The Lion, The Witch & The Rucksack
by Lynn Kilcline

CHAPTER TWELVE - MAGNFICENT MADURAI

I had seen a picture of the strange temples at Madurai and my interest had been piqued. When I realized that our journey towards Chennai [Madras] would take us through Madurai, I was determined that we should stop off to explore.
We had spent a short hour on the Kannyakumari Express before leaving to change trains. With our usual good fortune when travelling with Indian rail services, we didn’t have long to wait for our next train. We had been unable to book seats and we couldn’t locate second-class, only cattle class or first class. The train was empty so we settled ourselves in first class air-conditioned and thought we would move when the conductor made us.
Despite countless empty carriages to choose from, a young Indian man with two young women and two small children sat next to us. The little boy had an electronic toy gun, which made a horrendous noise as he fired it constantly.
It was seven in the morning and we were sharing a compartment with the only child in India with an electronic toy, accompanied by adults who were stone deaf. I spent an hour willing the child to get his head stuck in the bars of the windows as he pushed up against them.
Any hope of being kicked out of the carriage by the conductor disappeared when he sat down with us and decided to practise his English. I left Brian to it. I adopted the Indian tradition of being far too humble as a female to join in this highly intellectual male conversation.
The man with the children joined in. He was clearly Indian, but didn’t conform to the normal physical standard as he was very tall, slim and muscular. He explained that he was a soldier and was from Kashmir. When we remarked on his stature he told us that he was big and strong because he came from the north where the air was better, the food was better, in fact everything better than in the South. He spoke of the southerners as peasants, and was generally quite demeaning despite the presence of the conductor who had already said he was from Madurai.
We often found that no one is more prejudiced against the Indians than the Indians themselves. They look down on lower castes and even on people from different states.
Brian asked what had bought him south. He replied he was visiting the temples with his wife, son, sister-in-law and niece. They had covered thousands of miles on various trains. Some holiday.
We had noticed that during our travels using all modes of transport the children, no matter how small, were very well behaved. They never had toys or books or anything to amuse them regardless of the length of the journey and whether it was 30 minutes or several hours they would sit quietly or go to sleep. With a country as vast as India and few people able to afford their own transport, travel by bus and train was a way of life from an early age. Such a shame we were sitting with the child that was the exception to the rule.
After five hours we arrived at Madurai. The station was large and clean and very organised. Madurai had as many as 10,000 visitors per day, so it needed to be. As the other 9,998 weren’t around we headed for the left luggage office. The station was close to the town centre so we decided to leave our baggage and look for accommodation together.
Following the small map in our guidebook we quickly arrived at the street that housed the mid-range accommodation. The first two options were full, the third was average, so we settled for the fourth, the Hotel Chentoor. I would have good reason to remember that name.
We splashed out on a room with air conditioning and that was definitely one of my best extravagances. Madurai was a long way away from any sea breezes and was hotter than any previous destination.
It was due to the heat in Madurai that we decided to change our air tickets again.
Originally we had intended to visit the ‘’tourist triangle’’ when we reached Delhi. This meant travelling to Varanasi [a city on the banks of the sacred river Ganges, the holiest place in India], Agra [home of the Taj MaHal] and maybe Lucknow. Then back to Delhi.
During our stay so far we had decided that maybe these sights weren’t for us. We had listened to other travellers and thought that the colour and romance of the desert might be more to our liking. To that end we were going to head for Rajhasthan and I had allowed three weeks for travelling there before leaving India. The only problem was that it was coming up to the hottest time of the year and if we were melting in Madurai we were going to be red hot in Rajhasthan.
I altered the internal flights to give us an extra week between Madurai and Chennai and just two weeks to sweat it out up north.
Feeling refreshed after a sleep and a shower we made our way to the roof top restaurant. The view was hazy which was for the most part due to pollution. But from later observations of the city I was sure that part of the haze was due to the dust kicked up by the frantic pace of life in the city centre.
We were able to see from our vantage point five large towers of varying height. They resembled tall thin pyramids with the tops chopped off, but they were much too far away to see clearly. The hotel could just about get away with the description of ‘Restaurant with a Temple view.’ We indulged in a quick cup of chai and then set off to explore.
As soon as we turned into the main road all the typical guidebook phrases became applicable: vibrant, colourful, exciting, breathtaking etcetera, etcetera.
Madurai was India as I had imagined it. This was a city going about its every-day business. The fact that it had a temple that covered the area of ten football fields slap bang in the middle [and on a quiet day 10,000 people popping along to see it] didn’t bother anyone. They were all far too busy.
India is most certainly not a café society. If it had been, we could have sat drinking tea and coffee and watched Madurai in all its glory. As it was, with nowhere to sit, we had to walk around and be part of it. And that was hot, hard and dangerous work.
All the streets were crammed with shops, and vendors with stalls spilled out on to the narrow paths. While negotiating a route through the tradesmen, avoiding litter and people throwing unwanted items between our legs, we had to jump over cowpats and skirt around herds of cows and bulls. There were motorised rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, carts pulled by buffalo, small lorries, taxis, cars, bicycles, motorbikes and mopeds. All jostled for position on narrow roads spiralling out from the temple at the heart of the city. There were horns, klaxons, bells, dust, dirt and fumes. I think it is what travel programmes call atmosphere.
There was a constant stream of priests and sadhus, women with their faces and feet stained yellow, men and young boys with their heads shaven and covered in a strange paste. Everyone seemed to wear colourful clothing, some days the predominant colour would be green and on others yellow.
During the day there would often be processions around the town. These would range from men and boys whirling around like mad things, semi naked and covered in coloured powders, or more sedate processions with banners.
On one occasion we stood on the pavement with our mouths hanging open and watched a procession of four males and their helpers. The traffic had come to a standstill and we had turned around to see what was happening.
Walking towards us in the middle of the road was a young boy of perhaps eight years. He wore a loincloth and his body was daubed in all manner of goo. In his mouth he carried a metal rod half an inch thick and maybe 4ftlong. It pierced both cheeks with 2ftof metal protruding on either side. Behind him was a slightly older boy with a longer bar. Next came a man maybe in his mid twenties, with a 6ft bar and a small weight attached to either end, which made the bar bow downwards. Finally a man in his forties took up the whole width of the street with a bar that must have spanned 12ft. The weights on the end of his bars looked impossibly heavy.
Other men ran alongside, banging drums and carrying flaming torches. Everyone looked to be in a trance or drug-induced state. We were so enthralled that we never even thought to take photographs until they had disappeared into the distance and we had stopped talking about it. That was Madurai on a quiet day.
As for those truncated pyramids, they were a sight I shall not forget. We manoeuvred our way through the incredibly busy streets, turned a corner and there towering above us, was the most unusual piece of architecture I imagine I will ever see.
The towers are called gopurams. Each one is covered in life-size figures representing every known Indian god and goddess. They look like huge human pyramids formed by acrobatic troupes dressed in carnival costumes.
There were 12 of these towers and reportedly a total of 33 million carvings adorning them. I could believe it.
There is no chipped or flaking paint, no statue with bits missing, no graffiti. The whole thing could have been unveiled yesterday, the condition is so perfect. There wasn’t much we could say, other than: ‘’Good God!’’
The Sri Meenakshi Temple was designed in 1560 and the present temple was substantially built between1623-55. The Temple covered an area of 15acres. Its history went back over 2000 years to the time when Madurai was the home of the Pandya kings.
The main body of the temple looked exactly the same as the outside of the temple in Kanyakumari in that it was decorated in red and white stripes. The wide paved areas were frequented by groups of men of all ages who stood, heads bowed, in deep discussion. Occasionally groups of women could be seen sitting on the pathway, talking or praying. They saris that were so bright they were almost fluorescent.
I was very excited about taking photographs and was snapping away madly. I had just positioned Brian nicely beside an oversized stone carving of Hanuman, the monkey god, when the camera gave up the ghost and refused to work.
This was a terrible blow. Maybe Hanuman couldn’t bear the competition of standing next to the Irish god of obstinacy, St Brian. We cut our visit short and went in search of someone somewhere who could repair the camera.
I had seen a newspaper advertisement for a shop that stocked among other things a range of cosmetics favoured by western clients. I had already visited it, being the sort of a gal that likes to keep her supply of mascara topped up. They had not sold anything faintly resembling mascara or any other cosmetic I had seen, but it was an excellent shop;
a mini department store.
We enquired here where we could buy film for our new APS camera.
The manager sent a boy to scour Madurai for somewhere that might sell it. After some time the boy returned with film. We paid for it but the boy refused repeatedly when we tried to tip him. The manager, an Arab, insisted that it was all part of the service.
Of course because of his attitude we went back to the shop several times to purchase bits and bobs, some of those bits and bobs being more fabric. I had temporarily forgotten my promise to buy only necessities.
And back we went to see if they could help with the camera repair. They recommended a shop which recommended a shop which…… and so on.
Eventually we ended up in a tenement block where we found two youngish chaps sitting in a small room positively overflowing with cameras.
When they looked up and saw us, we could see the rupee signs spinning in their eyeballs. Whatever they did was going to cost us dearly. They had no knowledge of APS cameras, but offered to take a look. We were in a predicament. If they couldn’t repair the camera we were scuppered. If they broke it, it would be a disaster. On the basis that anything other than a working camera was going to be a catastrophe we decided to take a chance and left it with them.
We returned later that day. The camera was fine and we had a bill of £15. [About three months wages for one of them.] Had we needed spare parts? No. It was sand jammed in the shutter. We left the shop blaming each other.
The next day we visited the temple again. Opposite the East gate was a covered bazaar selling things I really needed to take home. Large carved doors, enormous cooking pots [the size a cannibal would use to boil his dinner], stone carvings, brass bells as big as a head, huge metal hinges. Yes, I needed all these things.
Unfortunately I had to content myself with the haberdashery stalls where I bought three very small bunches of hand-made fabric leaves that I felt would not add too much weight to my rucksack.
Having dragged myself out of the bazaar we entered the east gate of the temple. This gate was the most interesting of the gates in terms of activity. Inside were traders selling everything the well-appointed goddess needed. We could buy paste of all colours to smear on her effigy, and oil for the same purpose, garlands of flowers, or it was possible to purchase the Goddess Gift package. This comprised half a coconut shell containing, flowers, paste, oil and a banana. We were not sure about the banana. Was this the food of the gods or was it for the big fellow with the long nose who was waiting for us?
Through the stalls and down a short flight of steps, and standing on the pathway that surrounded the inner temple, was an elephant. Wonderful creature.
We watched as people approached him. Men, women and children stood before him and offered him either food or money. If it were money, he would take it from their hand with his trunk and swing it around and give it to his master. He would then extend his trunk to the benefactor and place a big elephant kiss on their forehead.
If it was a food offering he would quickly eat it and give the same reward. I wanted some of this and down I went with my ten rupees and received a lovely wet smacker on the head. I loved it. I tried to talk Brian into it but he was far too manly for such silly theatricals.
Further inside, the temple became very dark. In huge cavernous halls there were altars and grottos filled with different gods. Indians stood in front of whichever deity was their chosen, and prayed and made offerings. We watched intrigued as one group lined up to perform a very different ritual in front of a large carving of Ganesha, the elephant god. These devotees took it in turn to jump up and down on the spot in front of the altar, turn three times in a circle and finally mimicked thumping themselves about the head with both fists.
Deep inside the temple was a snack wagon. It looked exactly like a mobile hot dog stall. Brian’s eyes lit up at the prospect of food, especially delicacies hitherto untried. I was adamant that it could not be normal food. Surely it must be more offerings, like buying bird food in Trafalgar Square. The merchandise on sale looked about as edible as pigeon pellets but Brian insisted on buying something. I was repeating “Don’t do it, don’t do it. You don’t know what it is or where it’s come from. Can you see any one else eating it?’’
He could, and down the hatch it went. Brown sticky goo wrapped in a leaf. Barking mad!
I did participate in two other culinary firsts in Madurai. One was called Bhel Phuri, best described as hot rice crispies, and the other was pongal. Unlike the pongal of the Pongola Festival, this pong was mashed potato served in a ball like a scoop of ice cream and accompanied by a hot sauce. Quite scrummy.
We did witness one stunning example of how daft people can be when it comes to their health. The hotel rooftop restaurant was advertised as vegetarian. An English girl and three Kiwi girls sat at the next table. They looked at the menu and exclaimed: ‘‘It's all veggie!’’ When the waiter came to take their order they said: “ Have you got any meat?”
He replied: “ We vegetarian restaurant. What you like, ma’m chicken?’’
The silly girls said yes, and half an hour later were presented with a plate full of thin strips of heavily battered something. They were probably ill the next day and couldn’t think why.
Madurai is renowned for tailors shops as well as temples and with twisted logic I suggested that if we had all the fabric we had bought in Trivandrum made up into garments it would make our rucksacks weigh less. Brian went for this theory and it might have been sound had we not just bought more material.
Brian found a tailor who specialised in shirts and they made him some beauties. I found one who copied a suit that I had brought from home. It was full of panels and pockets and the tailor replicated it exactly.
Next we were on the search for a barber, as numerous in India as newsagents are in England. We found one in a row of three or four other shops.
Sitting on the road in front of the shops were four or five women surrounded with baskets containing fruit and vegetables.
Brian went in with his usual greeting of: “New blade, new blade.’’ I was given an old wooden chair so I could sit outside on the pavement. I was sure, judging by the curiosity afforded to me by the passing locals, that westerners were a novelty in this area.
Directly opposite was a hardware shop. Sitting at the counter trying to open his breakfast, [a coconut] was the owner. He was just about to pop a piece of coconut into his mouth when his assistant picked up a dead mouse by the tail and handed it to him. Coconut and mouse in the same hand, he examined the rodent, either perhaps for signs of life or as a possible source of nutrition, decided the mouse was of no interest and threw it over the counter where it landed among the veg and about 4ins from my feet. I was amused by the way he threw it outside knowing there were traders sitting there, and by the way the woman whose veg it landed in made no move to get rid of it.
Next stop was to be the Gandhi Museum. We couldn’t find an auto rickshaw so we settled for a cycle rickshaw. The driver was adamant he would take us where we wanted to go.
We spent an excruciatingly embarrassing 20 minutes being conveyed to the museum. The poor man pedalling the rickshaw was huffing and puffing and sweating and standing up off his seat in order to put more power behind his pedalling and get us up hills and around stationary vehicles and snoozing cattle.
I wanted to get out or suggest Brian should pedal. This old chap would be dead before we reached our destination. Never again. Far too stressful. And that was only me.
The museum was a large square building standing in well-kept gardens. It was extremely hot and stuffy. The large section given over to the history and independence of India was dull and repetitive and the British took a long and drawn out pounding for their role.
I found the section concerning the life and works of Gandhi very disappointing. Coming hot foot from my emotional moment in Kanyakumari I was ready to be impressed and see this man as the instigator of healthy living and saviour of the poor and downtrodden. I emerged after almost three hours with a number of uncharitable thoughts.
In many ways the exhibits were naïve. There was a large display of apparel and accessories with labels saying: “ Gandhi wore sandals like these, Gandhi wore glasses like this.’’ There was a crazy sketch showing the shape of his head from different angles.
The initial introduction to the Ghandi section was in the form of script below a series of pictures showing him as a young man. After laboriously reading every word of miss-type and tippexed corrections, I was left with the feeling that, had Ghandi been the social success he craved so badly when he left University in Oxford, he would never have considered returning to India.
He wasn’t a very good lawyer; he couldn’t make it India when he returned, so he went off to stay with his relations in South Africa.
The story of Gandhi’s life as depicted in the museum was full of holes and omissions. The copy of his letter to Adolph Hitler was frightening both in its typing errors and its content which was beyond innocence and stepping heavily into the realms of foolishness.
The final section of the museum showed a very battered replica of the gun used to assassinate Gandhi and behind a screen was the blood- stained dhoti that he wore when he was shot. It was strange that the museum was full of replicas which could easily have been replaced by the original articles, and yet this one highly personal item was displayed. It held no horror, it was a very faded piece of cloth, and the bloodstains appeared as faint discolouration. The longer it was subjected to the light and climatic conditions of the museum, the more quickly it would deteriorate until there was nothing left. It all seemed so senseless.
I left the museum before Brian and sat outside under a tree. I felt as if I had been cheated. There must have been more to the man than this shallow exhibition showed.
With a blinding headache and a strong sense of disappointment we decided to find the Madurai Ashok, the Local Government Hotel. They had a swimming pool and we were going to lie in it.
We bartered a fare with an auto rickshaw and a cheeky young boy who spoke good English and seemed to be in charge, accompanied the driver.
When we reached the hotel we tried to pay them but the boy said they would wait for us. We told them we didn’t want that.
He insisted. We told him to push off. He refused. We told him we would not pay him to wait. He said fine, it wasn’t a busy day. We told him to please himself.
The hotel pool was more of a pond. Beneath a covering of leaves floating on the surface the water wasn’t too murky but the broken tiles around the edges would not have won any Health and Safety certificates at home. The half a dozen sun loungers around the pool were broken and dirty. Most had the middle section missing so that when we lay down our bums were dragging on the floor.
Did we care? We did not, the water was cold and that was good enough.
We stayed immersed until our body temperature was below boiling. Barely moments had passed after we had contorted ourselves into an acceptable position on the chairs before the cheeky boy decided we needed his company. We told him to push off after half an hour but he wouldn’t budge. He kept talking about food and how hungry he was and obviously thought we would spring him a meal. Wrong.
He then turned his conversation to drink and told us how he liked to drink beer when he could get it. Another big hint. Tough.
I moved my chair to get away from him. My head was exploding and he was driving me nuts. Brian was able to ignore him. Four hours later, when we finally decided to leave, he was still prattling on.
We asked to be dropped off at the tailors. We got out of the rickshaw and handed over the previously agreed sum of money. All hell broke loose. The driver started yelling and the boy started yelling. I just looked at Brian and said: “I knew this was going to happen. You deal with it. I’ll be over there.”
I sat on the kerb with my headache, watching the growing crowd and Brian’s head towering above everyone. He was looking mighty angry. Brian later told me that the boy had been shouting that we had made him wait four hours and wouldn’t pay him. He kept saying that he would not accept the money we were offering him and wanted the money we really owed him. The next time that the boy refused the agreed sum, Brian said: “Fine. Please yourself.” and walked away.
The days were passing quickly in Madurai, largely due to the fact that we kept falling asleep every afternoon in the air-conditioned room.
I would wake up and peek out the window and think: That still looks much to hot” and promptly fall asleep again.
We gave ourselves one more day. We had various items to collect from the tailor and we thought we would visit the Taj Garden Retreat Hotel which was up in the hills and said to have a fabulous view and a swimming pool.
The Taj was ranked as Madurai’s best hotel. Our rickshaw struggled up a steep hill to the entrance but that gave us time to enjoy the stunning views. As we neared the top, the land on either side of the narrow road became beautiful gardens. The hotel was a converted colonial mansion and it was easy to imagine tea on the lawns in a bygone era.
On the ground floor were large airy reception rooms with low comfortable wicker sofas and potted palms. I could have settled there quite comfortably. At the reception when we paid for the use of the pool we were surprised that even in this opulence, the two helpful young male receptionists wore crumpled shirts and had frayed cuffs.
The pool was situated on a shady plateau surrounded by trees and with a panoramic view of the countryside and a large lake. It was quite idyllic. We pulled up some nice comfortable sun loungers and settled down for the rest of the day. It was much cooler and fresher up here in the hills.
Inspired by the surroundings we discussed the differences of travelling India and staying in this type of accommodation and travelling the way we were. Although it could seem tempting we agreed that we would have missed out on so much.
We have been very lucky in the past and have stayed in top class hotels throughout the world. The so-called top hotels we had seen and were yet to see in India fell far short of the mark. The prices they charged were no different from the charges in New York or London, and so naturally the same standards were to be expected. I think I would have spent most of my trip screaming and arguing with staff and managers if we had travelled first class. Well, no change there, then.
We had a pleasant day at the pool and headed back to town to pick up our completed garments from the tailors try to pack the rucksacks, and say our farewells to Madurai.
At the hotel reception I asked for the bill as we were leaving at 5a.m.
the next day. That was far too big a task and they insisted I pay as we left. It was a real pain as we had yet to settle a bill without delays or aggravation and it meant I would need to allow an extra half an hour before departure to deal with it.
At 4.30am. I duly presented myself at the reception desk to be met by a bleary-eyed duty manager. Firstly he printed out the wrong bill, and then he overcharged me. We then had a long discussion about his ability to use the credit card machine.
Time was marching on and Brian said he would start walking towards the station with the two heaviest bags. I was becoming angrier and angrier especially when I was presented with some other guest’s laundry bill. Finally I settled the account, picked up the remaining bags, and ran hell for leather along the street to catch up with Brian.
We were boarding a train to Villupuram from where we would change trains and head for Pondicherry.