21st
December
We landed at Egmore station 21st
December after a pleasant trip by the Chennai Express from Pune. 12 waking
hours passed looking out the window and chitchatting with fellow passengers. It
is another thing that we nearly did not catch the train. The train was to start
at 00.10 hours on 21st Dec and we were all set to reach the station
on the 21st night till my cousin (God bless him) on 20th
morning asked us to check the timing as other people had missed trains starting
past midnight, because of the confusion of dates. Well to cut a long story
short – all hell broke loose and we did our last minute packing and winding up
in fast forward. But we made it to the station in time.
The train crosses Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra
before reaching Tamilnadu. It is fun to see the landscape change as we pass
through each state. The crop changes from millets to cotton to banana
plantations and the irrigated fields gradually giving way to the beautiful rock
formations of Andhra. One can truly appreciate the beauty and diversity of our
great country only while travelling by a train (will it sound cynical if I say
from a glass window of an AC compartment!).
Like most of the old railway stations in India,
Egmore station is an old British style structure with the characteristic
terra-cotta red paint. We were looking forward to meeting our friends who were
there to receive us. It was great driving through the quaint old streets of
Chennai in Anu’s new car. Chennai looks and feels great at this time of the
year. The rest of the year it is either hot or hotter (hot as in high
temperature and not the modern connotation of the word!).
22nd
December
Fort St. George Museum
The very first day Ajit took us
to see the Fort St. George Museum as Rajeev was desperate to see the old coins
there. ( see his detailed post on the Museum at
http://exclusivecoins.blogspot.in/2013/01/did-you-know-series-15-fort-st-george.html?utm_source=BP_recent ). It was a little tricky reaching
there because there are no indicators anywhere for such an important tourist
spot.
Another problem we encountered in
Chennai was that at all Government operated ticket booths the staff refused to
give change and caused harassment to the public buying tickets. But at least
this time I found the people in general not so averse to speaking in Hindi –
thanks maybe to Bollywood, Television or the IT boom which brings in a large
cosmopolitan crowd.
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| The Fort St George Museum |
St Mary’s Church
In the same campus towards the back is a very old
church. It is popularly called the ‘Westminister Abbey’ of the East, housed in
the oldest British building in India. The construction of St Mary’s Church
started on March 25th (ie Lady Day and thus acquired the name) with
public contributions. Interestingly the Church was a bomb proof building on
account of the peculiarly designed roof and very thick walls (not today’s bombs
of course). Because of this it was used as a barrack and a granary during the
Second Carnatic War in 1758-1759.
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| Many famous people were baptised at this font |
The unsigned altar piece, a depiction of ‘The
Last Supper’ is of the Raphaelite school and was brought to Madras as spoils of
war by the British troops who stormed Pondicherry in 1761. It is also said that
the central figures were painted by Raphael himself.
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| A Raphaelite school "The Last Supper" |
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| Another gem |
The same day we met up with a number of our State
Bank batch mates and colleagues who had come for a seminar at the Taj
Coromandel. Some of the people we met after 30 years and had to tax our grey
cells till their 30 year younger facial features could form in our minds, I am
sure they had to crank their grey cells as much to recognise us. But catching
up with batch mates whether from school, college or work is always an interesting
and lively experience because suddenly you become the age at which you had
parted.
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| Meeting old friends |
23rd
December
Pondicherry now Puducherry (meaning 'new town')
On the 23rd early morning we were off
to Pondicherry in two cars having been joined by Rajeev Agarwal and Kalpana;
their son Ankit joined us directly in Pondicherry. Pondy is some 162 km south
of Chennai on the Coromandel Coast. It is a very pleasant drive of about 3
hours from Chennai.
While in Pondy a trip to Auroville (City of Dawn) is a given. It was an experimental township set up by Mira Richard better known as Mother. Auroville was inaugurated on 28th Feb 1968, when soil from 124 countries was brought and mixed in a lotus shaped urn to symbolise unity of people.
While in Pondy a trip to Auroville is a given. So
we went straight on to Auroville to pick up gifts for people back home and
spent a long time going through all the stuff made by the Ashramites.
Pondy was under French rule for 281 years till in
1761 the British drove them out. The city was planned in a grid form by the
French rulers with a grand canal dividing the town into a Tamil side called
Ville Noir (Black town) and the French side called Ville Blanche (White Town).
The status has not changed even today, except that the government officials
have taken the place of the foreign rulers who have been joined by the
Aurobindo Ashram inmates and the masses still stay in the ‘Black Town’.
The geometrically laid streets of the French Quarter
are rather neat and pretty to look at, still carrying their exotic French names
cutely displayed. Then there is the Promenade alongside the sea where people
come out in large numbers in the evening for a leisurely stroll. There was a
festive atmosphere with food stalls and ‘pheri-wallahs’ doing the rounds near
the statue of the marching Mahatma looking on. Earlier a statue of the French
governor Joseph Francois Dupleix’s stood on this star shaped podium with 8
granite pillars. Now the Dupleix’s statue lies in the small children’s park at
the southern end of the promenade.
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| Auroville shop |
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| Matri Mandir |
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| Hotel du Parc - housed in a heritage building |
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| Cercle de Pondicherry |
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| posing on the promenade |
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| The beautiful sea breaking against the rocks |
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| The marching Mahatma on the star shaped podium with 8 carved granite pillars |
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| A display as imaginative as a showroom window |
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| No doubt about what he sells 'chilly bhajias' |
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| Che Guevara tee shirts on the streets of Pondy - this happens only in India! |
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| The old Light house |
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| The clean and serene beach |
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| The moonlit sea |
24th
December
The Church of South India- Christmas eve
The next day being 24th December we rested
during the day in anticipation of attending the midnight- mass. We attended the
mass at St George's Cathedral which houses the Church of South India a successor of the Church of
England in India. It is the second largest Christian Church in India and came into
existence on 27th September 1947 ie right after Independence. It has
a very interesting logo incorporating the lotus and the cross.
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| St George's Cathedral in Christmas lights |
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| Christmas decoration |
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| Skylight design |
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| An old organ in use at the Church |
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| The altar |
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| The interesting church logo incorporating the cross with the very Indian lotus |
25th
December
An eating experience at the Isha Yoga Mahamudra
Restaurant
The next day the 25th we spent time catching up
with our friend Narendra, who Ajit had managed to bully into staying over till
Christmas. After he left we just chatted and had a quiet time at home till we
got fed-up and decided to visit the local Landmark to pick up some books as
gifts. Landmark Chennai is really well stocked and I managed to pick up some
good books for our friends. Anu knowing my attachment to Sadhguru suggested we
go for dinner to the Isha yoga’s restaurant called Mahamudra. That turned out
to be the most wonderful experience. They had a special buffet for Christmas
but we instead had their dosas and appams. I had the ragi appam which was
delicious and wholesome. I would highly recommend this eating experience on
your next trip to Chennai. They also have a spa a boutique and a store selling
miscellaneous other stuff produced by Isha Yoga Centre.
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| Digging into a ragi appam - healthy and tasty |
26th
December
On the 26th we had dinner at Anu’s place
and met at least two very accomplished singers, one of whom, Tanisha, is
proficient in Western classical. The other Vinesh has a band called Vin Sinners
and you may be able to hear them on Youtube or buy their CDs in music stores; he gifted us one of his
albums called ‘An element of surprise’. I said ‘at least two’ because there
were other ‘chhupa rustams’ in the group.
27th December
Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary
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| Pelicans galore |
28th
December
Dakshin Chitra
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| These wood carved pieces are still sold in Kerala |
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| The ethnic restaurant where we had our lunch |
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| A Thatched hut |
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| Beautiful wooden Durga statue |
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| Rajeev posing with an artists creation |
We
were much taken in with a glass blowing demonstration. V Srinivasan Raghavan a
professional glass blower for the past 25 years made some stirrers for us in
front of us! Rajeev captured the process on video. What an amazing art!
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| The Glass Blower, Srinivasan |
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| His creations |
29th
December
Guindy snake park
I have this fascination for reptiles and
amphibians – yeah! you heard me. Long ago in 1984 I along with 3 other girls
had toured the south of India. I remembered having visited the Guindy Snake
Park then and seen these beautiful big monitor lizards. So I forced Ajit to
take us there but alas the fearless, large monitor lizards were all gone only
one little shy fellow slunk into a hedge. The snakes and crocodiles looked
tired and dusty. Not a happy experience.
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| 'No change' booth - characteristic of Chennai |
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| Bengal crocodiles |
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| A vine snake |
30th
December
Mahabalipuram now Mamallapuram
30th was the last day available to us
so we decided to cover Mahabalipuram which was less than 60 kms from where we
were staying on the same East Coast Road. The city is named after the Pallava
king Narsimhavarman I who took on the title Maha-malla meaning ‘great wrestler’,
as the favourite sport of the Pallavas was wrestling.
On the day we went to Pondy we stopped for a
while at Mamallapuram and just as well because the 30
th was a hot,
sultry day and we had come with Lemmy in his beautifully air-conditioned SUV
making it so much harder to stay out of it. We landed at lunch time and stopped
directly at Lemmy’s favourite sea-food restaurant ‘The Moonrakers’.
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| Selecting your fish |
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| Squids and prawns for starters |
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| A Snapper - I must confess I did the maximum justice to this one |
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| The crab bargained down from Rs 1000 to Rs 800! |
Over the two days we managed to see the most of
Mamallapuram though not the whole of it.
Arjuna’s
Penance
This huge single rock measuring 27m x 9m is the world's largest bas-relief. It has been given the name Arjuna's Penance after the emaciated ascetic figure standing on one leg in a yogic pose of penance. The stone carvings of a multitude of creatures is a depiction of the whole of creation perhaps.
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| A crack in the centre of the stone has been ingeniously depicted as the descent of Ganga |
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| Giant elephants on stone |
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| The statue |
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| The real thing |
Krishna
Mandapam
The Shore
Temple
This 8th century Dravidian style temple is one of the oldest temples of South India.
Inside is a huge statue of reclining Vishnu.
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| The Pallava Emblem - the lion is a common sight |
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| Shiva Parvati |
Krishna’s
Butter Ball
Legend has it that several Pallava king tried to dislodge this rock by elephants but could not budge it.
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| Defying Gravity |
College of
Sculpture
In this college training is provided in
accordance with the ancient Shilpa Shatra in the field of temple art and
architecture.
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| The students creations |
Some caves we missed seeing were the Tiger’s Cave
which is located at a distance of 4 km from the main monument complex and the
Mahishasurmardini cave and the Five Rathas, . There are many other monuments like the Ganesh Ratha,
the Varaha Cave, the Gopi’s churn, Valayankuttai Ratha, and Kodikal Mandapam
which we did not have the time to cover on this trip.
31st December
The last day Ajit went back to work without giving us a key to the house! So we spent time packing our stuff and going out one at a time to buy odds and ends from the local provision store. Thus ended a wonderful action packed vacation. Ajit dropped us at the Chennai Central station which is a huge crowded place reminiscent of the CST of Mumbai and we bid adieu to the old and welcomed the new year aboard the Mumbai Mail.
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| Ankit's tee is my tribute to Indian Railways for taking us to and fro |
