22 Aug Thrivikramji on A Rameswaram Ramanasramam trip with Geetha

My wife Geetha is walking slowly toward the south tower gate-gopuram of Meenakshi Temple Madurai. It is after a late night sleep in the Railway dormitory or equivalent in the station that we started walking to the temple.

Meenakshi Temple gopuram plus the tall compound with vertical white cherry red stripes – In fact this decoration on the compound is unique to the temples of Tamil Nadu. It had been copies by others in t he neighbouring states also.

Meenakshi Temple gopuram gets painted like this quite regularly but periodically. I do not like this personally. Point is it is very difficult to fgure out the figures or figurines adorning the free exterior space of gopuram.

Meenakshi Temple- another shot. There are two sets of compound walls and two sets of four gopurams each. Quite a bit of money was spend on those days to create this food-for-work like mission of wealthy led by the local ruler.

This pillayar -ganapthy- is the first stop inside the temple for the visitors but not the workers/staff.

Camera looking thru the window at the scenes on our way to Chennai from Rameswaram. I suppose train left Rameswaram aroound 5 O’clock in the evening

The solid objects projecting out of the sea water and along a line is the ruins of a road-cum-rail bridge washed away in a sea-storm in mid-Dec.1964. We as students were camping in Tadapatri (south AP) with Dr Raju Philip, read about it in News paper, on the following a day – a sunday

The New concrete pier of the modern road bridge. Delhi Metro Sreedharan was involved in the construction group. GSI did the marine survey for the alignment according C. Karunakaran, the DGGSI.

Closer up view. No one can stop EB putting up power lines and luminaries, often at the coast of the view of such historic and archaeologically important structures in our country.

Another tower – another view. In fact there are two sets of compounds and four gopurams each in both.

Ceiling painting was a favorite pastime of Michaelangelo.
Out yestercarafts men made the carvings and lifted the stone slabs up above to decorate.

This old man perhaps takes a break after the visit to the asramam. They serve three free meals a day to the visitors.
In fact we are in side the main entrance. On t he right side is inquiry/reception etc

A geologically interesting scene. A crystalline rock ridge is covered with rectangular boulders with the corners and edges unsharp. Dominantly a work of physical weathering. This is only one site in the ridge others follow. If you took a bus from Villipura to Thiruannamalai u will notice this on your right side more than half ways from Vilippuram.

A geologically interesting scene. A crystalline rock ridge is covered with rectangular boulders with the corners and edges unsharp. Dominantly a work of physical weathering. This is only one site in the ridge others follow. If you took a bus from Villipura to Thiruannamalai u will notice this on your right side more than half ways from Vilippuram.

This circular interchange near Villipuram is a smart way of speeding the flow of traffic. Kerala engineers are yet to learn THESE BASICS of road building.

You cross this Bridge across a ephemeral river -Pennar (?)- on your trip to Chennai from Thiruannamalai.
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