the lady at the reception who had a big smile and boundless energy, the coffee and appam an idiappam at Maruti Restaurant, the fruit stall guy who would slice pineapples and give us, the crispy murukkus. It all helped. 

The Tirunelveli Diaries - Suchindram

We started off from Kanyakumari around 1030 or so after another cup of coffee and I told the driver to take me to Suchindram which is where my editor Sandhya hails from. I had once seen a picture of a temple she had posted which stayed in my mind - and that thought that said - I should go there once sat. So we went to Suchindram which was a small detour. Once again they said we have to take off our shirts to enter the Shree Thanaumalayan temple and while Jyo decided not to, i decided I would and headed in. 

The entrance to the Stanumalayan temple

Beautiful painted corridors

It was a huge complex with many temples - the main idea being that all three Hindu gods are worshiped here - Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. I wandered around the temple and was awestruck at its size, the many idols, the carvings, the ceilings and stepped out after buying some prasad. 

The general view of the pic that Sandhya had shared - her house to the right somewhere

Beautiful tank

Once outside I called Sandhya who said she would have organised a nice temple tour if I had told her earlier. Anyway I walked around the water tank which was beautiful. drank some coffee and then headed back to Tirunelveli.

This is from the temple entrance - loved that building to the right

We were back by at the hotel lunch despite the driver trying to entice us with some non-vegetarian lunch places. I think he hoped we would pay for his lunch.          

The Tirunelveli Diaries - Kanyakumari

 One thing I knew about Tirunelveli is that its about 2 hours from Kanyakumari, India's southern most tip. More importantly I had promised both my mom and my mother-in-law that I would take them there and things never worked out during their lives. So I was really keen to go there on their behalf and on mine. Jyo was a ready partner in the adventure and we decided to do a sunrise visit.

Now, we had checked into RR Inn at Tirunelveli which was a semi-decent hotel but the staff was super helpful - Madan, Sanju and co. We asked Madan to organise a carfor us at 4 in the morning so we could be there by 530 am and watch the sunrise. Chances of clouds playing spoilsport were very much there but least we could do was show up. So we went- me and Jyo - and a garrulous taxi driver whose name I now fail to recall. The road to Kanyakumari was superb. One stop for chai and we were in Kanyakumari by 530 or so.

Most of the action there is towards the southern part - the sunrise point, the Bhagawati Amman temple, the Vivekananda Rock, the Thiruvalluvar statue, the sangam of the three seas, the sunset point etc - all within a km. Jyo and i hurried in the dark past a massive, well lit church, towards the sunset point. There was a pathway made of rocks -more like a breakwater which was fully occupied by people getting closer to the sunrise for a better view. 

Jyo loves to walk and so did I and we walked the distance to the tip and took pics and the skies lit up (reminded me of the scene I described in If You Love Someone). All kinds of people, all ages scrambled there. One lady struck up a conversation with Jyo about health awareness and informed us that she has a villa in Hyderabad.

The sunrise was the most beautiful I ever saw - the sun rising out of the sea. It was surreal.

Anyway we headed back to the main area and went to the temple which they said required us to take off our shirts. Now I had no qualms about taking the short off but something in the way he said it put me off and I decided not to go in. We went to the Saravana Bhavan and ate some insipid idlis and left rather disappointed. From there we headed to the ferry that would take us to the Vivekananda Rock - the Poompuhar Shipping Corporation. The first one leaves at 8 or so and there was a special 300 buck ticket and a normal ticket. We chose the 300 buck one and got on to the boat.

The Vivekananda Rock had a meditation place where we sat and meditated for a while. There was a statue and some nice places to view the new massive Thiruvalluvar statue. After half an hour we took a boat back and came back to land. We walked around behind the Bhagawati Amman temple and went to the place where all three seas meet. Many people were there praying, wetting their feet and so on. There were a lot of travellers from North India, Rajasthan in particular. Vendors sold pineapple, mango, corn and stuff. One photographer took our pic for 200 bucks - a terrible pic!

Kanyakumari!