As expected, we stuck to our plans formulated the previous evening and left T'veli at 7.15 AM. If you have been reading the previous post in this series, you may remember that the time set then, was 6 AM or thereabouts. But we had to make use of the IST concept - Indian Stretchable Time.
The highway connecting T'veli and Madurai - NH 7 - was quite good. It was under construction, but the roads were well laid out and the work was more on the expansion. So there wasn't much hindrance to traffic flow.
We stopped for breakfast at a town called Saathoor. The driver took us to a posh restaurant called Sri Ramanujar Udupi Vilas. There we settled down and the waiter placed a banana leaf for everyone. We went ahead with the traditional order of pongal-vadai. It was then followed by a Rava dosai and a strong degree kaapi.
The setup of the restaurant was typical of olden times. I remember eating in small 'otels' around mayavaram in the 80s. This one had the same kind of setup. A small area. Lots of rooms - basically indicating that a house has been converted into a restaurant.
But the ultimate sign was the presence of a big wooden cupboard near the kalla petti. With 3-4 shelves that are partly sloped. So that you can keep some of your prepared food items like vadai, sweets etc. This hotel had it too. A blue framed cupboard with a tube light in the top shelf.
Once we were done eating, the waiter graciously indicated to us that we had to dispose off the banana leaf ourselves. Once again, it was something that I haven't encountered in the last 10-15 years. It was quite an interesting change in routine.
Luckily, we weren't asked to wash up the coffee tumbler and dabara. :)
We then proceed to Madurai. En route, we had a pit stop at TiruparunKundram. Which, for a few minutes I confused to be the temple where the eagles come at 10 AM. My doubts were cleared by my co-passengers.
This temple is quite interesting/different in that, there was no garba graham. There was the wall of a mountain and the statue of the deity was either carved out of the wall or was affixed to it. Either case, not a routine thing we see.
We finally reached Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple. There our contact also joined us and got us special permission for a quick darshan. But even in that area, there were way too many people waiting to go inside. So, we quickly came to the general area itself and had our darisanam of Meenakshi.
After that, we came out and decided that we must call upon her husband as well. But his zone was equally crowded, considering that sivarathiri was just a day or two ago. And we didn't have a special pass for his area. So we just offered a quick prayer towards the sanctum sanctorum and finally left the temple.
Just outside the Western entrance (of the Sivan kovil), there is a juice shop. If you find yourself in that neighborhood, please make it a point to have a lime-soda at that joint. It was awesome.
And one other thing, there were way too many manja mandai entities there. Some of them were in saree and one or two in dhothi. Quite an interesting sight.
Finally, we decided to say goodbye to Madurai and the van started off towards the airport.
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