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.
South Entrance, originally uploaded by mdsenthil.
This is an update to the post on Beautification of Chitrai Streets around Meenakshi Amman Temple earlier.
Madurai bench of Madras High Court made an interim order today, allowing vehicle access up to the entrance of Chithrai Streets (but not on Chitrai Streets) to allow cars to drop passengers (maximum 15 minutes parking time!). Heavy vehicles are still off-limits for these access roads.
This is a slight improvement for elders visiting the temple, but bound to create traffic snarls in these narrow Amman Sannathi, West Tower and North Tower streets.
Read more about it here http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/29/stories/2009012958610300.htm
Secured parking for residents & shop owners of Chitrai Streets is still a question mark.
By vijayymdu, shot with 6300 at 2009-01-03
The scene looks very much um… un-Madurai! But, it’s the same Chitrai Streets around Meenakshi Amman Temple. Impressive development indeed. Now vehicles were not allowed in Chitrai Streets and it enhances to the smooth look besides the safety factor.
If you look closely, you can still see the Madurai-ness – sand accumulating along the edges of neatly tiled road as well on the granite footpath. The granite footpath is smooth, but always have noticable spread of sand grains. Maintenance is usually our weak point.
The people living in Chitrai street as well as the shop owners were protesting on block vehicle movement in Chitrai Streets. Authorities should consider priority/reserved parking spaces for them in parallel streets. It will be an inconvenience for them, but should not be a harassment.
While walking on bye-pass road, a Maruti Omni pulled ahead of me. A young man on back seat called out a name – ‘Annamalai, Annamalai!’. At this, a dirty man in rags (who lingers on the fringe of road and seem to have lost in a world of his own) came over to the car, and collected a pack of food & water.
Now, if this sound familiar, you might know or heard about Akshaya Trust of Madurai. Ever since the life of a 5-star hotel cook who’s visit to home town (Madurai) evoked an absolute turnaround on his career, many mentally unstable roadside souls were fed daily. Mr. Krishnan is taking care & feeding them daily for the past 6-7 years without fail.
The Maruti Omni is one belonged to Akshaya Trust donated by well-wishers. Curious about name calling, I approached the car and asked about it. The young man who helps Krishnan in this routine said ‘we named him!’.
Krishnan & his Akshaya Trust got coverage in Media. Yet not many seem to know. You can read a media report here. And also at their own website www.akshayatrust.org
A short news feature available at YouTube on Akshaya Trust
And a more detailed coverage by this blogger Marcie who ran a marathon to raise funds for Akshaya Trust.
The green mini-buses are the lifeline of most suburbs around Madurai. Most of the newly developed areas like Gomathipuram & Yagava nagar near Anna Nagar & a plethora of ‘Nagar’s between Iyer Bungalow & Moondru maavadi have narrow 20ft. roads as main throughfare.
Worse, the roads under village panchayats were poorly paved. Most of these roads have giant craters & will become pools of red slush on rainy days. It is only these private mini-buses that brave the odds for them.
The buses suffer due to bumpy roads & dust conditions. Some of the buses had to push start by commuters themselves while a few others are well maintained. In any case, if you prefer a ride in these buses, be prepared to an assault of blaring music!
Streets starting from most major roads now have a helpful ‘You are here’ type boards. Apart from the streets, it also mentions prominent businesses & other landmarks nearby. In addition to that all the necessary electricity, water & corporation councillor phone numbers were listed.
A really handy information amid the posters in street corners. Luckily, these were largely spared by poster fixers.
I under-estimated the power of the pull ‘Naidu hall’ (Naiha) have among women.
It is now a fashion for bigger shops to spread out to other cities in the region. Alukkas, Jos Alukkas & Bhima are the big name jewellery shops from Kerala, now firmly established in Madurai within the last 2 years. Chennai based mobile shop chain ‘Univercell’ & ‘mobile city’ opened 3 – 4 shops in Madurai.
So when Naidu hall opened their showroom at bye-pass road, it seemed they are following the trend. But the buzz it created among the women are tremendous. For the first three days, it seemed like a mega event, with a musical party thrown in at the evenings. Feedback from school, college going youngsters were that the shop is the hot topic among girls.
The bye-pass road is growing fast in it’s stature. It may soon need a better name.
We were out of station yesterday and coming back to Madurai by afternoon. We are entering into Madurai from south (via Tirupparankundram) and all seemed normal. We were cautioned by relatives (via mobile) that splash news on TVs talk about attacks all over Madurai.
But we couldn’t find any thing abnormal. All the town buses and mofussil buses continue to ply from Madurai as usual. When we reached home, neighbours said that cable TV went off the air from 11 a.m. onwards.
I gathered the news from Dinamalar’s website. All actions seem to be on the northern fringe of city. Dinakaran’s (Sun network) new office building is at Uthangudi, some 3 kms away from city. It used to be a Mitsubishi (Lancer) car showroom. The Madurai bench of Madras High Court is still further away on that (NH47 – towards Trichy, Chennai) road.
Later we came to know that some buses in Aarapalayam bus stand were also damaged in stone pelting. All local cables got their feeds from SCV, a Sun network company that seems to have their vital equipment in the same campus, and hence the entire city went cable-less, except for those who had DishTV or TataSKY. Cable TVs resumed today and viewed all the details on Sun News which keeps on repeating it.
That’s about it. It’s very sad that computer operators and a private security were killed. It’s a power play within a dynasty and innocent chaps get killed in the crossfire. So much for their intention to serve the public.
A decade back, whenever I met a Madurai lad working in bigger cities, our chat invariably touches the topic ‘Roadside idli shops’. Without exception, all Madurai lads caught up in the job situation in metros, misses them and grow very fond while talking about them.
If you don’t know these shops:
Roadside idli (or, was it idly ?!) shops are an ubiquitous fixation in Madurai. They start business as the sun goes down and do business till 11 pm or even 12pm in some places. The fare is quite standard on all those shops. Idlies (ofcourse!), dosa, uthappam.
They also stack raw eggs and can deliver omelette, half-boiled eggs or even pour an omelette on top of a dosa while cooking (muttai dosai !).
They arrive mostly on a tri-cycle. Set up the stove, a few tables and chairs. The prices were cheap, but the taste were not. Those out-of-town lads rue this particular point. After all, such roadside shops now appear on metros as well, but you can’t guarantee the taste or cost.
They don’t have names boards or even clear boundaries. But they are an important part of Madurai’s lifestyle. They lost some of their importance now (too much traffic these days). It struck me that having no mention of these shops in this blog is not right. So here it goes.
The monsoon is on. It’s raining atleast twice a week. Widespread digging on the roads for underground drainage, phone lines etc makes the puddles and slush permanent. The city now looks like one big construction site.
If you ever wanted to taste the ”Madurai mann” (sentimentimentally smelling and tasting the sand… or soil) now is the best time. All you have to do is mount on a 2-wheeler and ride without any mask or helmet. As an added bonus, you can watch fellow 2-wheelers zipping across in all directions right in front of you, at maniacal speeds.
