namma mejura

Rock Temple 2, originally uploaded by daynee2003.

Yaanaimalai (Elephant hill) at the outskirts of Madurai has a unique shape & a treasure trove for archaeologists. It has jain caves at the top, numerous inscriptions all around the hills and also two carved temples at the bottom.

Lakshmi Narasimha temple is carved deep into the hill and the deity (carved in the hill) stands near the centre of the hillock at ground level.

It’s a wonder that some people thought it fit to propose cutting the hill, carve a sculpture in the middle & scoop the remaining rocks for granite exports. The effort was named as beautifying the place & to give Madurai a tourist place!

Well, Yaanai malai already earned it’s own merit over thousands of years (it’s even mentioned in very old tamil scripts) to become a tourist spot. And being a unique shape, it already have a striking pose, looking majestically at the approaching urbanization.

Rock Temple, originally uploaded by daynee2003.

Thankfully, protests were loud & that proposal was officially struck down last week by Government of Tamilnadu. Now it only needs beautification around the hillock & promoting it properly.

The tail end of the hillock still retains a lot of greenery and a nice picnic spot, untouched by urbanization.

Cart, from a Bus in Madurai, originally uploaded by Ganga108.

Though it’s not common, Horse carriages are still plying in Madurai. A nice way to entertain the kids and re-live the rustic charm of older days when you visit Madurai.

Areas like SS Colony, Chokkikulam – Krishnapuram Colony were slowly toting up with 4 – 5 floor apartments. In fact, most new constructions in these areas are only apartments.

Houses in these areas used to have ample space all around & invariably sport couple of coconut trees besides many flowering plants. Now many new apartments come up in just a single or 2 plots of old houses.

As a result, they have only about 3 feet space between the compound wall & the building. The ground floor in these buildings have space only for car parking slots, a lift & a ubiquitous power generator.

Advertisements by the builders usually show a trendy building standing tall amidst lush greenery. But a vast majority of them have no scope of greenery. The entire ground is covered end-to-end with cement leaving any greenery only to potted plants in some of the balconies.

It’s literally a concrete jungle.