Chennai & Beyond
A journey through body, belief, and stone
The Uber was clean. That itself was news worth sharing.
Security moved smartly. I had only tea before leaving and was already dehydrated by the time I hit the terminal. Apollo's airport chemist had two versions of ORS — one called "Electra-something" dressed up like the real thing, and one that simply said ORS. I bought both. Faith sometimes works like that.
Inside baggage check, I forgot the laptop. Went back, left one bag, cleared security, forgot that bag. Returned, retrieved it with the help of personnel kinder than the situation deserved, and reached the gate — early. Worked twenty minutes on the laptop. The flight was Mumbai to Madurai, stopover Chennai.
Tired faces around me, somehow still fresh in the morning. First class boarded first. Loyalty passengers next. Then the rest of us — reminded, as we always are, of exactly where we stand.
I boarded. Asked for a seatbelt extension. Nobody came. To my quiet delight, the belt fit. That small victory deserved a family WhatsApp announcement. Done, with full diligence.
The aisle seat beside me stayed empty — a luxury of a different kind. Breakfast came: poha, sheera, Greek yoghurt, bun maska. Coffee, then tea. The service was good. You can sense when someone is serving rather than performing a role. Midway through, a fellow passenger fell ill. The crew called for a doctor on board, handled it without fuss. I learned later it was an asthma attack. We landed with a mild rumble. A good beginning.
Getting out was easy. The driver called to say which gate he was waiting at. A large Innova. Chennai arrived all at once — humid, layered, alive.
An impulse struck: why not begin with a temple? The South is infamous for them. I asked the driver. He turned out to be a Bihari, new to Chennai himself. Google Maps took over — and lost its way spectacularly, circling 3-4 kilometres before I gave up on divine intervention and returned to the hotel route.
Check-in at The Residency Towers was smooth. Checkout: 24 hours from the time of check-in.
The room was pristine. Tech-savvy. Almost intimidating. I felt like a dinosaur in a digital terrarium. Work came first anyway — Excel sheets, AWS apps, frantic calls — until exhaustion claimed me.
Work-life balance, I thought, is history in post-Covid India. There are those who control, those smart enough to align for comfort, and those who simply toil. On a plate of ham and eggs, the hen is involved; the pig is committed. So much for commitments.
The bedside tablet controlled everything — lights, temperature, curtains, entertainment. Smart room. I still missed my Alexa at home.
Then came the bathroom. A TOTO toilet. The seat lid rose automatically as I entered. The whole experience with it deserves its own comic essay — which I narrated to my wife over the phone. She laughed freely. That itself was worth the trip.
I released the driver for the evening. Hunger had ideas. A friend had suggested Bharathi Mess near Kapaleeswarar Temple — temple and food, both sorted in one auto ride. The driver spoke only Tamil, I spoke only intent. We managed through translation apps. He asked ₹200; I agreed.
Bharathi Mess was shut. Nothing left. I glanced at the temple gate and told God to wait — I was hungry.
A sweet shop owner near the main road guided me to Ratna Café — old, famous, exactly what I needed. Crisp rava dosa. Sambar rice, a tiny portion on the house because I'd asked if I could taste it. Banana leaf. Mineral water. ₹125. Fine dining in the truest sense of the words.
A small temple stood nearby. A flower seller told me it was the Vinayaka Temple. I went in.
Ganesh stood with Riddhi and Siddhi. The diyas lit the sanctum softly. The peace that entered me had no announcement — it simply came in, the way it always does when you stop asking for it. The priest did parikrama. I sat — not praying exactly, but conversing inwardly with something I couldn't name.
Next door stood the Velleeswarar Temple. A man nearby explained it with grace — one of the Sapta Sthana Shiva temples of Mylapore, where Shukracharya had regained his sight through Shiva's grace after the Vamana episode blinded him. Devotees with eye ailments come here still. Legends, when you encounter them in the place they happened, stop being legends. They become something else entirely.
Just a furlong away rose Kapaleeswarar Temple — swayambhu, self-manifested. The 37-metre gopuram with its colourful sculptures of gods and saints and dancing Shiva competing with Kali seemed alive. Not figuratively. Alive.
I kept my slippers at the stand and walked in.
The air inside had that quality particular to very old temples — a density, a presence, as though centuries of devotion had accumulated into something almost physical. I moved towards Goddess Parvati, revered here as Karpagambal, a lion in front of her. The priest circled the aarti thali. I hovered my palms over the flame, touched them to my forehead and eyes. The priest chanted mantras and blessed me. I did parikrama and went to the main sanctum.
Near the railing, the gatekeeper asked the people in front — including me — to sit. So I sat. And the aarti began. Nadaswaram and Thavil, the windpipe and the drum, alongside Vedic Sanskrit chanting by the priests. The whole experience was what I can only call oneness. The word sounds overused. In that moment it was simply accurate.
Afterwards, in the prangan, I stood before the ancient Punnai tree, before Nadana Vinayaka — the dancing Ganesh — and Lord Muruga as Singaravelan. Goddess Parvati came here as a peahen to do Shiva's penance, they say. Lord Brahma came here to atone for failing to show respect to Shiva at Kailash. The place carries all of it quietly, without insisting you notice.
As I browsed her hand-crafted wooden souvenirs, I found a small wooden cube with "Perfectly Imperfect" carved into it, and a hole on top. I asked what it was for. She said: a test tube, for a single flower. It pulled me straight back to the Oberoi Sheraton in Mumbai — the poolside wedding party, a rose in a test tube vase, and all of us kids marvelling at it as a novelty. I bought the cube. Asked her to keep it till I returned from the temple.
After darshan, Bharathi Mess finally had its arms open. A North Indian waiter — picked by the cashier on seeing me — recommended banana vada and medu bonda. Both were delectable. The sambar was different from what we get in Mumbai. Thicker, yellow, tangy. ₹50, served on banana leaf. Service with dignity.
I found an Uber back through the bustling Mylapore market — a sight in itself. The driver asked for ₹50 extra for traffic. I agreed. He suggested places I should visit. He dropped me at the hotel.
Back in the room: shower, a one-pot dish, beer. Television. Sleep.
The next morning's complimentary breakfast buffet was better than I expected. A robot wandered around helping the staff clear used dishes — tradition and technology, coexisting with no apparent friction.
Sunday brought work — four to five hours at the Hyatt for an event organiser discussion. The week had been gruelling. Plans to extend the stay fell through. My wife's calls were reassuring. She said: don't think too much. I followed her advice, which I do not always do, and relaxed in that smart hotel room with its bedside tablet and its obedient curtains.
The Women's Cricket World Cup was on. India in the final. I ordered room service — fries, salad, a sinfully magnificent pizza — and lay in those sheets watching Indian women try to make history. South Africa fought, as South Africa does, and lost. India won. My evening was complete. Slept late, no regrets.
The next morning I discussed with my son and decided: check out early, drive to Mahabalipuram, two temples on the way, airport by evening. Booked an Ertiga on Uber for the day.
Traffic bows only to politicians. Their cavalcades put the rest of us into further distress while we wait, tourist and office-goer alike. Somehow the driver pulled through, and we hit the outskirts with relief — but missed Matsya Narayana Temple. I reached out to the Lord mentally as we moved on to Nithya Kalyana Perumal Temple.
The driver found shade in the parking lot. I got down, bought garlands and a grassy offering, and approached slowly — the Tamil-style architecture settling into my gaze. The Kalyana Vimanam tower over the main shrine. The Kalyana Theertham sacred tank alongside it. Intricate carvings. Large mandapas. Gopurams. The whole grandeur seeping into consciousness before I'd said a word.
The temple behind the main shrine was of Komalavalli Thayar — a form of Lakshmi. A havan was being performed outside. Couples had come to pay their obeisances. Marriages are performed here; the temple is about the fulfillment of finding your life's companion, asking the Lord to match you with the partner of your dreams. I stood with hands joined, and felt the wholeness of it.
The priest took the grassy offering. The garlands would go to Lord Vishnu. A lady in the queue explained the legend — that this is one of the very rare places where Goddess Lakshmi holds Vishnu on her palm and Vishnu holds her on his lap and in his heart. Balance carved into belief itself.
The gates opened. A few couples with money went ahead of the queue. Power, as always, finds a way. I did protest. Peace prevailed. Inside, the Utsavamurti — Nitya Kalyana Perumal in the form of a boar, left foot elevated and resting on Adisesha's head, right foot firmly on the earth, Bhoomidevi resting on his thigh — was tremendous. Sri Lakshmi Adi Varahaswamy. I handed the garlands to the priest, gave my name and gotra, searched frantically for the receipt I had lost. The wise lady spoke from behind: don't worry, it has reached the Lord.
She guided me towards nine parikramas of the temple. Seeing my weight and my back trouble, she said three would do. I nodded and walked barefoot, steadily, completing three rounds. An old priest washing his feet nearby — I tried to touch his feet. He stopped me gently. Bow only to the Lord, he said.
In the hall, prasadam was being distributed. The server gathered the last of what he had and gave it to me in a leaf-bowl. I looked at the wise lady and asked whether I could take it home for my family. She said: have it here, remembering them — it will not remain good till you return. I sat and had my prasadam. Thanked her. Moved to the car.
Mahabalipuram arrived with the sun.
With so little time, I remembered the Hindi saying: Gagar mein Sagar — the ocean in a pot. How much could I truly savour? I decided: Pancha Rathas, Krishna's Butter Ball, Varaha Mandapa, Shore Temple, beach.
At the Pancha Pandava Mandapa — unfinished, north of the Krishna Mandapa — you feel the sheer ambition of the Pallava architects even in the raw stone. A central shrine cut into the back wall. A passage for circumambulation left incomplete. The hara elements running along the facade. The vyala placed on the phalaka instead of the base — a Chalukyan stylistic borrowing that tells you ideas were travelling across kingdoms even then.
Stone that someone carved and then left, mid-sentence.
The Pancha Rathas felt like walking onto a giant's chessboard. Each one carved top-down from a single massive outcropping of pink granite — not built, carved. A different temple roof style on each, like a seventh-century architectural catalogue. The monolithic elephant and the majestic lion beside them. I forgot my fatigue standing there. The body has opinions in the noon sun; good stone overrules them.
Krishna's Butter Ball — Vaan Irai Kal — is a 250-ton granite sphere sitting precariously on a short, slippery slope. It has not moved in over 1,200 years. People huddled in its shadow for relief from the heat. Looking at it — that enormous weight balanced on its tiny contact point — you feel small in the best possible way. The mythology says it is a handful of butter dropped by the young Krishna, frozen mid-fall. Looking at it, you believe that entirely.
At the Varaha Mandapa the relief was both physical and spiritual — cool stone and cool shadow after the relentless sun. The Varaha panel: Vishnu as the boar, lifting Bhudevi from the cosmic ocean, standing on Adisesha's head. Gajalakshmi: serene on a lotus, royal elephants bathing her with water from jars, the calm on her face cooling even through a camera lens. Trivikrama: one leg planted, the other swung high toward the heavens, the entire universe in three strides, the stone still somehow moving.
The Ganesha Ratha, carved from a single whale-back rock, with its lion-pillars at the entrance. Complete. Perfectly preserved. A jewel.
I found a vendor and practically inhaled coconut water. The cool sweetness stitched my energy back together. I spotted the driver catching a nap in the shade. I knew my limits by then. "Could you drop me at the Shore Temple gate?" He smiled — he'd seen what the noon sun does — and agreed. A quick GPay tap for the ASI ticket and I was walking into my final tryst with this coast.
The Shore Temple stands solitary. Unlike everything I had seen that day, it was not carved from the hillside — it was built, block by block, and it has defied salt spray and sea wind for over 1,300 years. Inside the sanctum: a Dhara Linga, sixteen-sided, polished black basalt, standing resolute. The body aches faded entirely in that shadow.
Leaning against a weathered wall to rest my back, I fell into conversation with a passerby who seemed to know every grain of sand here. He pointed toward the crashing surf. "You are looking at the last of the Seven Pagodas," he said. Ancient sailors — Marco Polo among them — had spoken of seven glittering towers visible from the sea. The gods, so the legend goes, were jealous of this city's beauty and sent the ocean to swallow the other six.
He lowered his voice. "During the 2004 tsunami, when the water pulled back hundreds of metres before the wave struck, people saw them. Long rows of walls and ruins on the seabed. The ocean briefly gave back what it had stolen."
He led me to the south base of the temple, where a Chola inscription from 1010 CE calls the temple Jalasayana — lying in water. Rajaraja I, who built the great temple at Thanjavur, had made sure his name was etched here three hundred years after the Pallavas built it. The inscription also records a resolution made by the middle-aged citizens and village administrators about local contracts. Even a thousand years ago, people gathered in these flower gardens to manage town affairs. History became intimate in a single paragraph of stone.
On the way to the airport I had seen Ideal Beach Resort. I asked the driver to stop.
My wife had been asking me all trip to embrace myself, to take that journey to the core of myself. When the love of your life asks you to do that, you stop making excuses. I walked to their beachside area. The shop by the sea declined to serve me — private beach, residents only. I said I had barely an hour before a flight. They asked for a non-resident fee. I paid it without hesitation. A canopy was given. A hammock was set up on the spot. My drink arrived.
Nothing between me and the sea.
The sea might turn as rough as it likes. On its own, it always finds its way back to calm. That is not a small thing to remember.
I resigned to the hammock. Closed my eyes. The sea played its music. Effortlessly, I entered that zone where thought stops arriving. A power nap took over. When I woke, I walked the clean beach — barefoot, unhurried — with sun and wind and sea for company, and something close to gratitude for all the goodness life quietly bestows.
Mahabalipuram: the sea that talks, the beach that carries you, the rocks that time-travel you without asking permission.
I found the car. The driver took me towards the airport. As we sped back, the rain arrived — gently, precisely — as if the sky had decided to say goodbye on behalf of everything I was leaving behind. It made parting easy.
The body aches were temporary. The memory is not.
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