travel: the pull of the coromandel coast

8/11/2019 Travel: The Pull of the Coromandel Coast

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Born in Kerala, I ought t o have an umbilicalconnection with the Malabar Coast but it isto the eastern seaboard that I feel a strongerpull. The Coroman del Coast, pocked by can-nonballs, scarred by battles, and watered bydeltas of discontent, has drawn me since age

eight.

On this coast, colonial powers had jousted in cloak-and-dagger bouts of war and commerce that echoed politicalpantomime in Europe. Dravidian dynasties had sungpoetry into stone, beat their chests to ballad s of doomedlove, and sa iled fleets across the storm-lashed bay to J avaand Indo-China.

A chance to experience the richness of th e coast took along time coming. The Great East Coast Drive, an idea Ihad incuba ted for mont hs, materia lized in August 2013

when m y colleague, photographer Azhar Ali, and I set offwith iPh ones and laptops (and plenty of clean underwear)

on a n 11-day mission t o live-blog our breathless, rushedroad-trip from Chennai to R ameshwaram, with a few side-trips to the hinterland.

Beginning a t Thiruvanmiyur, south of Chennai, the EastCoast Road snakes southward a long the CoromandelCoast, in places hugging the seashore while in othersstraying as m any as 10 miles from the surf.

Stat e Highw ay 48 (its official name) runs 429 milesnorth to south, terminating at Thoothukudi, some 80miles northeast of India’s southern tip at Kanyakumari.Busiest on the immaculately macadamed, two-laned, 100-mile stretch from Chennai to Pondicherry, it degrades onits southerly course into a dusty, single-lane country roadlined w ith palmyra palms and cutting through paddyfields and saltpans.

This little-explored stretch excited m e the most.

Sweat trickled down my forehead and settled on myeyelids, fogging m y glasses. This, by Chenna i stan-dards, was a pleasant morning on Marina, the

Coromandel Coast

The pull of the

The drive from Chennai to Ram esw aram along the

picturesque East Coast Road offers a sm attering of

history, culture and food, reveals

Bijoy Venugopal

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The magnificent Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur is a masterspecimen of Dravidian art.

M2India Abroad March 21, 2014

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The sand bars of Dhanushkodi hide atown that was swept awayin a devastating

cyclonic stormin 1964.

Coromandel Coast

The pull of the

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longest city beach in the country and

the second such in the world.The Bay of B engal, at its best behav-

ior, licked lethargically like a m irage atthe dunes ahead. Un attended pushcartswait ed for evening to come alive withtheir wa res of roasted peanuts, chillibaj j is , ice cream and ca ndy floss.

Families stirred awake from anothernight on the beach, perhaps more

enjoyable than sleeping on the str eets.One such morning on D ecember 26,2004, the sea poured into t he city in ahumungous, all-consuming swell. Ofsleepers like these no trace wa s found.Morning walkers disappeared withtheir dogs. Whole fishing hamlets wereswept a way. The South Asian Tsunam i,which claim ed over 8,000 lives in

Tamil Nad u and Pond icherry, is spokenof with residual terror and remorse,and the coast is spattered with memori-als.

At the head of the Marina is Fort StGeorge, built on land the British pur-chased from the Nayak of Wandiwashin 1639. From this nucleus the sleepyfishing village grew into t he seat of theMadras Presidency, which encom-passed all of present-day Tamil Nadu,the Malabar region of northern Kerala,Lakshadweep, much of coastal Andhraand southern Odisha and the D akshinaKannad a, Bellary and Udupi districts ofKarnataka.

A visit to Chennai’s fine historic churches is d eserving ofa ha lf-day tour. The stately St Andrews Kirk is a strikingexample of Georgian architecture wh ile St Mary’s, insidethe Fort complex, is the oldest Anglican church in t hecountry. Not as visually stunning but perhaps of m ore his-

toric value is St Thomas B asilica at Santh ome, where therelics of the apostle are t reasured. Doubting Thomas, towhom J esus revealed his wounds, came to the port ofMuziris (in modern Kerala) in AD 52 and his work thenbrought him to the eastern coast. The Brahmins ofMylapore, who took exception t o his proselytizing,speared him to death.

In th e dizzying afternoon heat we d rove up to StThomas Mount , the site of his mart yrdom in AD 72.

To temper religion with spiritual inquiry, one must sur-vive the bloodthirsty diurnal m osquitoes at H uddlestonGa rdens. The 260-acre cam pus of the TheosophicalSociety Adyar is a forest unt o itself, not counting the 450-year-old Banyan Tree, among t he largest of its kind. It s

mother trun k was felled by a cyclonic storm but the sec-ondary root s have thrived, spreading generously over60,000 sq ft . Established in 1883 by Helena PetrovnaBlavatsky and her co-founders, the Society’s campus onthe riverine isle of Adyar in southern Ch ennai ab sorbs thedin and confusion of the city in its verdant heart.

Madras, ever the curator of things south Indian, inspiresin some of our parochial countr ymen the irksome pejora-tive Madrasi.

A visit to Da kshina Chitra should set them righ t. Thisliving museum, brain child of founder-trustee DeborahThiagarajan, enshrines the heritage of four southernstates in tab leaux of architecture, crafts, mem ories andmotifs. Here we learned that Cholamanda l orCholamandalam, the realm of the Cholas, is the etymolog-

ical root of ‘Coroman del’ – a corruption att ributed to thePortuguese, the first European power to colonize the eastcoast. A few miles ahead, the name rang true at theCholamandal Artists Village, the largest artists’ communein India , which preserves the essence of the Mad ras

Movement of Art spearheaded by K C S P anikerfrom the 1950s until his death in 1977.

Down the coast at Nemmeli, the reek of aquacultureemanated not from fish or shrimp, but from pond scum at

the Ma dras Crocodile Bank and Herpetology Trust, where19 species of crocodilians — alligators, ghar ials , caimansincluded — are encouraged to increase th eir tribe for con-servation’s sake. The snake venom extraction show, per-formed by I rula tribesmen, offers spine-chilling educationon another dimension.

The intriguing monuments of Mamallapuram orMahabalipuram lay 34 miles south of Chennai.

Besides the celebrated Shore Temple and the FiveRat has, the motley group of monuments on a h illockbehind t he intricately deta iled bas-relief of Arjuna’s

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Coromandel CoastThe pull of the

Once celebrated as Kaveripoompattinamin the Tamil epics, Poompuhar is todaylittle more than a coastal fishing town.

Sunrise at Tranquebar, one of the most beautiful beaches onthe east coast.


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Penance are worth an entire afternoon’s exploration.

Stone sculpture is a cottage industry here and fine exam-ples can be bought at a bargain. Seafood restaurants areaplenty, and those with lean wallets can tuck into moreproletarian but eq ually fresh fare at beachside shacks.

At Sadurangapattinam or Sadras, 11 miles south ofMahabalipuram near the nuclear power plant atKalpakkam, the stately Dutch fort stood forlorn andbereft of visitors. The Dutch E ast In dia Compa ny estab-lished a foothold on the eastern coast when it wrested

Pulicat, north of Madras, from the Portuguese in the early1600s even before the British ha d built Fort St George.

Rusting iron cannons guarded the arched gate. In side, acemetery with copperplate plaques honored ma rtyrs of theBatt le of Sadras, the first of many confrontations betweenEnglish and Dutch forces on th e subcontinent. The Britishfinally ended the Dutch rule of Coromandel in 1825.

We drove ahead t o the ruins of Alamparai Fort, once asea port administered by the Arcot Nawabs until it was

destroyed by British forces after the Carna tic Wars withthe French. Overgrown with w eeds and usurped by topesof palmyra palms, the crumbling rampartsglowed ghostly in the gloaming.

We covered the 31 miles to P ondicherryafter nightfall. Next morning, we set out todetermine if th e zoo described in YannMartel’s Li fe of Pi was fa ct or fiction. AngLee’s cinematic adapt ation of the BookerPrize-winning n ovel gave us grist for themill but the P ondicherry Botanical Garden,with its ancient trees and a travesty of atoy train, disappointed. We roamed thequaintly named streets admiring the pas-tel-shade homes and hit the road againearly next morning.

South of Cuddalore, past the oldPortuguese-Arab township of PortoNovo (known locally as

Parangipettai), the Vellar and Coleroon

estuaries converge to form the extensivePichavaram wetlands. The ma ngroveswamp here is the third largest in Indiaafter the Sundarbans and those of theAndaman and Nicobar islands.

Besides thefact that theforests constitute

an importantcoastal ecosystem,the local peoplebelieve that man -groves resisted th eforce of the 2004tsunami.

Our boatmantook us deep into

the criss-crossingchannels of murkywater, where thelow-hanging canopyshut out the sun andpainted us with inevanescent t attoosmade of shadows.

Known in old Tamil

as Thillai, the man-grove trees lend theirname to the Thillai

Nataraja tem-

ple at Chidambara m, 10 miles away,where Shiva is represented as th e cos-

mic dancer.Ha rking back to th e classical Tamil

period, the temple architecture hasseen contributions from nearly everyruling dynasty including the Pallava,Chola, Pandya, Vijayanagar andChera kings. The temple is adminis -tered by a small community ofSaivite Brahmins, the Dikshitars,

who ha ve been embroiled in a longlegal battle with t he Tamil Nadustate government over their tradi-tional right to the management ofthe temple rituals and funds.

Down t he dusty coastal road we

admired the work of the Muslim mat-weavers ofThaikkal, who have for centuries cultivatedfields of korai grass, the raw material for theirfine and durable mats.

A stop at Poompuha r, the site ofKaveripoompattinam , a major port of the Tamilclassical era m entioned in t he epic poemsSilapathikaram and Mani mekhalai before atsunami d estroyed it in the 6th century, spoke ofheritage laid to waste.

The museum, w ith stucco friezes depictingscenes from the Tamil epics, had been usurped byday-trippers who lay snoring in its cool, dark hall-ways.

Aforeboding of rain welcomed us toTharan gamba di, Town of t he Singing Waves,easily missed if you don’t spot th e turnoff

from the ECR. Entering through Landsporten, the

arched gat e, we were sucked into a time-wa rp.Tranq uebar, as the D anish na med this 17th-centu-

ry settlement of intersecting streets and colonnadedbuildings, seemed to us the most charming stop on theeast coast.

Staying at the breathtaking Neemrana Bungalow OnThe Beach, we w ere treated to competin g views of thestately Fort Dansborg and t he serene blue of the Bay ofBengal. Besides the Bungalow, Neemrana Hotels’

Chettinad-themed Gate H ouse and smaller heritage hotelsoffer comfortable hospitality for a range of tariffs.

The sights of Tranq uebar can be exhausted in one m orn-ing, but a walk down Goldsmith Street, paved and reno-vated by INTACH a nd th e Bestseller Fund, reveals manypleasant surprises, not including the 500-year-old mosqueand the Danish cemetery at opposite ends of the town.

Leaving Tranq uebar with a h eavy heart, we stopped tosteep in more sorrow at the French cemetery in Karaikal,

an exclave of Pondicherry that r etains none of its colonialcharacter.

Amid the forgotten graves, John the caretaker and hisfamily dried their laund ry on clotheslines strung between

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Coromandel CoastThe pull of the

The storyof India's French occupationsleeps undisturbed but unsung at theKaraikal cemetery.

The famous bas-relief known as Arjuna'sPenance is more than another roadsideattraction at Mahabalipuram.

One of the placid reptiles at theMadras Crocodile Bank Trust basks in the

ample sunshine.


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cenotaphs. Only a handful of French fam ilies remain inKaraikal, and the crowded cemetery witnessed the lastburial in 2004.

Redemption came 10 miles away in Nagore, at theHazrat Syed Shahul H ameed Dargah venerated alike byHindus and Muslims as Nagore Andavar (God of Nagore).The shrine, with its five tall mina rets, draw s the childlessand t he chronically ill. A dip in Shifa G unta, th e sacredtank in the courtyard, is believed to cure one of the stub-bornest d iseases.

At Nagapattinam, which claims dubious distinction fornearly 6,064 of the 8,009 recorded casualties of the 2004

tsunam i, the fishermen were on strike, leaving the quayclogged with boats.

We drove to Vailankanni, 7 miles south, an d m arveled atits skyline of gothic steeples. Once a port wit h Roma n andGrecian trade connections, it was later renowned for theBasilica of Our Lady of Good Health built in the 16th cen-tury by grateful Portuguese sailors who had weathered astorm.

We fled to t he picturesque beach, where the sea a bsorbs

the Vellayar River, hoping to get aw ay from the crush ofpilgrims but found them there, too, in formidable num-bers. Next morning , in pouring rain, we ma de good ourescape — to Thanjavur, 60 miles inland.

Thanjavur was on our itinerary not just for theBrihadeeswara Temple, arguably the grandest of thegreat living Chola temples, but for the fact that the

kingdom of Tanjore had considerable cultural and eco-

nomic influence over the coast.From Chidambaram and Na gore to Tranquebar, they

were all governed by Tanjore under many m asters.Besides the temple, worth a day-trip in itself, we

stopped to gaw k at exquisite Chola bronzes in theThanjavur Palace museum and made a dash to Beerangi

Medu in th e heart of t he city to see the 26-foot, 22-tonforge-welded iron cannon built with Danish expertiseduring t he 17th cent ury reign of the Tanjore kingRaghunatha Na yak.

Boys love their guns, don’t t hey?

Early next morning, we returned to our coastal itineraryand made for Point Calimere, where the CoromandelCoast takes a sharp, nearly right-angled turn southward.Here, the ECR deserts the coast and sticks to an unadven-turous course many miles inland. H igh dram a ensuedwhen we took a detour along small country roads. OurSUV was mired in the soft mud flats of Vedaranyam fornearly an hour until a pa ssing taxi driver was enlisted toextricate it, unscathed but for a gashed tire that haunted

the rest of the trip.

From Kodikkarai, as P oint Calimere is known locally,the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka is just across thewat er, policed heavily by coast gua rd and naval ves-

sels of both countries.Point Calimere Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary is among

the last stands of the tropical dry evergreen forests, whichcloaked the entire coast until a few hundred years ago. On

the arid, saline headland herds of blackbuck cavort in spi-ral-horned, fluid-limbed grace. In winter, birdwatchersflock here to see the rare Spoon-billed Sandpiper an dother migra nts. The ancient Chola light house, destroyedby the 2004 tsunam i, is a phantom-like presence on thewindswept beach.

The terrain was flat, but for great mounds of salt thatflanked the highway as we made quick time past the dar-gah at M uthupet and the lighthouse at Manora Beach to

our halt for the night, 100 miles inland at Karaikudi.Here, in the homeland of t he Nattukottai Chettiars, we

experienced the grandeur of the Chettinad mansions andenjoyed their d elicious, peppery cuisine. We wit nessed themaking of Athan gudi floor tiles with th e iron-rich localsoil and listened to the clack of handlooms as weavers

wove elegant cotton saris.Trade and banking took the affluent

Chettiar community to distant lands, from

where they brought back artefacts andinfluences to incorporate in their palatialhouses. With th e wart ime decline of inter-national trade and the subsequent nation-alization of I ndian b anks in the 1950s,their business suffered.

Today, man y of these vast fam ily homesare unoccupied but for lone caretakers andframed m onochrome prints from another

time.We returned t o the coast an d veered off

the ECR at Ram anathapuram for the lastleg of our trip to the island ofRameshwaram, where Lord Rama isbelieved to ha ve worshipped Lord Shivabefore crossing the ocean to Lanka on abridge of rocks constructed by his devotedarmy of m onkeys.

Stippled with tem ples and holy springs, itis one of the most sacred pilgrimage sitesfor Hindus who refer to it as D akshin Kasi.Un surprisingly, it is also filthy, havingcaved under the onslaught of multitudestoo pious to care about sanitat ion.

Pam ban B ridge, the second-longest seabridge in the country, connects the islandwith Mandapam on the mainland.National Highway 49, the old Kochi-Dhanushkodi Road, trails off atMukundarayar Chathiram, a finger of landbounded on bot h sides by rocky barricadesand foaming sea.

Until 1964, Dhanushkodi was a townwith a railway station, bus station and post

office on the southern tip of Rameshwaram. According tothe Ramayana, its name is derived from the Sanskrit forbow, marking the spot where Rama laid down his weaponto indicate where the bridg e to Lanka must be built.

Near midnight on December 23, 1964 the Pamban-

Dhanushkodi passenger train was approachingDha nushkodi when a severe cyclonic storm with win dspeeds of nearly 175 mph raised tida l waves nearly 23 feethigh an d swept the tra in into the ocean, killing all 115 pas-sengers on board and another 1,700-odd people in the vil-lage.

Ever since, Dhanushkodi was declared a ghost townunfit for ha bitation. A few fisherfolk still live amid t hebrine-darkened ruins.

From Mukundarayar Chathiram, crudely modified 20-seater four-wheel drive vans ferry tourists on 20-minuteexcursions to Land ’s End for t he princely fare of Rs 100(nearly two dollars) a head. Throwing caution to thewinds th e underage drivers steer the jam-packed vans ona vomit-inducing, butt-clenching ride that will make mostrollercoasters feel like a picnic.

At the destination, t hough, all is forgiven. Here, on atranquil spit of land at the eastern tip of the Coromandel

Coast, the Bay of Bengal ripples into the tides of theIndian Ocean in the Gulf of Mannar.

Ahead on the finite horizon may be discerned the begin-nings of Adam’s Bridge (or Ram Setu, as mythologistsknow it) — the remn ants of a prehistoric 18-mile landbridge to Talaimannar in Sri Lanka.

Surrounded by 270 degrees of ocean and sky, the wa tersof two seas lapping at my ankles, my toes nibbled byscores of tiny orange fish, I looked back a t t he sickle-like

curve of the Coroman del Coast.What a trip! n

Bijoy Venugopal is editor, Yahoo India Travel. His 11-day livetravelogue, The Great East Coast Drive, is archived atin.lifestyle.yahoo.com/greatecrdrive/

The pull of the

Coromandel CoastCoromandel CoastThe pull of the

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A photo-op at Pamban Bridge,Rameswaram, is a tourist trap too

tempting to escape.


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