Pondicherry-Pitchavaram-Chidambaram-Chunambar
PART - I
It was just a abrupt planning…Planning to celebrate the end of a year that we witnessed as 2006 and Planning to celebrate the beginning of a set of 365 days that we were aiming to term as the year 2007.
So, the Plan was to visit Pondicherry and some places of Tamilnadu as well. However, It have been a dream for me to visit Pondicherry since long and I was quite a bit enthusiastic about that. Nirmal and I started our journey on the eve of 30th December for Chennai from where we had to join Tarang, Rishi, Siddhartha and Areejit. We reached Chennai at around 2:15AM. The very same morning we started our journey for Pondicherry at around 7:30 AM. The road, called as THE ECR ROAD, was quite nice. We had some cassettes of hindi songs that also included the “HITS OF HIMESH RESHAMIYA” !! We travelled some 60 Km downwards and had a stop for breakfast at a very good motel. We took almost lunch instead of breakfast because hotel was nice and the food served was beyond our expectation. It took about 3 hours to cover the distance between Chennai and Pondicherry which was almost 180 KMs and that also includes the stoppage time for breakfast. We searched for a hotel to stay there but we were not getting any room vacant. But luckily we got two rooms in a hotel at Jawahar Lal Nehru Street after a rigorous search of 2 hours. We were not in a mood of wasting our time there in the hotel as we had to travel some 90 KMs further down. We were told that the place, Pitchavaram, which we are going now is a nice place. We went right up to Chidambaram (80 KMs from Pondicherry) which is considered as a sacred place of south India. We had a nice lunch there and after that we proceeded towards Pitchavaram by taking a left turn from NH 45A and traveled up to 16 KMs.
Pitchavaram is a place which has one of the largest Mangrove trees collection. These Mangrove trees are spread in an area of 3000 Acres and it has more than 4000 canals which meets the Ocean. It is a very thick forest. (I guess we all know about the SUNDERBAN MANGROVE FOREST in West Bengal.) I never traveled to such a destination and was just another dimension to my travel expeditions.
We reached there at 3:45. However the road was not as good as we found it in NH 45 and that’s obvious. We felt that we were really lucky because we could not have got the boat to have a sailing experience amidst the Mangrove forest. So we took the ticket for the boat and we started to sail in the Boat. We were quite scared of getting drowned in the canal which gets water level increases as the sea tides increases or vice versa. But somehow we got settled in the boat. We had another family with us. The boat sailor instructed us not to change our position while we were on the boat. After almost 1 hour of sailing in the backwaters of the forest and going through the few canals we came to know that the water on which our boat was sailing was not deep more than 2 – 4 feet. I tried to check that out and I dipped my hand in to the water and to my surprise I touched the land surface and to show others I brought some soil out. But I could feel that the land was swampy. If we could have fallen in the water we could not have drowned but we could have definitely caught in the swampy land under the water.
We had a good sight of the Mangrove trees. The Mangrove trees have abundant Nitrogen and Ammonia deposition in it and moreover these trees prevent soil erosion and it is environmental friendly. And that’s the reason behind conserving the Mangrove forests all around the world. But the Tsunami which tormented the eastern coasts of India has affected this Mangrove forest in large. While coming to Pitchavaram from Pondicherry I saw various Tsunami affected areas which also included the house mend by the government under Tsunami Rehabilitation Program. However we could not see the loss occurred due to Tsunami. But we could only sense the measure of destruction. We saw long long stretches of fields which were filled with the crops ready to be cultivated. I remembered that this was the same time two years back when the tsunami stuck to this part of the country. So apart from the loss of numerous lives we lost crops, cattle and many more things. But one thing which was striking heavily in my mind that just 16 Km away from this place is the famous Nataraja Temple of Chidambaram and how it survived the tsunami. And then came the Mangrove forest of Pitchavaram into light once again. The other family sailing with us in the boat told us that the impact of the tsunami waves was reduced by the Mangrove forest of Pitchavaram and thus the great temple of Chidambaram was saved. It means that Mangrove Forest came in between the Temple and the Tsunami waves otherwise the devastating tsunami waves could have destroyed the age-old Nataraja Temple of Chidambaram. But this fauna and the vegetation in this particular Forest were disrupted in large. But overall visiting the mangrove forest was a thrilling experience and for me it was just a new kind of traveling experience and I would love to spend a couple of nights in that hotel which is run by TTDC in the Mangrove forest.
Well, we left that place at around 6 PM. And while coming back we went to the Nataraja Temple of Chidambaram. From the road we were not able to see the temple’s vastness but we were really thrilled to see one of the four entrances, GOPURAM, of the temple. At once I noticed that this was first glimpse of the temple which was shown in the documentary, “Mysteries Of Asia : The Lost Temples Of India”, which I saw on the discovery channel 6 years back. The Gopuram was gigantic and it measured around 57 meters and it was full of fine inscriptions over it. I kept watching the Gopuram for a while. I was amazed with the Architectures perfection who guided to build such a fine architecture. For me it was the second dream which came true in a short span of 2 days. Then we decided to go in and only Nirmal, Arijit and I went inside the temple. We were amazed with the inner carvings and inscriptions of the temple. It was something like a town within those 4 set of Gopurams. The tradition of worshipping the Lord Shiva here in this temple remains unchanged since more than 1000 years. AMAZING !!
For Full Details of The Nataraja Temple of Chidambaram please read this blog of mine: -
http://natarjatemplechidambaram.blogspot.com
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