Not really fancying the hotel breakfast, after last nights to-do, I decided to skip it, opting to munch on my stash of cereal bars that I had bought along with me. After packing up our stuff we drove to the Ramanathaswamy Temple, this temple has 22 Theerthams (tanks) where the containing waters can be used to sooth any number of ailments, both mental and physical. It was a busy and bustling place, teaming with people walking around, soaked head-to-toe, in wet clothes. Something about the sizable crowds of (wet) people queuing for one special tank or another and the overriding sense of water, the familiar smell of damp you get at such places and the wetness underfoot, felt reminiscent of a water theme park; it was quite an amazing place.
This temple is also, reputedly, home to the âlongest set of corridors in the worldâ, the horizon-stretching thousand pillar halls. Walking through these extensive passages, they certainly seemed to stretch on and on, as if forever, into the distance. We wandered for some time, ambling through the vast network of corridors, marvelling at the stonework and brightly painted and changing scenes of the ceilings. We passed shrines, deities and water tanks of varying sizes, taking a turn off the main corridor passage our route opened up into a large central courtyard space, here was the largest Theertham of the temple, we witnessed a group of people receive a blessing from the holy water. As we work in connection with the Sri Aurobindo Asharm, we were afforded the chance to enter the âHindu Onlyâ inner sanctum.
Leaving Rameshwaram Island we passed back over the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge stopping, as we did previously, to take a few photos of the bridge and its surroundings (however, by day this time) before making our way back onto mainland India. Back on the road we made our way inland, up the country in a north-westerly direction, towards Madurai. On the way we saw an unfortunate consequence of Indiaâs growth: the exploitation of natural resource and the less fortunate for commercial gain in construction; brick clamps, quite possibly the oldest and most rudimentary method of firing bricks.
Modern construction in India is predominantly concrete post and beam, with fired brick infill. To satisfy the demand for the mass quantities of brick needed, they have to be produced en masse and as cheap as possible to ensure maximum profit. Brick clamps most often spring up in rural areas were villagers can be used as cheap labour and their land can be taken advantage of. Large areas of land are deforested and the earth is removed, these are both used in the brick-making process and are often ill-gotten gains. The removed earth is used to make the bricks and the clamp itself, the unfired bricks are stacked in a specific fashion and then covered in a mud plaster before the cut down trees are loaded inside to aid the firing process.
The damage to the local environmental and its people shouldnât be overlooked, the removal of trees can have a significant impact to soil erosion and the local climate, the removed earth may have a massive consequence for the future growth of trees and crops (on what is predominantly arable land), as the top 6 inches of soil is often the most fertile. If that wasnât impact enough, then consider that during the firing process the land beneath the clamp becomes scorched beyond lifetimes and lifetimes of repair. And what about socially? What about the health and safety of the workers? What about the impact on the local communities? What happens to the villagers when the resource is gone and no more bricks can be produced? Well, firstly there is no health and safety for the workers, who will, undeniably, make a short term profit for their work. Although secondly, in the long term when the resource is gone, companies will move on, theyâll find more fertile land and other small communities, elsewhere, which they can exploit, potentially leaving behind a lot of irreparable damage.
We reached Madurai in an unusually uneventful fashion. After dumping our stuff in our hotel rooms we walked up to the rooftop bar/restaurant to have a look out over the city. This was the biggest city weâd visited on the tour of Tamil Nadu. It had a completely different feel to it than Pondicherry (where I am currently based for work), where its two halves (French/Tamil) create a city that has a really split and segregated feeling about it â the French half feels static and unmoving and the Tamil half is more vibrant and expanding; Madurai, though, had a real Indian buzz about it.
Upon the rooftop of the Hotel Park Plaza we could see the impressive Meenakshi Temple dominate the distant skyline. This temple is often seen as the pinnacle of Southern Indian temple architecture and as such is considered as vital to regionâs heritage as the Taj Mahal is to Northern India (as claimed by the âLonely Planetâ guide). The vista from the rooftop certainly gave validity to the claim, as the templeâs impressive gopurams thrust high up into the distance, the tallest of which stands at over 50m. After marvelling at the view for a while we decided to take a wander though Madurai, by evening, towards the temple to take a closer look.
The streets were busy and vibrant; we passed lots of small stalls selling all sorts of electrical goods, new and old. As we got closer we passed tea stalls and sweet-lime vendors before turning the corner where upon we could see the impressive East gate rising up at the end of the long street. As we walked, approaching the temple, we were accosted by people informing us of their tailoring business or shoe-making shops and as we neared closer people began telling us we could leave shoes in their shop or view the temple from their roof top for âfree, no catchâ. Sure, no catch indeed⌠we left our shoes at one of the designated places and made our way through the East gopuram. We had a quick wander around and the enclosure, checking out the painted statues and statuettes of deities covering the towers.
We made our way steadily back towards the hotel, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of Madurai, whilst taking a few snaps along the way, on returning we headed straight to the roof for some dinner. We indulged in a gluttonous meal, a feast even, accompanied by plenty of beer and relaxed in the cool of the evening as we looked back out at the impressive view towards the Meenakshi Temple.
