madurai unveiled

       Madurai, to start with, is the famous ‘temple city’ as known by other city dwellers. But for the residents of Madurai, like me, it’s something different, something a lot more. Not just one name to call by, but a whole bunch of historically significant ones such as ‘Thoonga nagaram’, ‘madhura’, ‘madurapuri’ so on and of course, the ones we name ourselves.

 

    Throwing light on the fact that Madurai was called the ‘Thoonga nagaram’, which meant, ‘the city that never sleeps’, anyone would tell you that it meant to flatter you with the lights all over the city. Even if on one side it was true (nothing can beat Madurai), it actually meant that the shops all over Madurai operated 24x7. This one indeed states one of the best of Madurai. 

 

    An important piece of fact to share is that Madurai can also be known as the biggest mixture of cultures and heritage. If you dig deep into the old books, along with the dust you can find information leading to the time of the nayaks. They were the people who ruled Madurai, a bigger and better Madurai. It is said that the raja, thirumalai nayakar designed Madurai into a set of concentric circles, surrounding the ‘world famous’ meenakshi amman temple at the heart of it, and each circle consisting of a different type of artifact such as the jewelry, textiles, food and so on. To fill up the different areas he invited a group of people specialized in each art. And that is why I am here. It happened because he also invited a group of gold smiths known as aasaris or asarlu to prepare the jewelry. That is why you can find all kind of people in Madurai from north, east, west and south India or so the legend says.

    Born and brought up in Madurai, I am accustomed to all kinds of culture and happy about it. Apart from this, there are a bunch of recent histories to be put forth. The Vaigai River! When I was a kid, I lived almost to the brink of the city limits, known as Kochadai. A few kilometers further outside the city we could find the river thinning along the road towards the city, where my father and I would have a nice bath on the river banks and return home to taste my mother’s yummy preparation. Adding to this I remember my self buying roasted groundnuts, corns and javvu mittai (a stretchable pink and white candy) off the mobile vendor. And the grandest of them all was the temple festival at my grandmother’s home, which was staged overnight and which I used to watch sitting on the road.

   The area I lived in was occupied mostly by the workers of the Madura coats mill. Owing to that fact, my family had a close bond with the others. In the evenings the street would be filled with all of us playing badminton. And there was this club used by us situated across the lane (currently the hesitance hotel). I even watched a couple of open-air movies in side the club with my best friend whose father was a worker too.

   Considering all these proofs of a well enjoyed childhood life, (even though all of them weren’t mentioned) who would weigh Madurai less? There is even a saying which goes, “Even a donkey which circled Madurai would not leave it”. Then, which human being can leave? Definitely not Me!