Being well known for its immersive spiritual experience, along with a mention in Sanskrit scriptures like the Patanjali, Kancheepuram easily makes it to the list of oldest towns in India. A trip here is incomplete without a visit to the Ekambareshwar temple, constructed long before even the Mughul rule.
Legend has it that Goddess Parvathi hugged a Shiva linga of sand under a mango tree to protect it from the inundating river nearby. Touched by her devotion, Lord Shiva is said to have married her under the same tree which has aged gracefully to ~3500 years today. Other places of significance including the Kanchi Kamakshi Amman temple and the Varadharajan temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu, have seen contributions from the Chola, Vijayanagara, and Pallava dynasties.
In the Kanchi Mutt, where Periyava of the lineage of Adi Shankaracharya, is believed to have spent his last days, devotees come to seek blessings of the current Shankaracharya.
Religious significance aside, you will find a Mudaliar couple, seated on the 'Thinnai' or front porch of Kanchi Kudil, proffering greetings to visitors. Kanchi Kudil is a century-old, home-turned-Museum, once inhabited by a joint family, that practiced farming for a livelihood. Careful one must be, to not tread on the intricately designed kolams or floor-prints made of rice flour. What an ideal place to go back in time and explore the traditional ways of living in one of South India's oldest cities!
The front-room is where liquid cash was stored in an old safe, accounts maintained for trading the harvested produce, and other useful office articles kept, like the antique telephone. Can you spot records dating back to 1923 in the video?
Next, we walk into the baby-room, where a beautiful baby slipped into deep slumber in the fine cradle, once upon a time. Another toddler of the house, blithely spent his childhood rocking away to glory on the elegant wooden horse.
The ladies of the house who doted on the little ones also had a room just to themselves, where exquisite collection of jewels and attire-mostly Kancheepuram silk Sarees, were neatly piled. Out on the streets, it is possible to see the weavers at work to this day. From exporting silk and dying it, to extracting threads, and weaving them into a bedazzling silk saree, they do it all!
The most unique features of the house, I find to be the pooja room and the kitchen. The paadukai or wooden footwear worn then, was left outside the entrance to the pooja room. As evinced by the grandiose arrangements here, religious rituals were practiced everyday, not blindly, but with many elements of explaination. Notable among the artefacts used are an enourmous camphor-burning palette whose contents when lit, are metaphorical with the light within the soul-It's ultimate purpose being surging upwards to seek God, leaving no trace of itself at the end of life. The kitchen was once well-equipped with the rusting antique rice grinder, coconut scraper, kerosene lamps, charcoal grill, coffee-grinder, butter maker, and what not!
All sumptuous meals were ravenously eaten off the vazhai yelai/banana leaf in the living room, adorned by a veritable collection of heirlooms like the gramophone, a grand-father clock, door locks, and family photographs.
At the end of the enlightening tour, you may choose to simply relax on my favourite spot in the house-The swing. Reflecting on the contrasts between modern living and the way of life in the olden days, it became clear that I had just time-travelled to good OLD Kancheepuram :)
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