Ramayan Revisited

Devika Rajan meanders through Rameshwaram hailed as the Varanasi of the South as she heads for the southernmost tip of India

Scanning the Atlas and tracing the outline of the south eastern portion of peninsular India will resemble a human face dreamily looking towards the Indian Ocean, as if God, while creating the world, had doodled idly. And in this imagery of the mind, the place where that flaccid lower lip seems to stick out - below a straight well-defined nose - is the location of Rameshwaram, one of the scores of temple towns dotting Tamil Nadu. Google Earth vividly brought back the excitement of my days in the sun on that conch-shaped island in the Palk Straits as I zoomed in on Rameshwaram, enlarging its outline in the Gulf of Mannar, to completely fill up my computer screen. Why, I could even see the breakers on-line! Located here is also the evocatively named town of Dhanushkodi - named after Sri Rama's bow. Actually it is hardly a town today, just a 'place', a location of shimmering sand, a few straggly huts of hardy fisher folk, and a pristine ocean that has been known to rage. The remains of the old railway station is a mute testimony to the ocean’s fury, as a cyclone in 1964 wiped out an entire township with a death toll of more than a thousand. But what we saw were the waters peacefully lapping against the shores.

It was on a short visit to the temple city of Madurai that we decided to fan out and see a few more of the well-known temples of South India, each one easily accessible as a day trip from Madurai. So we found ourselves on the road to Rameshwaram on a pleasant sunny day in August. Sam, our friendly driver hailing from Madurai was just the right person to take us around on this jaunt as he was familiar with almost each and every road in the region.

We left Madurai at seven in the morning, and drove three hours through the towns and countryside of southern Tamil Nadu, before we reached Ramanathapuram district and the bridge that connects Rameshwaram to the mainland. The landscape here is white and green and light brown - the colours of the sand and the casuarina trees. In fact there was a sand-laden feel about the whole place with everything from the road, our car tyres, as well as the tree trunks being covered in gritty white.

Our first stop was, of course, the famous Rama temple, unique in many aspects. It is a temple where an avatar of Vishnu had worshiped Lord Shiva. As the legend goes, Rama after defeating Ravana prayed to Shiva to absolve himself of the sin of having killed the demon-king. The presiding deity in the temple is therefore Shiva. Shivaites venerate this temple, as it houses one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, and Vaishnavites worship here, as the location marks important happenings in the travels of Rama in pursuit of Ravana. (Did you know that 'Ramayana' means 'The travels of Rama'?) As a matter of fact several places in and around Rameshwaram are connected with events celebrated in the Ramayana.

The temple itself is spacious with the largest temple corridor found anywhere in India, and has tall imposing pillars adorning its interior. It was sheer coincidence that our visit to Rameshwaram was on an auspicious day of Aadi Amavaasi, the new moon day in the Tamil month of Aadi, when people propitiate their ancestors. Personally, I prefer to avoid temple visits on such days, as I am wary of the crowds that congregate. As expected it was crowded, and to some extent this marred the peace of walking through its normally quiet corridors. But the throng was nothing compared to the suffocation and pushing amidst a vast sea of humanity that occurs on a 'normal' day in a temple like Tirupati. We stood in the queue snaking its way through the corridor outside the sanctum sanctorum. It was interesting to look at the pictorial depiction - with captions given also in English, apart from Tamil - of the events that connected Sri Rama to this location, and were celebrated by the construction of the temple. This construction is said to have started in the twelfth century and continued for several years.

We must have spent a little more than an hour in the temple. Just outside were the stalls selling trinkets and brightly coloured framed pictures of the entire Hindu pantheon. The smell of camphor and agarbatti, the colours of saffron and chandan, bright ribbons and ornaments, plastic imitation garlands along with real jasmine and jamandi, all mingled with the sight of the ubiquitous Indian spitting nonchalantly. How that pastiche of sights and sounds attracted and repulsed! The clamour, the hustle and bustle - like any other pilgrim centre - so much like home, and so different from the anaesthetised regularity of a metro, say Singapore!

From the temple we went for a short spin along the winding roads of the town, a little more crowded than usual. While taking a turn, Sam slowed down before a house with a neat, freshly painted facade, to inform us that this was the home of the president, Shri. Abdul Kalam. An elderly gentleman sat in the verandah looking out at the world. Sam told us that this was the president's older brother, and we could, if we wished, step out and greet him. We declined, out of respect for the gentleman. We did not wish to intrude into the peace of his afternoon.

Our next stop was the Kodandarama temple. We drove a distance of around fifteen minutes to reach there. This is also an ancient temple, now being restored - all scaffolding and building material lying around. It also has an exciting and interesting legend attached to it. This is the spot where Ravana's brother, Vibhishana, is said to have welcomed and surrendered to Sri Rama and in turn was crowned King of Lanka by Rama. The idols here include those of Rama, Vibhishana, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman.

Our next stop was Dhanushkodi. Time was running out. We needed to get back to Madurai by evening to watch the sound and light show there. But I didn't want to miss Dhanushkodi for anything, as it was land’s end. We drove literally to the end of the road, and then stopped. The sandy beach stretched before us. Our car couldn't go further as its wheels would sink into the mud. The only way to proceed was to take a ride in one of the four-wheel-drive open jeeps that went across to deliver provisions to the few fisher folk who lived there. A sum of Rs.30 could get us enough feet-space in it. But we were informed that we'd have to wait for more passengers, as the trip would not be profitable for them, unless they packed in as many persons as they could. Sensing our urgency, the driver of the van suggested that if we paid Rs. 700 he would take us across immediately. Feeling like a petty Sultan of Brunei, I agreed to the proposal, and unlike the Sultan, haggled to bring down the price a bit, and we set off.

Rocking and rolling in the sands the jeep proceeded, the wind gustily blowing against us. The sun blazed, the sands gleamed, and we travelled around twenty minutes across it. We saw the ruins of the railway station that had been destroyed in the cyclone of 1964 (a train had been washed away from the bridge in that tragedy), and the huts of a few who still continued to live there, so far and yet so close to 'civilisation'. And then we reached land's end. The water was warm and placid, the ocean mingling with the water of the bay. The sand bars (named Adam's Bridge by the Englishman) leading, just twenty-four kilometres away, to Sri Lanka, looked inviting. As if one could just run across them to reach a foreign shore. And I was back in the romance of our legends. Imagining Sri Rama and his monkey army building that bridge to Lanka. Remembering the story of the squirrel, who also contributed his mite, and was patted by Rama, leaving the imprint of his fingers on its back in the form of the three lines that are normally seen on a squirrel's back. We walked knee deep into the water and splashed around in sheer glee. I was taken over by the joy of the moment, and spontaneously closed my eyes in prayer to my ancestors, a line that must go back to the very beginning of time, I imagined. And looking eastward, I cupped a handful of water and poured it back into the ocean at head height. We left almost unwillingly when summoned to board our jeep. Reaching the road we found that the wheels of our parked car had sunk into the sand. With some help from a couple of willing urchins, we heaved it onto firmer terrain to enable us to bid a reluctant good-bye to this most unusual of places.