Live from Chennai - Part 4

Back from a good trip to the southern parts of Tamil Nadu. Got a chance to visit Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari and Tiruchendur, as well as a few places along the way. Glad to be back in Chennai though.

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Any visitor to this part of the country would probably know that there is no escaping the millions of "must-see" "special-power" temples that seem to be everywhere. The Nellayappar temple in Tirunelveli is apparently bigger than even the legendary Meenakshi temple at Madurai, but is impeccably maintained. The Shiva lingam is weirdly shaped with sort of an inclined head, rather than the smooth rounded top we’re used to seeing. And like all such oddities, this one has an interesting story as well. Hundreds of years ago, a milkman used to carry milk every morning to the king of Tirunelveli. Inexplicably, he kept tripping at the exact same spot on his daily route and spilling some milk in the process. When the king noticed the missing milk and enquired, the milkman explained his predicament. The king, intrigued by this, asked the milkman to show him the location. Then he asked his men to dig at the spot, and was shocked to see blood oozing out after a strike. So then they dug the place carefully, and lo and behold, a Shiva lingam came out with the top sliced out by the King’s men (and hence the weird shaped head). Also, legend has it that the lingam has been growing, albeit at a minute rate.

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On the way from Tirunelveli to Kanyakumari, you pass a place called Aralvaimozhi with hundreds and hundreds of wind mills along the highway. These are all owned by private enterprises, or in some cases, even individuals. The owner of a windmill can feed the power generated from his windmill into the national power grid, and then get paid for this, or alternately, draw the same amount (minus transmission losses) for his factory elsewhere in the country. On top of that, the Government gives a huge tax break to the owners of these wind mills. The whole scheme is professionally managed, and is a strong stride towards energy self-sufficiency. Even actor Surya has invested in a couple of these windmills (titbit from my uncle!). In case you decide to follow suit, you should probably know that each of these contraptions costs upwards of 2 crore Rupees.

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Kanyakumari is the southern most tip of the country and marks the confluence of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea, but on Mayday, the place was packed. The ferry takes you up to the Vivekananda rock memorial and then to the huge statue of Tiruvalluvar, the Tamil poet. Vivekananda apparently spent 3 days meditating on this rock and attained spirituality. There is a dimly lit meditation room with a neon-lit Om symbol, where people are encouraged to meditate a few minutes. The Tiruvalluvar statue is 133 feet high (his phenomenal work Thirukkural has 1330 verses organized into 133 topics) and is breath-taking. The Tsunami wave, I was told, almost covered the entire statue.

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The return trip from Tuticorn to Chennai on the Deccan Air flight was extremely comfortable. The plane probably seats 60 people, and was only half full. The airport is a glorified bus stand but serves the purpose. But considering that there are only a couple of flights per day, it seemed to be overstaffed and crawled with all sorts of uniforms. My tickets and baggage must’ve been checked and rechecked a million times by over-zealous and under-worked attendants. We got on the flight to find a Gujarati-looking air hostess making all her announcements in Hindi. Hindi in this part of the country? Are you kidding me? The faces around betrayed the complete ignorance of the language, and I must’ve been the only one on the flight who had even a vague idea of what she went on about. As you probably know, that’s not saying much! But the cost of completing the usual 11 hr train journey in 1 hr 25 mins flat? Priceless.

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There is an active campaign going on here against the Cocal Cola manufacturiung plant that withdraws some 5 lakh liters from the Thamirabarani River at a dirt cheap price, and then dumps its waste there.

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The famous Tirunelveli 'halwa' is omnipresent, with the legendary Iruttukadai (dark store) doing brisk business from a small box-like shop that cannot be more than 8ft by 8ft.

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