Madurai

It was a long, bumpy four-hour bus ride from Thanjavur to Madurai. It was my first ride cross-country on a public bus in India. Kausalya warned me never to leave my bag unattended and not to take any snacks from anybody. Occasionally these snacks are drugged, and they’ll steal your stuff once you fall asleep. The seats were really narrow, and with a broad-shouldered fellow next to me it was hard to keep from falling into the center aisle on the frequent sharp left turns. Fortunately, this fellow got off one hour into the trip, and his place was taken by a small boy! I was enjoying all the extra room to stretch out when suddenly I noticed the boy starting to barf. I was quick enough to move aside and avoid being hurled upon, but the odor was certainly pungent. There was no other place I could move to, so I just had to live with it. At this point the boy moved onto his mother’s lap on the next seat, leaving me with no one in the seat next to me. When a fellow standing in the aisle moved forward to take the now empty (but barfy) seat, I turned to let him in, resigned to have a full-sized seat mate for the rest of the trip. But when the mother pointed out the vomit on the floor, he decided he’d rather stand. At this point I realized a miracle had just occurred! Everytime anyone came forward to take the empty seat, someone would point to the vomit and they would turn back. For the rest of the trip, NOBODY was going to take that empty seat. And you know, as it dried up, the smell dissipated as well!

Kausalya put me on a very early bus so I’d be sure to arrive before the heat of the day. I made it to Madurai shortly after 11:00 a.m., and was checking in at the hotel by noon. After the heat of the previous few days in Thillaisthanam, I decided that a long, relaxing afternoon in the air conditioned comfort of my hotel room was exactly what the doctor ordered. I ate the buffet lunch and dinner at the hotel and got to enjoy some foods I had not eaten in a long time! (Outside of the occasional fish, chicken is definitely the meat of choice at MCC.) Another nice afternoon nap, time to check some internet—just a lovely, lazy day.

Next morning my guide and car arrived at 8:30, and we headed directly to the Meenakshi Temple, one of the most impressive temple complexes in all of south India. The old part of the city is arranged with the streets circling the temple like the petals of a lotus blossom, but it’s now so built up that you rarely see the temple’s towering gopurams until you’re right next to it. And it is spectacular! There are a dozen of the tall, tall gopurams over the temple’s gateways, etc., the tallest of which is 170 ft. high! They are profusely decorated with divinities of all sorts and brightly painted (by city ordinance from the 1950s!). You just have to see some of the photos in my Flickr Photostream! We spent two hours there roaming from pillared hall to pillared hall, past the Golden Lotus Tank, and on to the entrances to the inner sanctums of the two primary gods here: Shiva and Meenakshi, the fish-eyed goddess (a sign of beauty), herself a manifestation of Parvati, the consort of Shiva. Neither of these are open to non-Hindus, so all I could do was peek into the doorways and look back as far as possible. I could almost make out Meenakshi’s idol (I think), but could not see Shiva’s at all (I don’t think—hard to know for sure!). So much to see, and so hard to absorb even a fraction of it!

After the temple, we visited the Nayaks’ palace, a Catholic church, and the Gandhi Museum. Madurai was the place where Gandhi first adopted the lunghi as his typical garb, and 50 years ago (this year!) Nehru established this as the first Gandhi museum in India. The displays are very well done, giving a good picture not only of Gandhi’s life, protests, and accomplishments, but a history of Indian resistance against the British going back to the 1700s. It’s not as gross as sounds, but one of the display cases contains the blood-stained shawl Gandhi was wearing when he died. There are a few striking works of art as well, including a tableau commemorating the day Gandhi insisted the Harijans (his name for the Dalits, or untouchables) be allowed to enter the temple with all of the other Hindus! Well worth the visit!

Then back for a quiet afternoon. In the evening I took the guide’s suggestion and went back to the Meenakshi Temple about half an hour before closing. Non-Hindus can’t see the idols of Shiva and Meenakshi when they are in their inner sanctums, but every night they remove Shiva from his sanctum and parade him down the hallway in a silver palanquin. They take him into Meenakshi’s sanctum where they can spend the night in bed together. Their celestial lovemaking is supposed to keep the world (and universe) in balance and well-ordered. I came to watch the procession, and waited near the entrance to the Meenaskhi sanctum till about 9:15, when a procession came down the hall from the Shiva sanctum with tavil beating and nadashwaram blaring, the traditional auspicious instruments. The palanquin was set down at the entrance to Meenakshi’s sanctum, where the priests set down a silver step stool and proceeded to bathe it with milk and other fluids and cover it with garlands and flower petals while another fellow fanned sacred smoke in their direction. As the priests carried out their oblations, there was constant chanting or other music going on while many people circumambulated the palanquin (always in a clockwise direction). Eventually they carried the palanquin into the sanctum and out of my view with many Hindus following the priests inside to watch them put the idols to bed for the night. At the crack of dawn they will reverse the process and return Shiva to his own sanctum. I walked out of the temple with the sounds of the procession still ringing through the pillared hallways!

Next morning the guide and car came at 9:00 and we headed out to see a few temples. To the east of the city was Alagarkoil, a Vishnu temple, and to the west was Thiruparankunram. The sanctum of this temple is cut right into the huge rock hill that dominates the town, the hill itself said to be one of the abodes of Sri Murugan, son of Shiva. Unusually, there are five gods enshrined in the sanctum here. If I have it right, they are: Shiva, Parvati, Ganesha, Vishnu, and Lakshmi. There is a school for Hindu priests here, and we are in time to watch a bit of their classes before they break for the morning. Further around the hill you can climb up to see the Jain Caves. It’s a rugged climb, first up a long stone staircase, and then up several series of steps cut right into the rock face. The views are spectacular, but it is very windy. It is hard to imagine living in the very small caves that dent the hill’s rock face, though they are certainly cooler than the rock outside where the sun beats down all day. It is said these Jains would spend the day in the caves and go into town in the evening to preach and teach (not always very popular with the authorities!). Then back to the hotel for another relaxed afternoon, but now I have to pack and catch the 6:00 p.m. train back to Chennai. It will be good to get back to MCC—this has been a strenuous trip—but I return having had experiences I would not trade for anything in the world.