Classic

This is one of the first images of Mamallapuram that one encountered as a school-kid a few decades ago. The state-government-supplied school notebooks had a closer view of the two elephants on its cover; I don't remember that series of notebooks as having anything else of 'Mahabs'. And for many years, this was the closest that one got to Mahabalipuram / Mahabs in school. Roughly 60 km south of Chennai, this seashore town was not easy to access in the 70s and early 80s; a visit there meant the whole day would have to be budgeted for. Mahabs has become closer these days. One can set out early in the morning and be back home for lunch. But with so many more dining options available all the way between Chennai and Mamallapuram, it is not easy to get back home for lunch. Somehow, one gets the feeling that such ease of access has made us rather blasé about this - it was among the first in India to be inscribed in UNESCO's List - World Heritage Site. 

This particular structure was commissioned by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman (Mamallan) to celebrate his victory over Pulakesi of the Chalukyas in the late 7th century CE. (The shore temple, also part of the UNESCO list, was built later, in the 8th century). Strangely though, the popular names for this do not have any reference to Mamallan's victory. A natural cleft in the rock, around which most of the figures have been chiseled, allowed water to gush through during the monsoons (There is supposedly a tank at the top of the cleft, but I believe that to be a more modern addition; I'm willing to be corrected, though!), giving this its international name: the Descent of the Ganges. A hermit-like figure, standing on one leg, arms raised in prayer could then be Bhagirata, whose unflinching austerities convinced Ganga to come down to earth. But then, Siva seems to also have the Pashupatastra with him, so that sage might also depict Arjuna supplicating Siva for that weapon; hence, we know this also as Arjuna's Penance. 

Siva, Bhagirata/Arjuna, Ganga, the elephants; these are just few of the images. With over 100 other individual bas-relief sculptures making up this monument, there are possibly a lot of stories that can be extracted from them. The guides at Mamallapuram will happily tell you a whole lot of them - and with a little bit of imagination, you possibly can, too. The presence of a lot of frolicking monkeys nudges me to think of the Tirukutrala Kuravanji, no matter that it came about a millennium later!

Going Dutch

If, as they say, Madharasapatnam was the original name of the city that was once called Madras, what would you imagine Sadurangapattinam was known as? Even though it was not the British who discovered this place, their fellow colonists adapted this town's name, referring to it as Sadras, before settling down to build a fort to protect their factory here.

Even though it was the Dutch who took the lead (after the Portuguese, of course) in building trading settlements along the east coast, they discovered Sadras about a decade after Cogan and Day had set up their factory at Madras. The Sadras Fort was set up in 1648. Compared to Fort St George, this fort at Sadras is a very spartan affair; thin redbricks packed in place with mud seems to have been the default option for the walls of the Sadras Fort and buildings inside it. Very few of those buildings remain standing; those that do seem to have served as warehouses or granaries. There is also a dilapidated elephant mounting (or loading?) station. But for the most part, the space enclosed by the fort's walls is bare and the walls themselves do not look like they could survive a sustained onslaught.

And the fort gate. Unlike Fort St George, with its multiple gates, the Sadras Fort has only one, on the landward side. It is quite easily accessed from the road; the two cannons at the gate remind you it was once a much coveted spot, which moved from Dutch hands to the British in the early 19th century and remained with them until 1947. Today, there are no tourists here. The ASI does a fair job of keeping it the way it is. It is likely that the bulk of the visitors to this fort would be folks who come to the nearby Madras Atomic Power Station, who look up to the two bastions on the seaward side and take the effort to explore the other side!

 

Getting away

Mahabalipuram is not far off and it is a good drive; along the East Coast Road, the signs talk about a 'Scenic Drive' - and the toll booth also welcomes you to the "ECR Scenic Beachway". If you are a passenger, good for you, you can enjoy the view. 

But if you are the driver, you had better keep your eyes on the road. Not only is there a lot of traffic on the road, there will likely be a lot of it moving across the road as well!

Marker stones

Everyone knows that, over the years, Madras became smaller and smaller. First, it was the Madras Presidency, lording over almost the entire east coast of India, going all the way up to what is today the Ganjam district of Odisha; and then on the west coast, the Malabar and Canara regions, with the kingdoms of Travancore, Cochin and Mysore popping up like chocolate chips in the cookie, leaping across the waters to keep the Laccadive Islands in its folds.... Madras was grand. After independence, it was the Madras State, which lasted for a rather short term before the states reorganization in 1956 left it pretty much with the current outline of Tamil Nadu State. That re-naming of the state happened in 1969, leaving Madras as the name of its capital city.

And then, in 1996, there was no more Madras. Not as a geographical location. Chennai is nearly a generation old. But the name keeps popping up in different places. The two stones in this picture are from what is today the Radisson Blu Resort's Temple Bay at Mamallapuram. When it was first built, it was a government Guest House, later given over to the ITDC to build a five star hotel in the late 1960s. The ITDC's Temple Bay Ashok was much later privatised and passed through different hands before ending up in its current avatar. 

Somehow, it is nice that these stones from the original building have been preserved; I am fairly sure this was not their original positioning, but even if it was, it is nice to see how it has been blended in with the new layout. Coming upon these stones, one stops short, surprised at being yanked back in time in what one thought was a contemporary hotel! 

Merry go-round

In real-life, this looks a bit tacky, but the picture has somehow caught the light inside the carousel's centrepiece and makes it look good. At MGM Dizzee World

Backwaters

Like the Chennai Central or the LIC Building, this bridge is a movie star, too. Unlike them, this did not establish a location, or even indicate that it is part of any city. It was a location of choice for jumping into the river/sea; at low tide, the waters are shallow enough to allow people to walk - if you know the path, of course.

A long time ago, the Tamil Nadu Tourism department showed quite a bit of foresight in setting up a boathouse here. It was fun to take a spin in the backwaters, going up towards the Bay of Bengal and then ducking back under the bridge. It appeared to be a secret, known to only a few people, for the vast majority would rush over the bridge, intent on getting to Mamallapuram or Kovalam, or wherever it is they were going, hardly sparing a glance to the boathouse on their right.

Not any more. There are always vehicles milling around the north end of the bridge, as tourists try to get the best parking spots while they go down for a boat ride. The possiblity of accidents, which were earlier much higher in the water - and there were quite a few fatal ones - are now loaded towards the land. Thankfully, they'd just end up with a few bumps and dings, rather than being life threatening!

Pay your way

In the early- and mid-80s, one went to 'Mahabs' through the road that got out of the city just after Tiruvanmiyur. It had no name in particular, it was just the best way to go to Mahabalipuram, or Mamallapuram as it was getting to be known as. Tiruvanmiyur was as far as the city reached, and once past the Marudeeswarar Temple, it was fun to go past all those little fishing - or trading - villages along the coast: Kotivakkam, Palavakkam, Neelankarai, Injambakkam, Uthandi, Muthukadu and Kovalam, on to Mahabalipuram. It was a nice route to go through, even if the road itself wasn't much more than a series of village-to-village tar strips and it became popular enough for the 'proper' road to Mahabalipuram came to be called the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR, now recently renamed Rajiv Gandhi Salai). With popularity came traffic and the village roads were not equipped to handle the volumes; even buses to Pondicherry forsook the OMR for the drive by the beaches. By the mid-90s, there was hardly any road left.

It was in 1998 that the whole stretch from Chennai to Cuddalore, through Pondicherry, was taken under the newly set up Tamil Nadu Road Development Company Ltd (TNRDC) and named the East Coast Road (ECR). The TNRDC probably did not worry about upkeep of the road when it first built it; it was only in 2000 that they were given the mandate of maintaining the road also. Even in the intervening two years, the ECR had degenerated, simply because nobody had cared about its upkeep. After another year of repairs and upgradations, the TNRDC began its toll collections on the ECR from March 24, 2002.

I haven't heard too many cribs about the toll rates, mainly because 2-wheelers are exempt from the toll. Of course, if you are only going to the Ragas Dental College, which is just on the other side of this toll plaza, you would certainly crib about paying Rs.45 for a return trip of about 200 metres!

Shore temple

It is criminal to visit a World Heritage Site without a camera; I got away with it because my cell phone has a decent one! Had gone to Mamallapuram on Sunday, the trip being inspired by friends visiting Chennai. As we walked around the monuments, I realized it was the first time that I was seeing the Shore Temple after the tsunami of December 2004.

The name of this town, about 60km from Chennai, is a tribute to King Narasimhavarma Pallavan's prowess as a wrestler ('Maha Mallan' = great wrestler). This tribute is a recent one, dating from the second half of the 20th century. For hundreds of years after King Narasimhavarman, the town was called Mahabalipuram, and is identified by that name in UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. But Mahabalipuram calls to mind a religious myth and the atheistic political climate of the 1960s could not stand such a reference: a more local heritage needed to be honoured. (Some scholars believe that the Pallavas were originally the Pahlavas of Persia, but that's too tenuous a connection, so Mamallapuram satisfies requirements of local heritage).

The shore temple is magnificent, built on bedrock that rises from the sea. It is believed that there were once 6 such others - but the earliest documentation of this is from 1798, when John Goldingham, later to be the first official astronomer of the Madras Observatory, wrote down the local legends he heard. The tsunami of 2004 provided a tantalising glimpse of what might be: some who were on the beach when the sea withdrew reported sightings of another temple, and a stone lion was uncovered when the sands were washed off from it. The Archeological Survey of India does not have any recent update on its post-tsunami investigations. Until they find - and then manage to relocate to the surface - another temple, the Shore Temple will remain a singular monument!