An insider's insights
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Exclusive excerpts from Manohar Devadoss' Multiple Facets of My Madurai, published recently, with exquisite drawings and accompanying text that capture what it was like growing up in the temple town in the 1950s.
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The East Gopuram
MAGNIFICENT as they are, there is no clear record or rigorous evidence as to when the gopurams of Meenakshi Amman Temple were built. What is known for certain is that the East Gopuram was the first to be built. Many scholars believe that construction work to raise this gopuram was begun as early as the 12th century. Thus the East Gopuram has historic significance. Purely from an artistic point of view too this gopuram enjoys a certain visual advantage which the others lack: it is the only one that has a city road running at an angle that leads to the gopuram. So, a viewer can see the East Gopuram in its entirety, at an angle at which he/she can continuously enjoy the details of the frontage as well as the profile, as seen in the opposite page. I really wish that the city builders of yore had allotted angular roads to reach the other three gopurams as well.
When I was an adolescent, a small miscellaneous group of my school-mates and I, belonging to different castes, communities and faiths became very close friends. One of the boys in our close-knit group was Satagopan, hailing from an orthodox, middle class Iyengar Brahmin family. His parents were so old-fashioned that they solemnised the wedding of his sister, Jeyamma even before she completed her schooling. Unfortunately, her husband was drowned soon after in a railway accident caused by a swollen river. She was a teenager and was expecting when she became a widow. Back then in Tamil Nadu, Brahmin widows belonging to traditional families were made to suffer the harshest of punishments. Our group of friends was justifiably apprehensive. Would so young and beautiful a girl be forced to take on a widow's mantle: shaven head, coarse off-white saree, isolation, ostracism et al? On the contrary, her parents moved away from these cruel customs, one step at a time. They shifted to another town and put her through college. She passed her bachelors' degree examination, winning the first rank in the state. They returned to Madurai to enable her to pursue her master's degree. At this stage, our friends and I were spending a fair share of our time in Satagopan's house. His parents could perceive that we tacitly followed a code of not looking at our friends' sisters with amorous eyes. They allowed Jeyamma to roam around with us, as long as Satagopan too was in the group. In those days it was not an everyday event for a comely well-dressed young woman to go out with a group of indifferently dressed somewhat unruly young men. People stared at us indelicately, be we happily ignored them. In this drawing, finished in February 1988 I have tried to recapture a scene belonging to the early 1960s.
Jeyamma went on to pursue her higher studies, remarried and recently retired as a professor in California University at Davis.
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"THIS portfolio presents the city of Madurai in southern India through a collection of intricately detailed pen-and-ink drawings with accompanying text. The book gives glimpses of the city's monuments and street houses, its temples and festivals, its surrounding countryside... glimpses of the city's history, its traditions and its social ethos, often viewed nostalgically through the lens of my memory and art... Above all this portfolio is an expression of one individual's love for his boyhood town... "
From the Preface
Multiple Facets of My Madurai, Manohar Devadoss, East West Books Pvt. Ltd., 2007, p.140, Rs. 395.
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MANOHAR DEVADOSS has been drawing pictures ever since he could remember. He grew up in Madurai, the ancient temple town of South India. He enjoyed his school years so much that many decades later, he wrote a profusely illustrated autobiographical novel, Green Well Years, based on his memories of boyhood.
He had his university education at the American College in Madurai (1953-57) and received his Master's degree in Chemistry from Oberlin College in the United States in 1972.
Professionally, he is involved with science, technology and design. While working as the technical director of a company, taking care of his wife Mahema's multiple needs and waging a silent battle with his declining vision, Manohar has continued to produce detailed, often stunning, pen-and-ink drawings.
Recently, Manohar has published two more books, one of which is a colourful portfolio, Dreams, Seasons and Promises, a real story, narrated mainly through illustrations covering a decade in Mahema's life. The other book, A Poem to Courage, is a biographical novel dealing with the aftermath of the road accident in 1972, in which Mahema became paralysed neck-down, for life.
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Summer Pandal
COME summer, many kind-hearted householders and shop owners in the inner city raised temporary canopies called pandals in front of their houses or shops which extended from one end of the building to the other and up to the kerb in front. These pandals were — and still are — made of keetru thattis (dried, woven coconut leaves) and were supported by bamboo poles. The pandals marginally reduced the intensity of heat in the ground floor within the building but more importantly provided the much desired shade for the pedestrians, most of whom in those days were barefooted. Not all houses and shops had these pandals of course, but there were enough of them to give respite to pedestrians and hawkers at high noon. An unintended benefit was gained by the vehicular road users during the summer months as the pedestrians preferred to walk on the pavements at this period of the year. So one can see in the drawing a woman and child walking towards the pavement, more for the shade it provided than to obey traffic rules.
While providing shade, the pandals also reduced the natural light entering the ground floor of the buildings. During the non-summer months, light has precedence over shade. So, these canopies were dismantled when the summer ended. Besides, by the time the sun relented a bit, the keetru thattis would have weathered so fast that they would have turned ash-grey and would be all set to fall apart. At any rate the windy season began in late July and these feather-weight canopies had to be dismantled before they were blown away by the wind.
These pandals often mar to a degree the harmonious appearance of some of the elegant-looking houses of this town. When I prepared the drawing presented here, in June 2003, I completed the details at the top first and worked my way downwards. The drawing emerged so beautifully that I felt sad that I had to draw the pandal. But when I completed the drawing, I felt glad that I had taken up the challenge of including the canopies in my drawing. One of the reasons I chose the front rather than a side view of the house, for this particular topic was that the pandal would obstruct the view of the building the least. So here it is.
One can see pandals also in the drawings of the "cow chase", the "temple car" and "a row of houses in Vakil New Street".
An aside: The second floor of the house with the tiled roof shown in the middle here was built as an after-thought, pat on the parapet wall of what had been the original open terrace, above the first floor. Even though the top floor was built many years later with a certain simplicity, it is in such harmony with the earlier structure that the extra floor has enhanced the aesthetic appearance of the building and indeed of my pen-and-ink drawing presented here.
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The American College Chapel
SINCE childhood, I have been familiar with the American College chapel because many of my aunts and uncles had tied their wedding knots there. However, it was only in the mid-1950s as a student of the college that I was drawn to this church which had been built in the early 1930s to commemorate the golden jubilee of the founding of the college.
Among all the noble brick edifices in the campus, surely, I thought the Main Hall was king and the chapel, the beautiful princess.
I was not very religious and continued to be physically hyperactive, revelling in the company of my college friends. Sitting meditatively all by myself in a church was quite uncharacteristic of me. And yet, I found myself slipping into the chapel to sit quietly in a pew in solitude, to reflect and to enjoy the peace and serenity within this place of worship.
I did a pen-and-ink drawing of this chapel during my final year in college. This drawing evoked far greater enthusiasm from the students than even the ones I did of the college beauty, Bhavani. Prof. P.T. Chellappa who happened to see my drawing of the chapel immediately decided to print it on the cover of the college magazine. By then, I was aware that the unusual and imaginative architecture of the edifice gave it an elegant graciousness. Its shape as one can see from the plan of the chapel... is not unlike a cut and polished diamond set in a wedding ring. Over the years, I came to realise that this was indeed a jewel among the chapels.
It was during my college days that I realised that I had a good grasp of perspective, a feel for architectural entities and a flair for pen-and-ink drawings. Now, after 46 years, I redrew the same view of the chapel in September 2002, a little more accurately and a bit more artistically and I have pleasure in presenting it on the opposite page.
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Rushes
OUR unfortunate road accident occurred in December 1972, on the highway from Madras to Madurai. It left my wife, Mahema permanently paralysed below shoulder level. She returned home from the hospitals in October 1973.
Around this time, I lost useful vision in one eye and suffered from night blindness and tunnel vision in the other, due to an incurable syndrome, Retinitis pigmentosa. The probability of my losing useful vision in the other eye as well loomed just ahead.
Mahema knew only too well how much I enjoyed the rural beauty of the countryside around Madurai. She persuaded me to take a break and visit Madurai when the scenery surrounding the town was at its best. So, I took the night train to Madurai in January 1975, the first of my countless visits to this city after our road accident.
Every morning during this visit, my friends, Gabriel or Ramu would drop me somewhere or the other in the outskirts of the town. Carrying a sketch pad, pens and a camera with a zoom lens in my shoulder bag, I would amble around like an aimless vagabond amidst emerald paddy fields, lush banana plantations and tall coconut trees. I walked along the bunds of bounteous irrigation canals lined especially at the bends, with thickets of nanhals (Indian rushes) that burst forth with radiantly translucent blossoms. I felt elated that in 1975, Madurai country looked as serenely beautiful as it had during my boyhood in the early 1950s. Spanning the decades, I completed the composite drawing presented here in September 2001.
By 2001, my vision had dwindled to a level that I could not see a scene such as the one I have presented here with the clarity with which I had seen it a quarter-of-a-century earlier.
I feel happy that although rural scenes like these are being pushed further away from Madurai due to haphazard urbanisation, as long as people eat bananas and use coconuts in cooking, these placid scenes will not be obliterated in the foreseeable future. The rushes are likely to stay as guardians of the banks of canals, particularly at the curves, protecting them from erosion by the restless, rushing waters of the streams. And of course the distant violet-grey hills, the Western Ghats too wil remain for a while.
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