I didn't spend too long in Madurai, which wasn't too far away from Trichy. Only two nights; a day and a half. There really isn't much to tell. Madurai was great for two reasons: 1) I loved the Sri Meenakshi Temple. Though much much smaller than all three previous temples (in Trichy, Thanjavur, and Tiruvannamalai), it had a great combination of crazy vitality and austere spirituality. From the beautiful gopurams to the meditation room to the Lotus Pool to the constant chanting of "Om Ishwara" to the large statue of Sri Vinayagar (Ganesha, the elephant-headed god) to the surging insanity of the Sri Meenakshi darshan to the many pilgrims, this temple had it all. After entering through the South gopuram (the largest and most intricately carved), I went straight to the Sri Meenakshi shrine for darshan. I was waiting in the surprisingly orderly line for 25 minutes when suddenly a bell started to ring. The young men behind me surged forward to catch a darshan reflected through a mirror located right above me. Chaos ensued as about 50 men rushed in front of me, pushing and shoving and nearly knocking me over (not that I had room to fall...I'd just crash into the people). Finally, things settled down a bit, after some yelling from the brahmins, and I got to do proper darshan. Overall, I spent about 2 hours in the temple. I would have been there longer, but they kicked everyone out for their mid-day break.
The night before, outside my room at the KT Lodge, I met a guy named Wolfgang as we both needed to do laundry. We had dined together at a rooftop restaurant with a nice night-time view of the Temple. The next day, after visiting the Temple, we met up for lunch and for a trip to the Gandhi Memorial Museum. Unless you want to read a history book about Gandhiji's life and about the Independence movement (starting with the Battle of Plassey in 1757), don't bother with this place. My head hurt so much from reading that I had to skim over much of it. We spent two hours at the Museum, which consisted of only a few small rooms. And Wolfgang, who is German, chose to read everything. With his basic English knowledge, doing this took him way too much time. The only thing worthwhile about the Museum were some of its artifacts, like some of Gandhiji's chappals. The best, and perhaps most tear-inducing, was the loincloth Gandhiji was wearing when he was shot...still with splatters of blood on it. Why would such an important piece of Indian history be in Madurai??? Because, this was the first place Gandhiji ever donned a loincloth.
Let me quickly talk about the KT Lodge. It was run by two crazy and all-together fun older men. They actually made a bet as to whether I was Indian or not. They stopped me one evening, after I had visited the Temple and thus had a kanku on my forehead, to say that I looked Indian. When I told them that I was in fact Gujarati, they started laughing hysterically, and one gave money to the other. Another great thing about the Lodge was how I was constantly getting the good rooms while Wolfgang got screwed. You see, we stayed at the Lodge on the way back from Kodaikanal as well, much to the surprise of the crazy men. And both times, Wolfgang and I paid the same amount, but for some reason, my room was always MUCH bigger than his, with a double bed, a working shower, and a Western toilet. He always got a closet. Finally, the KT Lodge was a great place to meet people. In fact, the particular intersection of two hallways, where our rooms seemed to always be, was the place. That's where I met Wolfgang. That's where we met Marlous, a Dutch woman who had just arrived from Munnar (a 9 hour bus ride!) the day we arrived back from Kodai. The three of us had a great time together that evening, and now I've gone on to recommend this Lodge to others traveling to Madurai.
Okay, not much to say turned into a lot to say. That's it for Madurai. Temple City. My last temple in Tamil Nadu...thank God, or Arunachaleswara, Brihadiswara, Ramanathaswamy, Vinayagar, and Meenakshi.
No comments:
Post a Comment