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Published: March 19th 2023
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Rameshwaram-Madurai-Kodaikanal: November-2022
Out of five major temples in the Southern India, we had visited two: Tirupati-Balaji and Kanniyakumari. We missed Padmanabhaswami temple in Thiruvanathapuram due to planning error.
We have been to Ooty, Munnar and Thekkady hill stations of South India. Ooty with Bengaluru-Mysuru and Munnar – Thekkady as a part of Kerala tour.
In this short tour of five days, we went to Rameshwaram (a Jyotirlinga and one of the Char Dhams of India), the famous Minaxi temple of Madurai and Kodaikanal hill station. Rameshwaram can be approached from Chennai or Madurai – almost the same distance. Kodaikanal can be approached from Madurai or Bengaluru. Clubbing Rameshwaram, Madurai and Kodaikanal thus make sense.
Setting up itinerary for this trip was a bit tricky. Rameshwaram and Minaxi temple are very busy temples and the rush is unpredictable. It may take any where from 2-12 hours to complete the darshan at these temples. It also depends on your level of Bhakti / devotion. Moreover, travel time between two places in India is highly variable for the same distance. You cannot be sure about the road conditions on a given day. The time estimates given by Google are therefore
approximate only. Fortunately for us, both, waiting time for darshan and travel time between places happened to be highly favorable and hence the trip went very smoothly.
Day-1: Rameshwaram: Flew from Ahmedabad to Madurai and landed there at around 1:30 pm. We had booked taxi for two days (Savaari.com) for Rameshwaram part. For 350 Km round trip, two-day taxi is a bit expensive, but that is the best option – one day is not enough. One can go to Rameshwaram by train also – from Madurai.
Madurai – Rameshwaram road was excellent and it took only 3½-4 hrs of driving for 175 km.
Rameshwaram town is situated on Pamban Island. Pamban island is connected with the mainland India through Pamban Bridge – one for the railway and the other for the road traffic. Pamban Railway bridge is famous as the longest bridge (2014 meters) across the water body (sea) in India and it is more than a hundred years old. It must be a hair-raising experience to cross the rickety bridge by train running at a snail’s pace for two kilometers – surrounded by water! Middle portion of the bridge was originally designed to fold-up for
passage of ships under it. Now that function is not operative and the whole new railway bridge is under construction.
For this trip, we had booked all our hotel stays in advance through Booking.com and we had given preference to proximity to the temples / center of the town for hotel selection. Overall, this proved to be a very good idea, with small hiccups – at Rameshwaram. Hotel booking in advance has its advantages and disadvantages. Main disadvantage is the quality of room and services are almost impossible to judge from the website descriptions and even rate structure. There is no standardization in rating or labelling the rooms as ‘deluxe’ or ‘super-deluxe’ etc. Hotel Saara at Rameshwaram was at a walking distance from two main places to be visited in Rameshwaram – the Agni-Tirtham and the Ramanathaswami temple. The approach road to this hotel is extremely narrow and almost impossible for a car to pass through. Hotel itself is quite ordinary. Looking at my reaction, the hotelier reduced the rate on his own! But it served extremely good breakfast next day morning!
The ritual for darshan at the Ramanathaswami temple is: first bathe at Agni-Tirtham. Agni-Tirtham is shallow
(and dirty) waters of the sea. Then, with wet clothes walk to the temple (about 200 meters), have ‘bath’ at each of the 24 ‘kunds’ (tanks) in the temple periphery (the volunteers pour a mug of water on you), then bathe again (if still feeling dirty from sea water) and change the clothes (where??!!!!) and then enter the main temple. All around the temple, there are ‘shops’ for bathing and changing clothes! People have found a business opportunity from the religious ritual.
At the entrance of the temple, there is no arrangement for keeping your shoes or your mobile, purse etc. Either you leave them at the hotel or use special exclusive ‘shops’ with locker facilities. Another business opportunity provided by the temple!
We went for darshan without bathing at Agni-Tirtham or at the 24 ‘kunds’ foregoing part of the blessings of lord Ramnathaswami.
Rameshwaram is a part of the four Dhams (major pilgrimage places) of India: Badrinath (Uttarakhand), Dwarika (Gujarat), Rameshwaram (Tamilnadu) and Jagannath-Puri (Odisha). Char Dham of India and Char Dham of Uttarakhand are different. Char Dham of Uttarakhand include Yamunotri-Gongotri-Kedarnath-Badrinath. After Rameshwaram, Jagannath-Puri remains for us.
Rameshwaram is also one of the 12
Jyotirlingas. For me it was a visit to 5
th Jyotirlinga – after Somnath, Nageshwar (both in Gujarat), Kedarnath (Uttarakhand) and Mahakaleshwar (Ujjain – MP).
The temple complex is huge – 850x650 feet. The temple is nearly 900 yrs old with large part of it renovated in the 17
th century. There are more than 1200 pillars, each with exquisite carvings. It is impossible to see and appreciate the beauty and the complexity of the temple architecture for two simple (and rather unfortunate) reasons: Temple is very poorly lighted. May be because we had visited the temple in the evening, but it is unlikely to be much brighter in the day time because the structure is such. Secondly, once you enter the temple complex, you become part of a frenzied crowd, a sea of humanity moving towards the center of the temple (for darshan). Either you enter the larger maize of the queue system or pay Rs. 200/- per person (the counter was difficult to find) and join a smaller maize of queue system. We joined the smaller system (paid darshan) and therefore had the fortune of completing the darshan in about 1 ½ hours (only). Of course, the time available
for actual darshan was less than 30 seconds. It is the same story everywhere at all the ‘major’ (popular deities?) temples across the country. There are supposed to be two ‘lingas’ – one installed by Rama (or Sita?) and the other brought by Hanumana from Kailash. I am not sure which one or how many I saw.
Mission accomplished. Dinner at a road-side restaurant, we did not have energy left to search for a better one.
We had ideas of going again to the Agni-Tirtham early next day morning.
Day-2: Dhanushkodi At around 5 o’clock there was a lot of noise and commotion outside the hotel. Sun rises early in Southern parts. Masses of people were moving towards Agni-Tirtham for bath! We dropped the idea of going to Agni-Tirtham early in the morning because we were already late!
We had an excellent South Indian breakfast and then joined the crowd going towards Agni-Tirtham. The road was full of water and puddles. Initially we thought, it must have rained during night. But no, it was the water brought by dripping people, returning after bath in the sea! We had the feel of the atmosphere for early
Darshan at the temple, but did not venture in again.
Other places of interest in Rameshwaram include: Panch-Mukhi Hanuman, Gandhamanthan Parvatham, Ram-Setu at Dhanushkodi and the remains of Dhanushkodi village, and APJ Abdul Kalam Memorial.
We had glimpse of Panch-Mukhi Hanuman while sitting in the car, omitted Gandhamanthan Parvatham as moving around in the Rameshwaram town is very time consuming – due to narrow roads and one-way traffic.
Reached Dhanushkodi (about 20 Km from Rameshwaram) around 10 am and even in the last week of November, it was already quite hot. A very narrow strip of land now remains that connects Dhanushkodi village and Pamban island. Prior to 1964, it even had railway connectivity. In a devastating cyclone in 1964, the Dhanushkodi village was wiped out of existence along with a train carrying passengers. Now it is called ‘ghost’ village. Remains of a church, a post office and railway station can still be seen. The last point on the road leading to the tip of the narrow land strip is of tourist attraction as well as of mythological significance. It is said that from this very point the Ram-Setu started. It was built by the vanar-sena of
Rama, for crossing over to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is only about 20 Km from this point.
Last stop in Rameshwaram for us was at APJ Abdul Kalam Memorial which is in fact located just before entering Rameshwaram (from Madurai). The memorial is good, but appeared to have been created in haste.
Reached Madurai for late lunch.
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