A small write for an exciting trip I had last sunday.
A walk back in Time:
"A Road less Traveled", I experienced the meaning of the phrase last Sunday. I was told by Venkat Sir, that Chandra was planning for a one day heritage trip. When I spoke to Chandra he told that it was historic cavemen site. At that time I wasn't thrilled to go to such a place, but I agreed to go.
We started some what late by 7.30 from Sathyamurthy Sir's residence. The place we have planned is near thiruvallur. The road was so bad that we traveled about 2 1/2 hours to travel a distance of about 50 KM. Chandra had brought breakfast and lunch for us, we finished the breakfast in the middle of our journey. I had a nice talk with Mr Chandra about his experiences with Temple cleaning and other idea's of his. Chandra is full of ideas and energy, am really wondering from where he is getting all the energy for the small frame he has.
Our group had Mr. Thirumurthy apart from Dr Sathymurthuy from ASI to guide us. Mr. Thirumurthy who was familiar with the place was leading the way. The place we were going is called Gudiyam and we had to stop to van before 5 KM.
Initially we underestimated the distance to walk, and took only water as we thought we might return for lunch to van. We all started a brisk walk to the site with Dr Sathyamuthy and Thirumurthy leading the walk. The two were explaining to all of about the site. The place was an industry to build the stone age tools like hand axe, scrapper, blades (actual words from the tools picked from our guides). They picked up the tools and handed each one of us a sample. They explained how a rock is cut from its base to make a tool. After a long explanation of this nature, all of started seeing the rocks with different eye. Each rock looked to have a shape for us, and we really went back in time and see the rocks from the eye of our ancestors. While walking we saw a huge black rock what is called as Conglomerate. Conglomerate is hardened lava which had lot stone tools embedded in it.
The walk from the start to the first cave was about 5 KM. The cave was huge, around 100 meters wide and 50 Meters taller. According to Sathyamurthy Sir, the cave would have been formed after the ice age, when the ice melted and water receded from this place. He pointed out a grayish area at the top of the cave, which is the mark up to which water would have been there. While going towards this place, we took a native woman working there to help us locate the caves. She told there is pond about cave. When we went to the top the cave, the view absolutely stunning. Only then we realized we were in middle of a dense forest, and the view we saw will be imprinted in our minds forever.
At the top of the cave Sathyamurthy Sir pointed out a fossil. It was an impression of a snail or something similar to it allover it when the rock was in a semisolid state (Check the photo's section to see this interesting peace). We found another rock with the similar imprint. We realized the steepness of the path we came only while going getting down. We went to next cave guided by the native woman. This cave has a small Amman temple in it. This one was much bigger than the previous one and there was lot of big honeycombs at the edges of the cave and also in the neighboring mountains(just like the one's in Big Temple).I had an interesting discussion about the books (PS, Sherlock Holmes) with Mr. Natarajan while walking to the 2nd cave.
By this time, every body has become really tired and only then we realized that we have not brought anything to eat except water. So we have decided to return to the van cutting short the visits to the other caves. It was said there are around 9 such caves available in that area. The walk back was the one that I will never forget in my life. We split in to 2 groups with Madan, Chandra, Thirumurthy and Parasuram going ahead of us, while myself, Sathymurthy sir, Natarajan, Gomathi and Sundaram walked behind. Sathymurthy Sir was talking about his archeological experiences in recent years. It was fascinating to hear his experiences. He also explained me about the general evolution theory so as to easily correlate it with what we saw at the cave. I really walked back in time during this time. It was amazing how a 65 year old man could walk 10 KM talking non stop enthusiastically.
We had a hearty meal which was just curd rice, but it really felt delicious at that time. It took about 4 hours to come back to the van. The people at the place was very happy to see us, they gave us water (good they away from Chennai). I went over the moon when I saw the phone they are using in that area is actually a done by my company (Midas Comm.). For some time I rambled to Mr. Sundaram about the product and its use in rural places like this.
We then visited the Archeology museum at Poondi. The museum was a small one, but filled with interesting articles. The time period of the some of stone tools at the museum was dated around 5 lac years. It was mind bobbling even to think about it. The most interesting piece available at the museum was a fossil of a snail of the size of Maruthi van tyre. That fossil was dated some 80 lac years. We could not take photos of the piece as it is restricted.
Atlast we went to the completely full Poondi reservoir, coming back to future. We started there around 5.45 and reached Chennai through another route through Thiruvallur, Ponnamalle High Road. We reached Sathymurthy Sir's residence by 7.15. All in all, it was an amazing and unforgettable trip for me.
I suppose the people who went on the trip did not have time to check out on the thiruvenbakkam temple. this temple in poondi village you must have crossd before you reached the lake.
chandra had spoken to me about this.
this temple very close to poondi lake has been sung about by sundara.
a blinded sundara walks to thiruvenbakkam from thiruvotriyur. god has promised him succour at thiruvenbakkam. but when he turns up god gives him a walking stick.(great sense of humour!) and says I promised a blind man some help not an eye. an angry sundara throws the stick at the shivalingam but the nandi grows and takes the blow and in the process breaks a ear.
the goddess Minnoli ammai creates lightnings on the way to help sundara go to kanchi where he gets one eye.
the lord here is called oondriswarar.
incidentally the original temple lies under the poondi lake. its foundations can be seen when it dries up in summer. the present temple was made out of the stones lifted from the original temple( just like abu simbel)
a very learned man once told me "since sundara himself could not see the temple neither can we!"