Districts drive-thru Part II

Districts drive-thru Part II
Trichy-Thanjavur-Kumbakonam
Green fields, snaky Cauvery and centuries-old canals—these are the things you saw, not in Kalki or Sujatha’s books, but for real, when you drove from Trichy to Thnajavur . But in 2010, the pawn broker shops on the Thanjavur highway and the ‘water service’ signages tell a stark truth.
In Trichy you see visible signs of education—hurray to the hoary tradition of St Joseph’s and many other institutions—with boys and girls rushing to classes with grey sling bags and back packs stating their purpose, right till NIT, (REC in the past), the point of Trichy-Thanjavur highway and beyond. Like elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, the NIT flyover under construction tells you that it hopes for industrial/commercial improvement..but you cannot miss the numerous universities –like PRIST—dotting the landscape even as a huge amount of flyover work is underway .
It is Thanjavur route which brings a lump to your throat. Maybe the Mukkombu—Karur route would have made me happy.. and Lalapet, the tiny, green village which makes you want to retire and shift there with your books and modem. Banana fields, sugarcane and tapioca farms would have greeted me. But I chose the NH 67. To Thanjavur.
Were the pawn broker shops always so prominent? My memory says no. And although the brown fields are there, with just a few cows grazing, huge sign boards saying ‘plots for sale’ jerk you out of your nostalgia. So, they have come here too.
There are pockets of water, and a few green fields where sugarcanes are in their puberty. As I listen to the ‘Ballelaka’ song on the stereo, I see only one field where a handful of women are involved in ‘nathu nadudal’. Very few of the villagers are loitering about, and I did not have to break for a single kid or dog dashing across the street. Except some 25 km from Thanjavur, I see an excited group of villagers crowding over a small bridge. My journalist’s instincts kick in. “Either they have sighted a crocodile,(common along the Cauvery, or its a cinema shooting". Bingo. It is a movie crew and Prabhu is a couple of kilometres away, shooting in the fields—the only field with ankle length water that I had seen since early morning. I remind myself I am on holiday, and handcuff myself from sms-ing a story list to office.
With the Brahadeeswarar temple peeping through the few coconut fronds, I move on. And watch with a heavy heart as women sell cucumbers and dosakai on the streets.. surely, not the native produce that Thanjavur is famous for. Half a dozen automatic harvesters stand grouped together here and there.. eying each other like potential interviewees, muttering, ‘too many of us, too few jobs’. I overtake an occasional tractor and come upon women waving a plastic packet on the highway as vehicles rush past. They are selling strung jasmines, for peanuts... somewhere at the fag end of Kumbaskonam-- didnt know jasmine grew there..
Kumbakonam now... and the road side shops are filled with bottled water—of local make—while every few kms water service signages pop up. Nungu, the palm fruit is seen in plenty and the discarded shells look like skulls. And yes, the sign of environmental degradation is there on the road—mounds of plastic packets and discarded plastic bottles. A few banana plants stand with their dried fronds hanging down, as if in shame. And I pondered upon how rulers like Karikalan dammed the waters of the many tributaries of the Cauvery and ensured the area remained a green bowl, even on its outer fringes.
I move towards Kumbakonam, hometown of Ramanujam the great mathematical genius, and glass facade shops and hoarding of jewelery shops are the things that hit you. And for some reason, actor Prabhu—not Radhika or a slinky model—is endorsing jewels. Well, well. I down a Kumbakonam degree coffee, assure myself that Trichy makes the best coffee in the state, and head towards Pondy via Neyveli.

Tomorrow: Neyveli-Pondy- ECR-home

Districts' drive-thru

Districts’ drive-thru --Part I
Chennai to Trichy, via Chingelpet, Villupuram
If you have been wanting to go for a spin in your Ferrari, then take the NH 45 to Trichy from Chennai. Three years ago, the roads were a mess of works, but now its a dream run. From the minute you enter the S-bridge after Tambaram, it takes you less than 5 hours via Chingelpet and Villupuram to reach Trichy.
It needn’t be a Ferrari though. Any car which can average a steady 75km per hour would do. The roads are smooth, and the Highways is following through with plenty of drive safe measures. Like:
Huge digital banners tell you ‘never travel in contra flow direction’ , a crucial awareness drive on the highways where vehicles are prone to drive towards on your lane, to avoid a longer drive that would put them on the right track with a simple U-turn. Smart, orange coloured emergency phones, mounted on sleek pillars (taking minimum road space), and solar powered as well, are other new additions. Lights at many traffic intersections are solar powered as well, and until you arrive at the Coleroon bridge, you have nothing to crib about.
It is here that disappointment starts. For decades, as you crested the bridge, you could see the corpulently spread-out Rockfort, the slender steeple of St Joseph’s and the girthy gopuram that is Srirangam, in one quick glance,even as you looked down to get your first glimpse of the Cauvery. But the walls of the bridge have been raised in such a way that your view of the river on the right is blocked, while the first sighting of the three landmarks are just for a fraction of a second. The walls shut out the view. You do not get to see them as drive down this bridge, or the Cauvery bridge as the 2nd one is known or the third one, over Srirangam , before you can touch Trichy.
Traffic suddenly becomes two way as you near Trichy, confusing you entirely, and you miss the exit road to the town entirely, and end up driving towards Thanjavur Road. A few signages would serve the purpose admirably, or Trichy needs the services of people like Mythili Sriram, who along with a group of friends had made the trip to the Srirangam temple vehicle-friendly, with signages in the narrow streets, guiding devotees.
Trichy itself has become very crowded and it is easy to get lost, if you are retuning after three years. One familiar landmark missing is the huge periyar arch, that used to lead to iyer thottam and police quarters. The steel-bodied public transport buses continue to park bang in the middle of the road, while traffic comes to a stand still be it before Chattiram bus stand or in Thillai Nagar.
But all that will be forgotten once you enter Srirangam during the Chittirai festival , currently underway. On May 9th, days ahead of the ‘ther’, (chariot) , it was the ‘padi’ ceremony. The moolavar (processional deity of Ranganatha)is brought to the courtyard outside the Thayar (Godeess) sannidhi. From 5 pm, devotees began filling up the halls of the huge temple. Vendors selling string hopper machines made of iron, dosa skillets and tiny stone pestles that can fit on the table top of a 8x5 kitchen comfortably had a roaring time, as bargains were struck. Quite a few made a bee-line to the centre of the entry hall where temple officials were auctioning the silk sarees , dhotis and angavastra which had once adorned the deities.
Cell phones were busy with many touching base with friends and relatives while waiting everywhere. The early birds preferred to queue up in the narrow aisles leading to the sanctum sanctotum, and with electric fans in full flow, it was not a bad idea at all. Kids ran around fetching bananas for the temple elephant while senior citizens gravitated towards the ‘prasadam’ ( food) stalls. A young couple, unmindful of the world passing around them, sat facing each other, knees touching and whispering a million of god-knows what. That they were left alone is a reflection that possibly that this is not the first couple cosying up on those sands.
A smartly dressed civic worker, picking up discarded paper and strands of faded flowers from the sand was a new, pleasanter sight. In fact, dust bins were being put to use by the crowds sensibly, though one cannot say the same for the urinals. Many kids seemed to mistake the wash area for the other, and with parents too busy with the atmosphere, temple staff kept running a hose, and alternately burning incense.
By 7, Rnaganatha sauntered out, and Ranganayaki, the goddess who never steps beyond her ‘vasasal’ greeted him from her threshold. The ritual of camphor-lighting over, Ranganatha’s bearers bellowed out a couple of indistinct lines , and as if on cue, her bearers responded in kind..
Then began the ceremony of showering rice grain from huge padis ( a measure) .. crowds surged, foots were stamped, elbows crushed and necks craned to get a glimpse of the falling grains in the thayar sannidhi. “One sight is enough to wash away your sins,” said a mami, urging me to atone. Was it a sin I wondered, that I was more a writer and less an obedient devotee who believed that all my sins could be washed away with that one sight.
And as I exited the temple, it was the writer in me which spotted the huge advertisement for ‘Sura’ hanging just outside the temple wall. And if Vijay comes, can Ajith be far away I wondered? Sure enough, a huge poster of ‘thala’ as Ajith is known, had been put up on the opposite wall. Ah, we poor mortals I thought, but my musings on star wars were cut short by the sound of a resounding slap.
That was a traffic cop, hitting a couple of two wheeler riders on the road. He had suddenly decided to close the road exiting Srirangam (from the temple you normally take a left). Instead, vehicles had to get into Srirangam town to hit the road to Trichy. The two boys on the bike, laden with a TV carton did not stop in time. The cop put out a hand, the pillion rider lost his slipper and his footing, and the cop, his cool.
I tried to find my way to Amamandapam in the unfamiliar lanes, and every time I rolled down the car window, asking for directions, Srirangamites said I was in the wrong direction, and should have turned left after exiting the temple.. I felt as though I was in a Jankaraj-Vadivelu movie.
Tomroow—Trcihy-Thanjavur NH 45 C