the first thing that hits you(literally) as soon as you land in madurai is the heat !!! "madurai veyilla kazhudai kooda suthadhu" were words that rang in my ears(courtesy:my granny) almost everyday that i came back home roasted,burnt and dehydrated after all the "oor suthal". meaning not even donkeys roam around in madurai heat.
but paati,what do you do if the weather report reads hot,hotter and hottest all through the year!! stay at home she would say, but i chose the other option ..roam around as much as you can and get to the point where you no longer feel the heat ,you and the heat become one and the same ..
yeah chennai is also hot,infact the whole of tamilnadu except for those summer getaways kodai & ooty are always hot.but madurai veyil(heat) is something unique.feel it to know it. anyway it never deterred us from exploring the nook and corner of this city and we got so used to it that the once in a blue moon showers had us whining !!
the daily "ilaneer" (tender coconut) outside our college,the jigardhanda(a drink unique to madurai),the mug full of fruit juice in pazhamudircholai near periyar bus stand,the juicy,mouth watering melon pieces near arasaradi which we ate (licking the juice flowing to the elbow as if our life depended on it) all the way through the walk back home ...i bet you can't get these in a cool country !!
but what stays on are these..the paati selling the ilaneer dispersing some "gems"(!!) on how girls should behave seeing us girls giggling away , the annas selling juice at pazhamudhircholai and the akka at the melon shop ( not a shop really just a "thallu vandi-mobile trolley kind of ) saying endearinlgy" nalaikku kuudu da , parava illa" in that typical madurai lilting tamil( you can give it tomorrow dear,its ok)when you don't have the Rs 2 change for a piece of melon..
2 comments:
hehe nice one.. Well down here (atleast till last year in Trivandrum) you never had those hot months.. it was just max two weeks that would go by without rain :) And everyone from TN who has come here says the 'Corporation water' that flows out our taps, with which we bathe and frolick in, is nothing but their 'mineral water'.. true!
But now slowly Kerala is getting hotter.. damn! Time to move out.. hey can I join ya up there?
I studied in Madurai for 2 years.
Madurai was extremely hot for me. I do remember 'pazhamudircholai'. tht was the first place we stopped after getting down from train.
Lot of memories are attached, the bullock carts running through the heart of the city, the shops, madurai tamil, conservative people:)etc..
BTW how can u miss the great Meenakshi temple?
Post a Comment