Tirumalai Naicker Mahal

Tirumalai Nayacker Mahal (Palace) was built in the 17th century by King Tirumalai Nayak in one of the oldest city of south India - Madurai. This is believed to have been built in the year 1636 AD. This palace was built with the help of an Italian Architect and is a classical fusion of Dravidian, Islamic and European style. The building, which can be seen today, was the main Palace where the king lived. The original Palace Complex was four times bigger than the present structure. In its heyday, Tirumalai Nayak Palace at Madurai was considered to be one of the wonders of the South India.

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Tirumalainaicker is the greatest Naick rulers of Madurai.

The palace built by the king, consisted mainly of two residential complexes named Swarga Vilasam and Ranga Vilasam. There were other portions like a theater, a palace shrine harem, royal band stand, armory and structures to accommodate palanquins, and other royal paraphernalia. Relatives of Tirumalainaickerand servant had two separate quarters. At the backyard a lotus pond and flower garden added beauty to this palace.

The original entrance to this building was located in the northern side of the building. This is about 1.2 KM from Meenakshi amman temple. Once you pay the fees for the camera you are allowed to pictures of anything inside this palace. Recently it has been renovated by the Tamil Nadu government.Wonderful place to take many pictures!

Trauma of transition!

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. (A. C. Benson)

In my company, all of us are presently suffering from what I would like to call as ‘Transition trauma’.

We are shifting our base form Gurgaon- a beautiful modern city of North India to Mumbai – a congested old city of western India. A distance of 1393 KMs from each other – Gurgaon and Mumbai are poles apart in the way both these cities are made up of! Mumbai is considered the commercial capital of India for ages. Gurgaon is a future city developed only five or six years ago. The corporate offices of many companies are situated in Gurgaon. Since it was developed very recently the infrastructure of this city is superb! The population is moderate and life is very peaceful here. It is a cosmopolitan city in every sense!

In contrast Mumbai city is very thickly populated, life is very fast, people are different attitudinally and above all the climate is very different from that of Gurgaon. Mumbai has three seasons – hot, hotter and hottest!!! Climate is very humid, as the city is on the shores of Arabian Sea.

The trauma, I guess, stems from the ‘Fear of unknown and familiarity of known’ as the modern philosopher JK puts it. When we think of Gurgaon, only good things come to our mind, as all of us are very familiar with Gurgaon. But many of us are not familiar with Mumbai and this lack of familiarity is the cause of concern for all of us! Thinking objectively, there are many good things in Mumbai; those are not available in Gurgaon! For example, public transport! Mumbai city never sleeps and hence public transport is available twenty four hours a day. Whereas in Gurgaon, public transport is a major problem.

Moreover, Mumbai is very intimidating to a person who goes there from a peaceful city like Gurgaon, because of its sheer size and fast pace of life! But, when one settles in Mumbai and becomes familiar with everything there, I guess, life will slowly settle!

I am unable to find time for my ‘iCapture’ because as I said before, we are all busy in getting ourselves and our belongings transported to Mumbai. It will take a while for me to find time for my blog!