Trip to Vanamamalai / Thirukkurunkudi.. June 2019

The girls trip to Tirunelveli

Most of you may wonder why a trip to Tirunelveli, when the whole world is busy going to Bangkok, Cambodia, Europe and other seemingly exciting places . Well, there is a very logical explanation to it too. The girls involved were just three cousins sisters all of whom have their ancestral town as Madurai and one cousin who hails from Tirunelveli. Tirunelveli was decided upon as we wanted to do a trek up the Kalakkad forest reserve situated in Mahendragiri mountains.

As we embarked upon this and booked our tickets, excitement set in and the day finally dawned when we cabbed it to Egmore station and bought ourselves dinner from A2B. 
  
                       

Seated in our coach,  we did a general catching up on all fronts ,reminiscing and looking back in years to our childhood days. Suffice it to say that we goggled like teens and laughed in gay merriment and lost all our years in our laughter, slept like babies and woke up fresh to a nice day ,to be welcomed in the station by a car and a driver so courteous  that we felt he was family. He is Mr Muppadathan ,he can be contacted at +91 9486363080.

On arriving at our destination Nanguneri  or Vanamamalai as it is called, the small charming town welcomed us with plenty of greenery and banana farms. Mr Kannan who is a paternal uncle to one of us, greeted us warmly. His wife is a charmer and incredibly warm hostess, she had hot idlis ready and directed us to bathe soon and be on our way to Thirukurungudi.

It is worth mentioning that having a bath straight from the well was as refreshing as the rains , coming from a water starved city like Chennai we could not stop pouring the sweet fresh water on ourselves ,especially drawn from the well.

As we drove by the same car to Thirukurungudi, we were told of this place ......This temple was built overnight by aliens who are still believed to be hovering around this temple, guarding it.

As we saw the temple elephant being bathed , we also saw the mahout talk to his pet elephant chiding him for putting his big foot in thorns.  The deities in this temple were all made of Kalabham and not black stone. Hence the Lord was green with red lips and looked absolutely stunning.

It is from here we had to go uphill on our trek through Kalakaadu forest reserves, but we were dissuaded from walking up so piled into a jeep, paying Rs 250/- per head, the trip up was very shaky and the path rocky.This was Tiger country.......

      

As difficult as it was ,the waters of the river Nambi, were cool and inviting and we found ourselves a small niche and nook where we had the water and river to ourselves, Crystal clear waters and plenty of fish nibbling at the feet  

          
                         

The small town of Vanamamalai is situated in the lap of the Greenland where the Western and Eastern ghats meet .

The temple fills with water when the rains are lavish and there are enough slits and opening s in the ground to absorb all the water .

This town is the seat of the famous mutt to which there is always a young Pontiff as Head. Considered as one of the richest mutt ,this branch of Vaishnavite  followers holds under its control the famous Nanguneri temple and its functions.The jeer presides over all events here. Lunch is served everyday  to all devotees,and the first Vishwaroopam is done for Manavalamamunigal,who

 was the last preceptor ,as we know from Guruparampara,  torchbearer and an Avatar of Sri Emberumanar.

Manavala Mamunigal lived in Srirangam and offered his explanation of Thiruvaimozhi and Lord Ranganatha, pleased with him appeared as a little boy and blessed him with a Thaniyan, "SriSailesa Dayapathram......"

My cousin who hails from this small town of Nanguneri (so called because it’s surrounded by 4 lakes) wanted to worship at this very rare and old temple.

Mr Kannan, her uncle, living there, had organised everything beautifully and so the "Ennai Kappu" which is done daily to this Moolavar went off smoothly with almost 39 litres of pure Gingely oil. The oil is applied by the main Bhattar with his hands and he gently smears it on all the Vigrahas .

Inside the Garbagraha there is The Lord Thothadrinathan accompanied by his consorts Bhoo devi Neela devi and Chandran and Suryan paying their respects. Ramba and Thilothammai from Indra Lola fanning the Lord on either side .

Outside is Vishvaksenar and Garuda and Chakrathawar who all came with the Lord, and hence there is oil applied for everyone.

Thayar is Sreevaramangai and sits in a separate Mandapam.

The Thirumanjanam happens after "Ennai kappu" and when it does, the Utsavar is also kept at the feet of Moolavar and hence has thirumanjanam.

For this, the little township offers the Lord, Seeyakkas grown locally and boiled in hot water to remove too much oil.

And after a luxurious bath he is adorned with new clothes and flowers and garlands and we get a beautiful darshan of Him resplendent in his throne just as he is in Vaikunta.

While doing the pradakshinam , we could see the wonderful craftmanship on the pillars and corridors of this temple.

     

     Basket depicted in stone in the pillar at Nanguneri temple. 

                                         The famous "kurathi"or gypsy carving 

    

      Mr Kannan, the warmest host, who helped us.

     

                                                       
   
                                                          Here is the "Kuravan"

         

              Narasimha with HIranyaksipu on his lap

              

                        Narasimha with Prahaladan 

                        

The many pillared halls

            

Puttu is a very popular Prasadam offered here so we got our share of puttu and after lunch at 10 am we set off for Madurai by car.

Enroute to Madurai we passed Kovilpatti and just had to stop to buy the famous  peanut candy that this place is famous for.

We also stopped on the road to buy karuppatti the unprocessed sugar .

We reached Madurai at 1 pm  and hopped into an auto to go around . First stop was Meenakshi amman temple which had of course closed but we had a glimpse of the golden kalasam.

              

                           
           The quick auto ride  on the streets of our very own Madurai

As we rushed to the Nagapattinam halwa kadai opposite the temple I had a rush of memories of my childhood .

Having spent most of my holidays in Madurai very near the temple I’d gone almost daily inside the temple and played for hours in the huge corridors .

As I explained to my young cousins about our grandfather and his house and my younger days we were all caught in a wave of nostalgia and so decided to drive through his old house in 23, Danappa Mudali street.

    

The obliging auto man took us around and we took pics of ourselves in front of a commercial building which used to be my favouritest house.

And how could we leave Madurai without tasting its Jigarthanda.... and we went to best outlet and came rushing back to our car near the railway station.

       

             

At the station we found that our train was delayed by almost 2 hours.

As we stood undecided the taxi driver who was so patient with us offered to take us to a good place for lunch. We had a simple lunch and came back to the station and finally the famous Tejas express left .

      

As we waited for dinner  we found that we were served uncooked rice and uncooked parathas both of which were horrible.

We threw it all away but much to our consternation we found from a passenger that the train was bound to be 4-5 hours late.Taking a quick decision we jumped off in Chengelpet a small town ,where there was a unscheduled stop. The Tejas stops only in one station on its way from Madurai to Chennai. This being very unusual, we were convinced that there was something wrong. It was very unprofessional on the part of railways not to inform the passengers of so much discomfort.


Tejas and its negatives.....Toilets wet, food uncooked, delay not informed and the in charge of the compartment not picking up his phone and finally the railways having charged us a bomb for the ticket ,not even tendering an explanation. 

We had a kind friend who offered to drop us in Porur on her way home by her car from Chegelpet.

The adventurous  trip came to an end .