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Tamil Nadu Trip [DAY 4]

We returned to the (A) Meenakshi Temple in the morning to see its colourful gopurams by daylight and to venture inside for a look around. Afterwards we took a long walk, through Madaurai, back towards the hotel. After lunch we loaded our sutff back into the car we set off towards (B) Trichy (Tiruchirappalli). On the way we some beautiful scenery, coco palm coated hills and stretching rice paddies. We arrived to see the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, on Srirangam Island, which is in the middle of the Cauvery (Kaveri) river. After exploring this vast town-sized temple we piled back into the car one last time and set off back for Pondicherry, passing numerous huge Engineering Colleges, often in the middle of nowhere, as we drove.

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Madurai, Day 1. [Part 2].

Photographs taken on the way back towards the hotel, these include a few shots of some noticeably awful architecture.

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West Tower, Meenakshi Temple.

The west gopuram of the temple.

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Madurai, Day 1. [Part 1].

Photographs taken as I wandered towards the Meenakshi Temple, including a shot of the west temple gopuram standing tall at the end of the street.

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Gandhi in Madurai.

Gandhi’s portrait painted on a building frontage in Madurai.

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The Driver.

This picture shows our driver, the irreplaceable Mr. Basha. As we wondered around Madurai he tagged along for a spot of sightseeing.

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View From Hotel Park Plaza.

Photograph showing the view out over Madurai, with the Meenakshi Temple dominating the distant skyline

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Brick Clamps.

Brick clamps are quite possibly the oldest and most rudimentary method of firing bricks. The first photograph shows a large scale brick plant with an old looking man trudging back to work. Inside tonnes of sand can be seen; this is most likely river sand and often has to be stolen in the middle of the night, which is not replenished, having a detrimental impact on river ecosystems. The other photos show the raw materials being kept by the road side before use and brick stores where bricks are kept after firing. The photos were taken from the car window as it’s not the best idea to hang around these sorts of places. We saw smaller scale brick clamps during the process, but were unable to get out and take a photo.

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 shouldn’t 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 wasn’t 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, they’ll find more fertile land and other small communities, elsewhere, which they can exploit, potentially leaving behind a lot of irreparable damage.

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On The Bridge.

The group taking snaps and looking out over the Palk Strait, of the Bay of Bengal, from the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge.

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The Fake Taj.

As we were driving along we spotted what looked something like the Taj Mahal! We stopped to check it out. It almost looked like a bouncy-castle in the shape of the Taj, but was in fact a small replica hidden away behind an enclosure with a broken glass covered perimeter wall. South India’s very own Taj Mahal… weird.

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Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge [Part II].

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. The photos show the fishing communities living on the shoreline beneath the bridge, the adjacent train line, which people seem to cross the river on  and the eagles that were soaring above where we stood, whilst thundering buses whistled by.

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Temple Tanks (Theerthams).

The photographs show one of the large temple theerthams and a family about to bathed in its waters.

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Ramanathaswamy Temple: World’s Longest Corridor.

This temple is, reputedly, home to the ‘longest set of corridors in the world’, 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.

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Outside/Inside the Ramanathaswamy Temple.

A few photographs in and around the temple entrance, outside the streets were busy with devotees making there way to the temple. Immediately inside bustling corridors felt dark and heavy, lined by thick pillars of stone, floors were damp with water from the theerthams (water tanks), which pilgrims are expected to bathe in and drink from. In places painted ceilings gave life and vivacity to the passageways; in places passages become home to market stalls, shrines and deities.

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Holy (Questioning) Cow.

We pulled up to the Ramanathaswamy Temple and I got out of the car, as I did I was confronted by the most questioning of cows. It stared straight at me, with its fading red painted horns, as if to say ‘what are you doing here…’ cant say I blame it!

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DAY 26.

28/10/11

Tamil Nadu Trip [Day 3].

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 ‘longest set of corridors in the world’, 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 ‘Hindu Only’ 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 India’s 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 shouldn’t 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 wasn’t 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, they’ll 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 we’d 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 – 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 region’s heritage as the Taj Mahal is to Northern India (as claimed by the ‘Lonely Planet’ guide). The vista from the rooftop certainly gave validity to the claim, as the temple’s 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 ‘free, no catch’. 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.

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28/10/11

Tamil Nadu Trip [DAY 3]

First thing in the morning we set off to visit the (A) Ramanathaswamy Temple. After spending some time ambling around the, reputed, longest set of corridors in the world, we set off in the car towards (B) Madurai, where we would see the Meenakshi Temple. On the way we saw a lot of operational ‘brick clamps’, a form of brick firing kiln that is devastating to the proximate environment.