Kamal, this is great news. The work these people do is amazing. All great things are truly simple. Maybe we should discuss about offering our services.
Sathya is right about Srimushnam. Two temples there- the Boovaraagaswamy temple and the shiva temple. Both have been cleaned recently, the sculptures are sparkling, sharp and really catch the eye. The Nandavanam area of the Shiva temple especially has been pruned and beaten into shape. Maintained by the ASI, of course.
The marble floors are really irritating, though:-) The Thiruvaheendrapuram temple is an example. But the small shrine on top of a hill- that place is strewn about with papers, rubbish, and what not. (Incidentally- this place figures as the starting point in 'Pandiyan magal'- Mr. Vishwaksenan's novel:-)
I fully agree with pavitra and satya. Unless the temples are just cleaned and the flooring and other structural things are left as it was the divinity of the place is lost
there is a beautiful temple near chengelpet called malaivayaur. it is on a small hill say around 50 steps to be climbed. the ruling deity is lakshmi narshiman. a very old temple which was renevoted recently. The lord looks gigantic, but during renevotation they had changed the flooring and other thing to granite. It looks very iritating. a little further to this place is a very ancient temple just on the banks of palaru, built during the pallava period. very peaceful and calm & it has been left as it was. if only it was renevoted and taken care . Infact there are some culvet in this temple, but since i visited this place quite late in the evening, i could not actualy see the culvets.
there are numerous such temples in tamil nadu which would attract devotees, if only they are maintained properly.
hope we as a group will be able to do something about these.
I had been very busy for the past couple of weeks. Could not even check my mails. I checked all the interesting mails today first thing in the morning. I see i have missed lots of interesting arguments.