Double Whammy

Not one week has passed since what happened with Sev that a demon from my past has decided to rear it's head, bringing with it a whole reservoir of pain and anger I've been holding in most of my life. Sometimes we try to leave the past behind us, to move on, but it inevitably catches up with us at some point in our lives, and mine has. It's strange how all these things seem to arrive all at the same time.
It's not something I will go into in detail right now, suffice to say that the last few days, no, the last week has been one of the most trying times emotionally in my life so far. It's tough dealing with it out here on my own, and it is something I have to deal with on my own, but sometimes it's good to have an outlet, and I have this blog. So I hope you don't mind me talking about it, as I need some form of release.
I have plenty of time to deal with this situation, that's one thing I have a lot of, although when it first landed on my lap in the form of a viscous but pathetic email, I couldn't find the heart to move on from here, Madurai, for a couple of days as it hurt me so much. It's put a dent into my plans for travel, I'll have to miss out on a few places I wanted to visit as I have to get to Chennai (Madras) by the 3rd May to catch my flight to the Andaman Islands. At least I'll have 2 weeks to decide how to deal with this whilst out in the Andamans.
When something has been haunting you, hurting you, for most of your life, some people bottle it up, like I did, and it's finally poured out in one go as the person involved has decided to confront me. Everyone has some problem in their life that follows them throughout. It's high time I decide whether to try to resolve this or cut off from it for good. I know if I try to resolve it, as I have so many times before, it'll just hurt me time and again. I believe the best solution is to sever it for good, and move on with my life, but I'm not going to make any rash decisions and take my time.

Click here to see the photos

What have I done since my last post? Well after Alleppey, I took a boat through the stunning Keralan backwaters, a massive network of canals, rivers and lakes fringed with coconut trees. The wildlife is rampant here, from fishing eagles to the iconic and majestic blue and orange kingfisher. Chinese fishing nets line many of the more open stretches of water, with small fishing communities dotting the banks. Children and adults swim and play in the waters, shouting greetings as we passed by, although the children mostly asked for 'One pen! One pen!'. The 8 hour boat ride took us to a fabulous backwater resort nestled amongst a few islands where we had a brief stop for lunch, eating fried fish, dhal, and vegetable masala with rice served on a banana leaf and eaten with your right hand (left hand is reserved for 'cleaning').
Later that afternoon, we stopped at Amritapuri, the home to Amma, the hugging female guru. The pink skyrise residential complex stands out in great contrast to the surrounding environment. It reminds me of a lot of the residential blocks of flats in Hong Kong with it's pink facade. As my time was short, I never stopped there. It was a Thursday, and if I had stayed, I would have had to stay for a couple of days as Amma doesn't hold darshan (her hugging sessions) on a Friday. So I stayed on the boat, saw a very strange statue called the 'Goddess of Light' which was totally out of place on a private estate on the way to Kollam, reaching it by 6:30pm.
Once at Kollam, I didn't plan to stay the night, as it's very similar to Alleppey with not much to see. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the train station, I had missed my train to Madurai by 5 minutes, so I hopped on another train to Trivandrem, south of Kollam, and spent the night there before catching another train to Madurai. It was at Trivandrem that the afore mentioned situation developed, and since being here in Madurai, I haven't spent much time sightseeing or moving around.
I arrived in Madurai early in the morning, a 5am, and checked into a hostel. I wanted to get more sleep than the 4 hours I got on the overnight train from Trivandrem but couldn't sleep from thinking about this ordeal. I left the hostel after a few hours and walked over to the Shri Meenakshi-Sundareshwar temple complex, one of the most prominent temple complexes in the south of India. The complex is large, enclosed within a 6m high wall with huge, gaudily painted gopuras at each of the four gates at each point of the compass. The temples inside hold some 33,000 sculptures of deities, many covered in ghee (clarified butter) and kumkum powder which worshippers touch to apply the three white horizontal stripes across their foreheads (marking them as worshippers of Shiva) and a red bhindi/talik above the bridge of their noses. As a non-Hindu, I wasn't allowed inside the heart of the shrines to Meenakshi (a form of Parvati, Shiva's consort) and Sundareshwar (Shiva).
The gopuras, large tapering towers, are also seen on a lesser scale within the complex, much smaller than the 46m high ones at each gate. On each of the numerous tiers rising up the sides are a huge number of sculptures of deities, all restored and painted in bright colours, visible for miles around.
The interior is vast and mazelike with the two main shrines dominating, many smaller shrines to deities such as Ganesh (the Elephant god, son of Shiva and Parvati) and Hanuman (the Monkey god), and some of the sculptures and reliefs on the walls and pillars are even worshipped by the hundreds of devotees.
On the way out, for a small donation, I was blessed by the temple elephant who took the coin from my hand with its trunk before laying it across the top of my head.
I found a rooftop cafe nearby where I sat for a number of hours, looking out over the city, thinking and enjoying the view. As sun set, flourescent lights and coloured neon strips came on to outline the gopuras. It seems anything of note in India is made much better and more desirable if it's brightly lit with colours and light.
At 9pm, I returned to the temple to witness the icons of Sundareshwar and Meenakshi being taken out of their respective shrines to be united after a hard day's work blessing their worshippers before being put to bed together for a good night's rest. Even gods need their beauty sleep too it seems...
Tomorrow I'll be heading to Pondicherry, a French colonial town on the south east coast of India before heading to Chennai to catch my flight. There are more things I wanted to see here in Tamil Nadu, such as Mammallapuram (seaside temples) and Kodaikanal (a peaceful hill station), but I've run out of time due to the 5 days I spent wallowing in my pathetic self-pity over Sev and the last few days in Madurai trying to come to terms with this new crisis. I need to get a move on!