The morning of 24th
Oct dawned bright and clear.. probably.. well, it was a bright and sunny day
and we will assume it did dawn so, I wouldn’t know for I was deep asleep then
;) Maami was the poruppana ponnu, she woke up at about 6.00 AM
and took her bath before myself and Nithi deigned to wake. Even 6.00 AM was a
late hour to wake up when you have to attend a South-Indian Muhurtham,
but thankfully for us, the auspicious hour was 9.00 –10.00 AM. We dressed up in
saris, adorned our trinkets and flowers and started to the mandapam.
Being the early bird, Maami had reached there a little earlier. Thendral
was quite ready and waiting for her muhurtha-pattu to be brought in.
The bride’s room was even
more fun-filled than the previous day, Gowri akka, anni and the
three of us pulled Thendral’s leg and she gave a good number of “natural”, read
blushing, poses for the photographer. Muhurtha pudavai, traditionally
given by the groom’s side was brought in and by 9.15 AM, Thendral was ready to
proceed to the manavarai.
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| With Mrs. & Mr. Durai Pandi |
We were quite ravenous by
now, but we knew from our experience at Baskar anna’s wedding that the
actual ritual lasted barely two minutes. So we couldn’t risk sneaking into the
dining hall. We loitered near the manavarai and clicked a few pictures.
Soon it was too crowded to click pictures and we did not want to stand right at
the front and block the view for the other guests. But Maami, our
never-say-die girl wouldn’t give up, she hopped on to the stage and squeezed in
beside the official photographer and clicked pictures. It was official now;
Miss Thendral Muthusamy was now Mrs Thendral Durai Pandi.
The elders and guests
lined up to bless the newly-wed couple. Thendral and Durai had quite a time
touching the elders' feet for blessings. We now looked around and spotted our
gang right at the very back of the hall. VP, Prasad, Vivek M.E(bar)@ Maapu, Muthu @ Solo, Baskar and
Vijayakumar senior were the MIT CS gang that had made it to the wedding. We had
already met the family people a few minutes before – Reemaa, Priya and their
respective husbands, Satish and his wife.
Pongal session started in full earnest. It started off
with deceptively mild how-are-you-s, and then progressively turned into riotous
fun. Our 8-point-someone Maapu M.E(bar/overline) , Maami, and unfortunately, me :( were the center of ootals. They wouldn’t
let me forget the seminar I had given at MIT a couple of days back, and I was
branded dhrohi :). Also, I will not deny that I thanked my stars our
8.5er Vivek M.E(bar) had missed the seminar. Finally, the crowd near the stage
thinned out a bit and we made our way to the stage, wished the couple and
handed over gifts.
Not the ones to miss a
feast, the guys had finished a good breakfast earlier. But we poor girls had no
such luck, so we insisted we finish our lunch before we made our next move. We
finished a delicious traditional Chettinadu lunch, and over ice creams,
we made plans to visit the famous Chettinadu palaces/mansions around
Karaikudi after a short stop at the hotel to freshen up.
A little past noon, all of
us with the exception of sincere Oracle’r Baskar were ready to explore the Chettinadu,
C/o our official guide, Muthu. We hired an auto and our convoy of auto and
Indica was on the road headed towards to the Chettinadu Royal Mansion of
Rajah Annamalai Chettiar’s lineage. The ride was fun; the winding road was well
laid and flanked by fields of cashew trees and other plants, no traffic and no
requirements for screeching braking.
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| Chettinadu Mansion |
Though often seen in
movies, the splendour of the mansion was still awe-inspiring. Two more or less
identical mansions stood side by side. One was being occupied by the members of
the extended family and was private. The other was generally open to public
viewing, but recently due to some reasons, it was closed. One needed
connections and recommendations to get in. Fortunately for us, our VP knew some
political VIP, or his father did, which was lucky for us. I doubt we would have
been able to get in otherwise.
As we stepped inside the
entrance gate, the first thing that struck us was the coolness of the place as
opposed to the scorching sun outside. We fell in love with the huge pillars,
the cool flooring tiles that were unique to Chettinadu and the massive
door under an ornate threshold immediately. All this before we had even stepped
in. Once inside, the main hall was a exhibition of sorts – huge portraits of
the eminent members of the family – all easily recognizable names, a man-sized
mirror flanked by a pair of huge ivory tusks polished to a shine, a smaller
mirror on a table flanked by a pair or minutely carved tusks, an elephant’s
preserved foot, many intricate wooden and metal sculptures, a showcase of
graduation-type gowns – this was after all the home of family that founded a
university, Annamalai University, and many other framed citations. When we had
finished gawking at the exhibits and the painted ceiling that was two floors
high and stained glass windows, we stepped over another huge threshold and we
were in the courtyard that was the trademark of Chettinadu style of
architecture.
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| Solo Muthu @ royal courtyard |
The concept of courtyards
is difficult to explain in words to someone not ethnically South-Indian, but I
do not think I need to spend too much time here. The courtyard was long with a
wide corridor running around it, from where doors opened into rooms on every side. The
building was two-storeyed and we made our way up the stairs to the upper
corridor that housed the private quarters of the senior members of the family.
The rooms were locked and the police guard informed us that some valuable items
were locked in there. Good thing the stunt Vivek and Prasad tried did not
trigger the burglar alarms fitted on the doors.
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| Stunt |
Leading from the first
courtyard was another courtyard. These courtyards were where the photo sessions
started :) Vivek was keen on his mission of “no-solos” and
Prasad would very obligingly click pictures of someone, then instruct that
person to click a similar picture of him. :)
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| Nattaama... |
Our next stop was at
Kalathupalayam. For that ride we abandoned our auto and rode in the Innova that
our VIP escort had provided. The AC ride was a pleasant interlude after the anal-kathu
ride earlier. The facade of the mansion was not too promising except for
the 3D effect sculpture above the main doorway. But the minute we stepped in,
we were impressed even more than we had been with the Chettinadu
mansion. The main hall here was blank and we could admire the tiles and ceiling
better. This house had an upper corridor to the main hall as well. The bonus
here was that one of the rooms was open. It had a huge cot and dressing table.
The cot had a kind of rotating apparatus with a mirror on one side and a
painting on another at both ends. The ceiling was of wood and the wood
everywhere was beautifully polished.
Next we explored the
courtyard. Here our Chettinadu-karan Muthu explained the use of
this courtyard for weddings and pujas. The photo session here was centred
around the pillars and was great fun. From the upper corridors, there was a
provision to go to the open terrace as well. Standing on the terrace, we saw
palatial mansions on every side – some inhabited, some locked, all in the same
style –built around courtyards, but each had it’s own unique features we were
told.
Now our guide was starting
to get tensed as we were getting late, his endearments urging us to finish our
photo-shoots faster fell on deaf ears. Finally, he managed to shoo us out of
the house and we went on to Athangudi.
Muthu was related to one
of the owners of the Athangudi house and this was where he had spent most of
his childhood vacations. We even got to see his childhood cricket pitch in the
entrance verandah of the house and the “stumps” drawn on the wall :)
While the previous
mansions had been purely Indian, this house had some elements of Anglo-Roman
architecture – some of the wall paintings had modern elements like trains, etc
and were often flanked by baby angels with wings and such. The intricacy of
paintings and tiles was more pronounced here and the doors had mirror and inlay
work in them. Each hall had a story painted as a mural series in the arches
above the windows. Some of the paintings were pointed out as made of
herbal-based paints. To the right and left of the courtyard, apart from the
rooms, there opened a long room running the entire length of the house,
presumably a dining hall for the functions and festivals. We could almost
imagine long lines of men and women dining there on banana leaves, enjoying a
traditional Chettinadu feast.
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| Fun at Athangudi house |
We couldn’t help but
wonder at how such huge mansions had been lived in and maintained. In earlier
days, there would have probably been a bustling life there with people
occupying almost all parts of the house. Now, the members of the family stayed
in smaller quarters on either sides of the main mansion.
Our “palace” tour done, we
sauntered to the tea-shop next door and sipped hot tea. Our “cheers” picture
with the plastic and glass tumblers invited a few laughs, but then, when
have we cared about all that? :)
Our time at Karaikudi was
almost up, atleast for us girls. I had to board the bus to Bangalore at 8.45
and Nithi and Indu had to catch their train at 8.30. The guys bound to Chennai
had till 11 pm before they had to get on their train. So we had barely 2.5
hours to pack up, visit Muthu’s place, have dinner and start. Also, Nithi had
to visit her periappa’s house and I wanted to visit one of our senior’s
house nearby.
We packed at top speed and
then Nithi rushed to her uncle’s place and I walked down to Ananthu senior’s
home that was just down the lane. I had never met his parents earlier, but he
had called ahead to say I was coming. Uncle and Aunty were easy to talk to and
I had a good time chatting with them about MIT, senior and his friends, etc.
Uncle showed me albums – family albums, and albums that senior had, they were
fun to look at, especially those of MIT days. We even spotted a couple of pics
of me in my first year :) I wish I had more time to look at all the albums
at leisure, but we were pressed for time and I had already gotten a call from
Nithi to get back soon as we were running late. So I said my byes and rushed
back to the hotel room.
With just an hour and half
to go, we reached Muthu’s house that was again only a hundred metres or so from
our hotel. Muthu’s home was a charming house of traditional Chettinadu
architecture. We looked around the house and saw an album of his younger days –
we couldn’t resist clicking a picture of one or two photos in the album :) We hardly had any time to spend there. Aunty
served us girls dinner while VP and Muthu went to get the famous Karaikudi kaimurukku
for all of us to carry home. I have said a lot here about the food already,
but I cannot leave out Aunty’s excellent dinner preparation. Sweet sevai,
idli and kolumbu were simply heavenly. As we chatted, Aunty kept
replenishing our plates and we had to plead that we really couldn’t have more before she stopped serving us :) Dinner done, we
got our blessings from Muthu’s patti and bade our goodbyes to Uncle,
Aunty and Muthu’s brother Natchiappan and left.
Nithi and Indu were in a
hurry now as it was over 8.00 PM. They rushed to the station. I lugged my bags
down more slowly and made my way to the ABT office just across the road,
bidding goodbye to the guys. Baskar finally materialized out of his hotel room
and appeared at the ABT office as well.
Thendral’s friends from Siemens, Gowri akka, Saravanan anna, Baskar and myself stood around chatting with Baskar anna for a few minutes. We got on the bus and much to the despair of Gowri akka, Baskar was in the seat right before her. And he faithfully promised to do his best to keep her awake with his telephonic-working that night as well :) Thankfully, for both of us, he did not have to take a call that night. Narayana, Janani and myself chatted for a while till we reached Trichy at about 11 PM. Divya, who was feeling queasy, had also recovered by then and slowly we drifted off to sleep.
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