Kshetra Yatra Day 1

My friends Neeraj Menon, Siddharth S Jayan, Ashwin Pavithran and Basil Joshua Reji began a tour of various temples in Tamil Nadu today. Our journey began at Thiruvananthapuram North station, where we boarded the Kollam-Kanyakumari MEMU to Kanyakumari Terminus. The railway line south of Thiruvananthapuram is incredibly scenic. 

The fields where Kalliyankattu Neeli once roamed. Taken around Nagercoil town station.

The beach in Kanyakumari is a mere fifteen minute walk from the railway station. We successfully evaded auto drivers and walked to the beach. There, we changed into our bathing suits and went swimming in the meeting of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The water in Kanyakumari is always a bright blue colour. The high tide today made for great swimming. No pictures, sadly, as all of us were in the sea together.

Kanyakumari

This bath was a purification ritual for us before our worship at the temple of Kanyakumari Amman on the seashore. This is an ancient temple in the Tamil style. It is basically a stone building consisting of a walled fort-like compound, an inner temple and finally the sanctum sanctorum. The eastern gate of this temple is almost always closed in my knowledge, open only on occasions.

Devi Kanyakumari is a beautiful deity. She was adorned in sandal paste when we received her darsanam today, her nose ring distinctly shiny as always. Kanyakumari is a special temple to me for a few reasons, despite only having visited it for the third time today.

Serious as ever.

After our worship, we had coffee and tea and a couple of bananas to satiate our hunger—we had eaten nothing save some biscuits since rushing out of our examination at 12:30pm. We then boarded a train to Tirunelveli.

Reaching the city at 7:30pm, we had dosas at Gomathi's. We walked around the city centre a while and returned to the station to catch our exchange train to the next day.

Are selfies still a thing anymore?

Nanmalai Nerathu Mayakkam

While leaving our luggage at the railway station in Tirunelveli, the man at the counter told me and Neeraj that there would be no crowd on the train we were looking to board. And he was correct, in fact it was not a crowd, but the population of an entire town that had made themselves comfortable in these two second class compartments. The hurry to get in eventually separated Neeraj and Basil from me, Ashwin and Siddharth. While they got a seat rather fast, the three of us took turns sitting on the edges of seats, squatting on the floor and standing up until Madurai. Once the train reached Madurai, the crowd reduced ever so slightly and we could find ourselves proper seats. As I write this, the crowd has more or less disappeared and we are comfortably dozing off, waiting for our destination at 6am.

Siddharth on a rather cold Tamil night.