Vandiyur Mariamman Teppakkalum

---

They call it a temple pond. But it is no small pond. Vandiyur Mariamman Teppakkulum is about one km around its red and white striped perimeter walls that enclose an excavation of about 16 acres. A smooth slabbed surface circling it makes for a good walk. Everyone else had the same idea one cloudy morning as I wandered around the structure.

King Thirumalai Nayakkar excavated the soil in this area, it is said, to make the bricks for Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace. This was back in 1645 AD. Twelve staircases around the four sides descend into the tank. People can go down the stairs to the bottom to play cricket or to walk to the central mandapam that supports a temple and garden.

Now the floor of the tank is dry, but soon waters from the nearby Vaigai River will flow though some of the original underground channels to fill the tank in preparation for the annual float festival. The Goddess Meenakshi and her consort Lord Sundareshwarar, housed at Meenakshi Amman Temple, will be carried there on floats and paraded around the tank. The colorful festival attracts many.

I had to settle for watching the cricket players and a cow grazing in its verdant growth, and meeting people enjoying or doing work in the area that morning.

First, three guys from Rajasthan begged me to take their photograph.“Why are you here?” I asked, knowing they were far from their home in the north.

They motioned to a cart of woven fabrics. “Business,” they replied.

I wished them luck, and then met a man who watched me take a photograph. We exchanged pleasantries, and then I met a shy boy on a bicycle who tried out his English and posed for his photo.

As I contemplated a stone relief carving of a fish with an elephant trunk on one of the staircases, I noticed two young cows in the busy street, standing as motorcycles buzzed around them. A man on a scooter stopped on the side, went to the cows and waved them out of the road to safety.

Then I found men dyeing masses of threads in rich red dye, repeatedly dipping and wringing out the bundles. Four of the men did a dance of sorts, weaving among each other, stretching out and sorting a bundle of long threads, keeping its length ordered and tangle-free as one of the men wound a skein around his arms. They were all very focused on their work—one misstep could create a tangled mess, and destroy their progress.

My host told me later they were Saurashtra men, whose traditional work was weaving cotton and silk cloth. The Saurashtra people migrated from a region in Gujarat, perhaps starting eight centuries back, with many coming to Tamil Nadu and many settling specifically in Madurai. One source said they were employed by the Nayak Kings as official palace weavers in Madurai. Today they may constitute from one fifth to one fourth of Madurai’s total population. In their homes, most still speak their Indo-Aryan derived Saurashtra language—which has been influenced by all the regions that the migrants passed through over the centuries. The written script is rarely used. They also speak Tamil, a Dravidian language, of far different origins.

The ten or so men pounded stakes in the ground, and pulled on the wood scaffolds that stretched the fibers tightly. They strung the bundles of warp threads, probably silk, reaching 50 meters or so over horizontal supports to dry in the sun. They would later, I guessed, weave these into saris. They were careful to keep the material off the dusty ground. I wondered how long they would be there, waiting for their dyed threads to dry, and did they come to that spot everyday, just beyond the walls of the teppukkulam. Others may have wondered the same, because they stopped also to watch the men go about their work.

Vandiyur Mariamman Teppukkulam seems to be a gathering place for everyone. There is the casual walker trying to shed a few excess pounds and who barely notices the street cows and the vendors from the north. And there are the men whose ancestry originated in the north, but who now call Madurai their home, where they carry on their traditional culture, language, and work.

Then there is the stray tourist such as myself, much like a cow, I suppose, who stumbles around the tank, snapping photos of walls and four legged cows and bundles of thread, and feeling very much a part of life around the teppakkulaum that particular morning.

---