This is an account of a trip I made with a friend in 2017 to Tiruchuzhi, birth place of Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi in 1879. In the 1940s the Sri Ramanasramam in Tiruvannamalai bought the house in which Sri Ramana was born and where he grew up with his family. It is called the Ramana Maharshi Sundaram and is open to visitors. I was travelling with a friend of mine and we had based ourselves in the city of Madurai which was about 45 minutes away by car. In Madurai we had first visited the Ramana Mandarim on Chockkappan Street, close to the south tower of the Meenakshi Temple, the place where Sri Ramana realised The Self in 1896 before making his way a few weeks later to Tiruvannamalai, where he was to remain for the rest of his life.
After breakfast we made our way down to the hotel travel desk in the lobby to arrange for a taxi to take us to Tiruchuzhi which was about 50 km outside of Madurai and in the countryside to the south. It took a little while for the man behind the travel desk to fully grasp where we wanted to go, and this was down to the fact he knew Tiruchuzhi as Tiruchuli. Initially he had no clue as to what we were saying with all our Tiruchuzhi stuff, thinking instead that we wanted to go to the city of Thiruchirappalli which was a 100 km or so back up the road. When we mentioned the name of Ramana Maharshi however, it finally became clear to him where it was we wanted a taxi to take us to, and it was then just a question of working out a fair price for the ride. In that regard I think I did pretty well by knocking down an initial quote of 2800 rupees to 2100 rupees which was not too bad at all, far from it in fact, more like a bit of a bargain if truth be told. Once settled, it was then just a case of going back to our rooms for half an hour or so before getting down to the lobby for 10 in order to meet up with our driver.
Sure enough by 10 we were back in the lobby, soon on our way out of the hotel entrance and into a car which came in the form of a Tata Indica for our trip to Tiruchuzhi, me in the front Anita in the back, and when it was time for the return part of the ride it would be the other way around. It was a Saturday morning and although the Madurai streets were not exactly quiet, we still made good progress making our way out of town, past the small airport and onto the highway which turned out to be NH 45 B. After we were clear of the city it was pretty empty, which was a bit of a surprise because I had been expecting the roads down in that part of the world to be both busy and possibly chaotic. Instead it turned out to be almost the complete opposite once the intensity of those city streets of Madurai had been shaken off. Compared to what it was like in Karnataka, the roads in Tamil Nadu were much better; they were well thought out in terms of planning and of a higher quality construction. After about 35 km we took a turning off NH 45 B and found ourselves on smaller, local roads where things narrowed down and it felt like we were getting closer to the source by way of destination. The landscape was gradually changing too, into something a bit wilder than cultivated fields which were the usual sights in that part of the country. Now it was more like scrub with low lying bushes which we were riding through, where herds of goats roamed whilst tended by shepherds who were possibly nomads. To all intents and purposes it looked like little had changed in the scene for hundreds of years, well, apart from the fact there was a row of very large electricity pylons running through the middle of it all, stretching across the land as far as the eye could see.
Our arrival in Tiruchuzhi soon cleared away any preconceptions we might have had as to how it was going to be. Basically I thought Tiruchuzhi would be Tamil village but in fact it turned out to be much larger and much busier, more like a small town. Not that it mattered, because now that we had arrived it was just a question of finding the house in which Ramana Maharshi had been born and where he had spent his childhood years. Our driver seemed to know exactly where he was going so there was no need for us to get stressed over where it might actually be, and sure enough we soon pulled up to park beneath a large tree opposite the red and white striped front walls of what was clearly the main Hindu temple in Tiruchuzhi. From there it was just a short walk in the bright morning light to the Ramana Maharshi Sundaram, the building which used to be the family home of Ramana Maharshi. It had been completely renovated in 2010 by Ramanasramam who had acquired the property in the 1940’s when Ramana Maharshi was still alive. No doubt it was now a lot larger than what it had been back then, and from the outside it was clear that everything looked fresh and very well maintained, in fact it was immaculate.
It was coming up to 11.30 in the morning when we approached the main door at the front of the building. Since it was wide open we walked on through and went straight inside, with no one else there as far as we could see. Felt like we were off the beaten track again, more than what we had been at the Ramana Mandiram in Madurai even. Yes, it felt like we were indeed getting back to where it had all originally happened. After taking off our shoes, Anita and I entered the main room of the sundaram, which had four pillars and a very smooth, polished granite tiled floor upon which we walked barefoot. On one wall there were enlarged framed photographs of Ramana Maharshi’s parents and opposite those on the other, a large framed photograph of the master himself, sat reclining on a couch in the meditation hall of Ramanasramam. This main room of the sundaram was spacious, light and airy with plenty of windows, all of which were open, and there was a back door which was also open wide.
Funnily enough, sitting in the doorway and with his back to us, was a grey haired old man gazing at a couple of labourers doing some building work outside. The old man wore a white dhoti loincloth around his waist but that was about it, nothing else. In a strange way both Anita and I thought he looked like Ramana Maharshi and that if the old man turned around we would be looking at the face of Bhagavan. As it was, the old man did not turn around and as far as we could work out he was oblivious to the fact we were even there. Nevertheless there was something about how he casually leaned back, with the side of his head resting on his right palm, which made him look so very much like Ramana Maharshi. Guess I couldn’t help but take it as an auspicious sign, and Anita did as well, like it was a form of welcome from the state of the timeless.
We continued to wander through the building until Anita sat down in a small front room of the sundaram in which there was a shrine to Ramana Maharshi on a finely carved wooden stand. In front of the shrine were bowls of grey vibhuti ash and vermillion red kum kum powder, obviously placed there for devotees to take a pinch from and press against their foreheads whenever they came to visit. It was a powerful room, no doubt about that, the large framed photograph of the master’s face made it so. As for me I stayed in the main hall and rested against a pillar close to the large Ramana Maharshi photograph where he was reclining on the couch. I sat there with my eyes closed and my legs stretched out in front of me. Throughout the next hour or so that we spent in those two rooms of the sundaram, we were both left undisturbed. I split my time between sitting in relaxed contemplation and walking slowly around enjoying the feel of the smooth granite floor beneath my bare feet, just taking in the peaceful atmosphere of the sundaram, appreciating the fact that it had been well worth making the effort to get there.
Eventually a Tamil lady appeared and after handing us photographs of Ramana Maharshi she proceeded to show us the other rooms in the building. Having a gentle manner and a big smile on her face, she seemed very happy that a couple of Westerners were visiting the sundaram. She might have been surprised to see us or she might not, although I was pretty sure that at least once or twice a month there would have been a few people from our part of the world who probably showed up, having made the journey to pay their respects at the birth place of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. All in all we stayed in the sundaram for about 90 minutes but eventually it was coming up to lunch time and the Tamil lady was getting ready to shut the doors of the building. The old man who had been sitting with his back to us now appeared at the entrance to the sundaram, having moved away from his reclining position on the steps by the open back door. Needless to say, face to face he looked nothing like Ramana Maharshi, but somehow that didn’t take anything away from the initial vision we’d had of him as the master when we’d first arrived.
Before we left we both sat on a bench by the entrance in order to put our shoes on, where Anita told me that when sitting in the small room of the sundaram in front of the Ramana Maharshi shrine, she had almost been in tears whilst meditating in the presence of his large framed photograph, such was the compassion she felt emanating from his face. Needless to say, I was very happy she’d had a positive experience, because whilst the trip to Tiruchuzhi had primarily been for me, it was easy to forget the whole thing might not mean so much to her. It seemed like we had timed it right, having stayed a good while in the sundaram on our own and undisturbed, both of us feeling very happy that we’d had the place to ourselves.
Back in the early afternoon brightness and heat of Tiruchuzhi we found that the gates to the main temple, outside of which our car was parked, were closed. Not that it mattered, we’d already found what we came for, so missing out on another wander round a Hindu temple full of gods and goddesses of whom we would not really know much about was no big deal. We therefore woke our driver, got back in our taxi and headed out of Tiruchuzhi, soon once again riding through the scrub country. Driving on until we reached a small town about 10 or 15 Km down the road where there was a restaurant we could stop for lunch, one which our driver recommended to us as a place which served good food. Turned out he was right on that score because our meal was delicious. For me it was rice and vegetables served up in unlimited quantities, whilst for Anita it was the same but with a piece of fish thrown into the mix as well, something which I have to admit did look very tasty. On another day I might have had some myself, but after the sundaram it only seemed right for me to be veggie.
After lunch we were back on the road heading to NH 45 B which once we joined for the return trip to Madurai was pretty deserted, just like it had been earlier on when coming in the opposite direction. Sitting on the back seat with a full stomach, I spent most of my time staring out of the window of the taxi, where amazing cloud formations kept appearing in the blue skies high above us. Yes, I just sat on the back seat staring up at them as we sped down an empty highway, heading once more into the heart of the ancient temple city of Madurai in south India. When we got back to our rooms at the Madurai Residency it was the middle of the afternoon and time to rest for a couple of hours, lie low and sit out the heat, escape the brightness and intensity of Madurai. It was great to relax deep in the shadows of my room, to read a bit and tap, tap, tap a few more words into my mobile phone, curtains drawn because there was no view to speak of, and with the bedside lamps turned down low. Guess it felt cut off and private, a space for contemplation rather than meditation, a hideaway from the outside world.
took a back ways track
in the land far south
of all memory undertaken
in this tribulation life
where the climb is the thrill
in a cascade of resonance
too kaleidoscopic to ever
understand
unless you’re space driven
and prepared to take a vow
of silence
until the very last day
you spend on earth
arrived at the end of that
back ways track
to find the sun so hot
it did almost blind me,
took shelter in the shade
of the place
that was the birth of a
universal master
next to the temple walls
of toothpaste purity
waited a while
to slowly slide within
where I heard there was singing
in a key of radiance
which knocked me sideways
through an avalanche of happiness
I felt I didn’t deserve
guess I must have been
wrong about that,
very much mistaken in fact
The header image for this article is a photograph taken by Andreea Ch as found on Pexels.
TracelessTrails 