Madurai is a funny place. I was born & brought up there. No one from Madurai ever misses a chance to talk about the great civilization we once had in that place. Mind you, they never tell you after that civilization never flourished there.
Have you ever seen a city with huge population having the cover of a plastic bucket serving as a traffic signal? Well that’s Madurai for you. A traffic constable stands in a dais turning this huge mechanical device to instruct people whether they can drive ahead or not. Not that they will ever listen to him. He has a job to do and he will do. People have a job to do and they will drive on.
Awesome people the city has. In fact I call it as an over-grown village and never a city. That brings up the point. People in their hearts are villagers, and that includes me. For all minus points you can give for villagers, there is this earthly charm about being one. In Madurai it’s ‘Everybody Counts & Nobody Counts’.
You will have the whole population of the city knowing what you are up to. Everyone is known in that place or even away from it. One sentence in Tamil, you spot them wherever you see them. So, there is virtually no privacy there. Kind of primitive. What you do is known for the world and mind you, even a kid would profess an opinion about that. And that’s Everybody Counts.
And for ‘Nobody Counts’, the city goes around killing their own relatives. In the name of honour! Sounds like an Arab Village, huh??? Well that’s what you got there.I had a couple of friends of which one guy’s brother-in-law killed another’s uncle.
People are so tightly knit that there is camaraderie all over. They never change their habits. Eat at the same place.(will flock to a Madurai restaurant in a new city). Never give up their town and passion about that town.
The idiosyncrasies of the place are enormous, ones you will never get to see elsewhere in the world. The huge pride is refusing to grow up, the pride in getting a broad gauge train after so many years, the nonchalance of being 20 years backward, their great quality of food, the temple, the fact that your neighbour is someone big, the pride in being a Maduraite and so on ….
Used to wonder what drives them on. Have always wanted to go back and settle down, but even a week’s holiday is too much for me.
But I should admit that I have smiles all over my face when I am there, all through the week.
Have you ever seen a city with huge population having the cover of a plastic bucket serving as a traffic signal? Well that’s Madurai for you. A traffic constable stands in a dais turning this huge mechanical device to instruct people whether they can drive ahead or not. Not that they will ever listen to him. He has a job to do and he will do. People have a job to do and they will drive on.
Awesome people the city has. In fact I call it as an over-grown village and never a city. That brings up the point. People in their hearts are villagers, and that includes me. For all minus points you can give for villagers, there is this earthly charm about being one. In Madurai it’s ‘Everybody Counts & Nobody Counts’.
You will have the whole population of the city knowing what you are up to. Everyone is known in that place or even away from it. One sentence in Tamil, you spot them wherever you see them. So, there is virtually no privacy there. Kind of primitive. What you do is known for the world and mind you, even a kid would profess an opinion about that. And that’s Everybody Counts.
And for ‘Nobody Counts’, the city goes around killing their own relatives. In the name of honour! Sounds like an Arab Village, huh??? Well that’s what you got there.I had a couple of friends of which one guy’s brother-in-law killed another’s uncle.
People are so tightly knit that there is camaraderie all over. They never change their habits. Eat at the same place.(will flock to a Madurai restaurant in a new city). Never give up their town and passion about that town.
The idiosyncrasies of the place are enormous, ones you will never get to see elsewhere in the world. The huge pride is refusing to grow up, the pride in getting a broad gauge train after so many years, the nonchalance of being 20 years backward, their great quality of food, the temple, the fact that your neighbour is someone big, the pride in being a Maduraite and so on ….
Used to wonder what drives them on. Have always wanted to go back and settle down, but even a week’s holiday is too much for me.
But I should admit that I have smiles all over my face when I am there, all through the week.
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