Last Resort in the South by Bill Aitken

Last Resort in the South by Bill Aitken  

Tiruchendur is a tiny temple town that occupies the coast between Kanyakumari and Rameshwaram. Its white gopuram is almost on the shore. What looks like the giant hour-hand of a clock, affixed in neon lights, is actually the symbol of the lance with which Lord Murugan vanquished a particularly troublesome asura. Unusually this tower has been built to the west of the sprawling temple. Surrounded by the blue sea and waving palms, a more delightful end to one's metre gauge journey from the northern arid zone around Fazilka could not be imagined. 

The small station has recently been renovated and is immaculate in appearance and operation. A notice threatens to fine anyone Rs. 16 who enters without a platform ticket, so quickly I buy one to photograph the train about to leave. This is the "732 Tirunelveli Passenger" hauled by a diesel. Though I can jump aboard and return by the "733 Down", the blue of the sea is too inviting and instead I settle for some conversation with the station master, who apparently has been alerted of my coming. When in Delhi, promises of flashed messages to ease my way had seemed a kind gesture by the Railway Information Officer, but to my pleasant surprise the friendliness with which I was met along the way was largely due to the promises kept in Delhi. 

To make my day a steam engine lay smoking idly in the siding, waiting to haul the last of the three daily Passengers. For the end of the line, everything was perfect. The station building had been remodelled in the temple style, but tastefully so, and the miniscule reservation office must be the only one in the whole of India where the green discs are permanently on display. In fact you wonder how long this branch line can compete with the faster and similarly priced buses. With Tuticorin less than 40 km away, it is understandable that a famous port town can use a railway link. A friend had advised me to give Tuticorin a miss since it held little of railway or aesthetic interest.

The bus is much more direct than the train for the Rameshwaram-Tiruchendur section, but you pay for the convenience by becoming part of a hectic running battle between North and South. A party of 14 Hindi speakers got on a Rameshwaram-bound bus and from the word go there was bickering between them and the Tamil running staff. There were some rain clouds about and the travellers were worried about their luggage on the roof getting wet. The bus crew could not provide a tarpaulin and this began the acrimony. "If it rains, you can report me", said the conductor helpfully, implying that the clouds would go away - which they did. Next there were complaints of having to spend 25 paise every time the passengers from the free-peeing North went to spend a penny in the bus stations. Another grouse was that the driver was a great gobber, who marked each furlong with the discharge of spit. At speed this meant some of the passengers shared the fall-G:. 

The wayside halts for refreshments were spotlessly clean but almost blew customers away from their counters with the volume of Tamil rock music belted out. Another source of friction lay in the strict interpretation of 5 minutes by the bus crew. The timeless North assumed it meant anything up to 15. When you consider that most of the long-distance passengers between Rameshwararn and Kanyakumari are pilgrims from the North it means this verbal warfare occurs daily on the Tamil Nadu government buses. So much for the claims of cosy cultural integration that the temple at Rameshwaram puts out. 

The resilience of Hindu culture is reflected in the casteless appeal of the six Murugan temples, of which Palani is considered third in importance. Tiruchendur is the second in the list and referred to as "The Abode of Fulfilment" - a very apt description of my feelings at completing the extended and involved metric circuit. It is besieged by busloads of pilgrims who sport on the beach as the rust-coloured breakers add another curious effect of this place with a cave valued for its "medicinal" properties. (Shankaracharya was cured here.) Many are the black-clad, bare-bodied Ayappa piligrims bound for the Sabarimala temple in the Kerala hills. That too is a casteless attraction and it could well be the orthodox priests, seeing where the pickings are to be had, will decide to throw open their temples. Tiruchendur for all practical purposes seems a spiritual holiday resort. Devotees rent cottages overlooking the sea and though they may not have a whale of a time at least they upstage the much richer tourist clientele at the Hotel Tamil Nadu run by the government which is situated further behind. This hotel only had double rooms for 80 rupees, so I inquired at a new lodge nearby and ended up with a much better deal for 40 rupees, overlooking the temple and the sea. One breathed in the tantalizing realization that the elation one had felt at the start of one's journey on the majestic expanse of the Brahrnaputra was echoed exactly in the furthest pounding of the waves at Tiruchendur, though the cultural chasm between the two is enormous. In shrinking the physical poles the metre gauge had performed a kind of alchemical union of opposites. I was tickled to recall at the half-way mark of my probings (near Dwarka) the stout teetotaller proposition that India's ancient propitiatory beer Somras was lugubriously "non-injurious to health," because the outstanding memory of this MG quartering had been my constant intoxication at the sheer wonder India still is. Those who declare India to be "poor" announce only their own poverty of acquaintance. But will they listen to the proving imprint of a lesser track that gave this traveller a unique glimpse of a rare unity; soon to be dismantled.