January 22, 2015 -- Uncle Linnaeus Tripe's Madurai

Hi all

 

We are back in the apartment in Mohali after a fairly epic tour of Jim Corbett National Park, the state of Kerala and, lastly, Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Hansi has written (or will write) about much of the journey so I'm focusing on the adventure in Madurai, home of the Meenakshi Temple Complex and Madurai Palace.
 

I have quite a few photos so I'll send several e-mails with a brief overview of each 'batch', beginning with this one.
 

As you will doubtless recall, my great, great, great, gr. . . etc. Uncle Linnaeus Tripe, a Captain in the East India Company, journeyed to Tamil Nadu in 1858 taking photographs as the official photographer to the Madras (now Chennai) Government. Two of the cities he visited were Tanjore (which I wrote about last time) and Madura. In particular, he photographed the great temple of Meenakshi in Madura along with the Madura Palace (aka Thirumalai Naickar Mahal). Since we were in the neighbourhood anyway, we decided to take a side trip to Madurai to try to capture some "then versus now" photographs and visit Uncle Linny's old stomping grounds.
 

As with Tanjore, the fact that I, a Tripe, was re-visiting the same grounds as another Tripe had, only 156 years later, is just amazing. And, to be standing in close to the same spot as he must have stood, gazing at the same scene (well, sort of) is a unique experience - I am so glad to have had the chance to do this and only wish all of us Tripe descendants could have been there together.
 

The Temple complex is, in a word, awesome! The sheer size (city blocks long on each side), complexity of the carving and art work and architecture are a tad overwhelming. If you add the crowds of people (the Pongal festival was in full swing, look up Pongal on Google) filling the narrow side streets in addition to the vendors spilling out onto the sidewalks and streets - it was both a bazaar and bizarre atmosphere. We walked to/from the temple complex on the day we arrived (Thursday, January 15 after lunch) and just drank in the hubbub. It was about a 25 minute walk to the complex and, if you add in all of the walking around the perimeter, we were nackered by the time we got back to the Hotel. It was good to stretch our legs after the drive from Pariyar, though.

 

Cousin Janet is the guru of Linny's travels and provided me with copies of his photographs, a map of the temple and palace complexes and a written thumb-nail sketch of each photo! Without them we would have been completely lost and this venture would not have been the success that it was. So, a huge THANK YOU. (By the way, the Ade family Aunty Marion, Uncle Harry, Barbara and Janet have done extensive 'Tripe' research over the years - documenting the Tripe family back to Devon, England a few hundred years ago.)
 

We decided to circumnavigate the complex on Thursday afternoon to get shots of the exterior and the Gopurums (aka towers) along with the temple entrance on the East side. Linny's photographs show a deserted countryside and interior shots devoid of humanity - either he had the countryside cleared or the population simply "wasn't" (I'm sure it's the latter). Today, the complex is surrounded by narrow streets and shops and humanity. To add to the photographer's problems, some of the interior is also filled with shops so duplicating Linny's shots isn't possible. In any case, we did pretty well on the exteriors. Oh, by the way, the temperature was a very pleasant 30C . . . it was 16C and overcast here in Mohali yesterday and we don't like it so much (I know, I know - it's -4C in TO so stop your complaining, Rob).

Photos: Map, Complex plan, Nos 17, 18 and 20 from Plan