CITY GONE FOREVER. Review on Dhanushkodi

I have been telling my family .. of and on .. that I want to go to Rameswaram…My wife used to put her fore finger on her nose …. and give me the ..I told you so …looks…

…has the doctor told you ..your liver is about to pack up…. what is it ..fatty liver ..or the final ..cirrhosis….

…I ask her ..what Rameswaram has got to do ..with my drinking habits ….

….she tells me ..that all good Hindus have the urge to visit ..Kasi ..Rameswaram ..and few other temple cities like Mathura and Haridwar …when they realize ..that their time on earth… is running out..

…I tell her she is stuck with me for many more years…It is the good , that die young….

I had last visited Rameswaram in the year 1958… I can’t claim that the visit was religiously motivated ..as I was a toddler of six years .. who needed his mother’s help to pee..

….I remembered the train passing through Mandapam Camp…looking across the sea ..as the train passed over Pamban bridge and reaching Rameswaram…the tonga ride to the dharamshala…and the walk to the temple..

..what I remembered most was the short train ride to Dhanushkodi town ..and standing with my parents ..who were pointing out to me ..the bridge made by Hanuman and his Vanar friends…..so that Ram and his Army could cross over to Lanka..

…I told them I can’t see Lanka…They shushed me ..and said when you grow taller, you will be able to see..

…. The magnificent church on the beach .. with the sea waves , almost caressing its walls…..remained in my mind…..for many years..

….after walking through the cavernous corridors of the Madurai Meenakshi Temple ..we were on our way to Rameswaram…I stopped the car on the Pamban bridge .. and took photographs of President Abdul Kalam’s fishing village ..with its array of fishing boats ..trawlers ..fishing nets , spread around for drying..like Neenda kara ..but more beautiful

..In the afternoon sun ..I could see the sea bottom ..from the bridge ..looking up ..I was transfixed by the vastness of the ocean all around me …. And how small and insignificant we are … with our petty ambitions and pettier disappointments….

….Swami Vivekananda stood here in 1850 ..and gave a speech on Hinduism …a marble tablet proclaimed …in front of the Rameswaram Temple…

I told a guide I wanted to visit Dhanushkodi …. They said leave your Ford Fiesta at the Hotel and take a contraption with sand tyres ..that looked like a Jugaad ..running around in Punjab…a tractor modified to look like a mini bus without a roof….

….We bumped along through ..swampy sandy streches … where the sea water had seaped up from below ground …I could see broken remains of railway tracks ..lying about ….like bits of discarded ribbon …

….. the driver tells me.. a great sea storm …with hurricane scale winds.. ripped through Dhanushkodi … in the 1960 ‘s…burying the city and its inhabitants ..in a watery grave…

… I stood.. next to the broken ruins..of my favourite church on the sea beach…I remembered so well as a six year toddler…. It looked ..as.if ..it had been bombed by the Germans… and then its belly eaten up by the sea creatures … bricks corroded by the salty water …a childhood memory erased …. ..

….I told my family ..I had stood right there ..fifty years back ..holding onto the fingers of my mother…

….Then it was throbbing with people ..the sounds of fish market nearby ..the train hooting and sneezing from the nearby station… and the greedy crows swooping in and out …for a meal

….Dhanushkodi …… was gone ……. forever …..

Experiencing India

Rajan 215

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