Yes, you have guessed it right. I have made up this topic
heading just to connect the following two paragraphs.
I had been on a personal trip to Madurai last
weekend. I wanted to capture my interesting memoirs of Madurai in one of my
posts and hence this one. The first thought that flashes across my mind
whenever I think of the city ‘Madurai’ is the picture of chess-board type town
buses running in blue, green and orange liveries. My earliest memories of
Madurai go back to a sultry 1985 evening, reaching by a bus from Ramanathapuram
on a morning, visiting city temples during the day and taking the evening bus
to Srivilliputtur, after discovering the fact that I had lost my chappal in a
bus at Periyar. The next visit was in 1992 when my appa got transferred to
Madurai and we got an opportunity to travel in the elite 135 Down Vaigai
Express. The city is still the same as what I saw on that glittering evening of
May 1992, it has not lost any of its sheen, energy and glory. The unique
dialect consisting of the ubiquitous “vandhaaynga, ponaaynga”, “vandhaapla,
ponaapla”, “nikkattum and pogattum” for stopping and starting a bus along with
the extended syllable for some of the words retain the charm of visiting
Madurai in us. Madurai is the city that offers letter prefixes for its areas as
many area names are common – so one can easily spot K. Pudur, Y. Oththakkadai
etc. Area name is usually tagged on to the nearest bigger town/ village
(Kosakkulam Pudur, Yaanamalai Oththakkadai etc.). Even local area names are a
bit unique – Simmakkal, Yaanakkal, Goripalayam, Arasaradi, Kochadai,
Thuvarimaan, Silaimaan, Thallaakulam, Maatuthaavani, Paravai, Alanganallur,
Kallandhiri, Kadachanendhal are samples from the larger listing.
[To be continued...]
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