Trip to Madurai

As part of the campus recruitment initiative mentioned in my previous post, I visited Madurai on Saturday, the 22nd of December 2007.

Actually, a bunch of us from work went for that initiative, so we all had a pretty interesting time, especially sharing all the oddities observed during the interviews.

Originally, we all wanted to travel by Paramount Airways, but unfortunately, our Travel Department refused to procure tickets on that airline quoting a significant difference in cost. We couldn't refute it either and neither could we use the ploy of flight timings, since all morning flights out of Chennai to Madurai are barely 10 minutes apart. Same holds good for the last flights out.

So, we had to make do with the Jet Airways ATR flight. Man, that morning flight was one big torture. The pilot, a Caucasian btw, was navigating it like the ubiquitous share auto driver in Chennai. The way he landed in Madurai would have converted all atheists into die-hard religious fanatics! I must actually appreciate him for having the talent to remind all of us that there 3 wheels in the plane. He also showed us how long the runway at Madurai was, coz he practically went to the edge of the tarmac before turning back!

We hired a cab and reached the venue and got on with the proceedings. We broke for lunch and found that the food arranged by the College was almost unpalatable. It was toooo spicy for our comfort and didn't look hygienic at all. After making enquiries with the watchman, we headed out to a "hotel", where after much waiting, we managed to get a table. Unfortunately, my bad luck continued there as well, since the food served was not really tasty. In fact, the curd rice I ordered seemed to have been prepared using stale rice.

Anyways, after our interview sessions got over ahead of time, thankfully due to the no-show from almost 100 candidates, we proceeded to the Meenakshi Amman temple. Ramadurai had called up his contacts and the basic understanding was that we had to stand in front of the Co-optex shop opposite the South entrance. Apparently the coded message was if anyone approached us and asked us "vellai kaaka enna color muttai podum?", we were supposed to respond by saying "karuppu muttai" whereby we would have established our credentials.

We waited for a short while before Ramadurai's contact showed up. We obviously didn't have to use the coded greetings and were taken inside the temple. Once inside, the "guide" explained to us about some of the landmark spots and escorted us along the special path to the sanctum sanctorum in a matter of a minute or so. After some deliberation with the authorities there, our contact took us inside the special darshan area. There we had a really good darshan of the Amman. Even when we had our heart's fill and started moving out, the contact kept sending us back for some more additional darshan.

The same was repeated at all other important sannidhis and all in all we had a fantastic darshan. I was so ecstatic, that while returning to the airport, I told Ramadurai that he finally gave me something useful for being his friend!

We even had a great visit in the "1000 kaal mandapam" and I was really amazed with some of the statues. There is a statue of Rathi Devi, carved in stone. Our contact asked us to feel the hand and boy, it was so smooth that one can easily be fooled into thinking that it was wood. Then there were a couple of stone statues of Lord Shiva, where one could hit certain portions of the stone and hear a good metallic sound. Then there was this giant wooden door made of Burma Teak wood. It was like 9.38 metres long and some 2.2 metres wide. Really awesome stuff.

By the time we were out of the temple, we were quite famished. Thankfully our guide took us to a restaurant called Modern Cafe. It was a quaint little joint and as we found quite soon, it served great food. I had Adai Avial and Plain Dosa. All of them were excellent. Special mention must be made of their Coconut chutney. We topped it up with one of the best coffees I have had in recent times at any restaurant.

It was getting quite late, but thankfully, the airline had issued us the boarding pass for the return journey in the morning itself. So we had enough buffer time to reach the airport. And to make thing more comfortable, one of our friends who had reached there earlier, told us that the flight was delayed by 30 minutes.

The return flight was more peaceful and the pilot ensured a really smooth landing. However, he was allotted a parking bay right at the end of the runway and to reach the terminal, we actually had a 5 minute ride on the airport bus.

All of us went our separate ways after that and I reached home at 11 PM. Since my day started at 4.30 AM, I was quite exhausted and crashed on the bed quite soon. But for some of the annoying interviews, this trip was quite a good one. I had a really good darshan at all sannidhis in the Meenakshi Amman temple, unlike my trip in Feb this year, where it was a really abridged visit.

So much so that, I have prayed to the lady of the temple that I would visit her temple once I get married - the third wedding vaendudhal I have made, the first one being a hike up the seven hills to say hi to Venky and the second one to my kula dheiyvam temple.