Travel Tales – Coutralam

I am in week long vacation in southern part of Tamilnadu now. The place is called Melagaram and it is very close to Tenkasi. Its so much fun to meet all the relatives after six years of only phone conversations. I am not a person who attends all the marriages and stuff but still made up my mind to come here and I am enjoying every moment of it.

One of my friends commented that it rained heavily in Chennai as I left and it would be good I stayed away. From the moment I stepped in this place there is always a mild drizzle in the air which keeps me refreshed, making a bit harder to smoke but still enjoyable.

The climate like this means only one thing in Tenkasi and surrounding areas. The season has started in Coutralam. For the people who dont know, Coutralam is a place which is famous for its Falls. The water which travels in Podhigai Malai carries lot of copper content in it and so the river is called Tamirabharani (Thamiram – Copper). The backyard of the house where I stayed had a great view of the peak, constantly being kissed by passing clouds.

I went with my cousins there and we opted for a oil massage. It was refreshing to say the least. After years of journey in cabs to office and my style of working, I had ignored occasional aches in back. But the massage men were skillful. After 45 minutes of oil massage, we were full of tears because the heat accumulated in the body was coming out. It was mere 200 INR, the cost of which in Chennai would be at least 750 INR.

Two police men came while I was being massaged. I didn’t see them because I was on my stomach as the person was massaging my back. They were thoroughly drenched by the drizzle as well as the water falls. They left it like that saying their body heat will make the clothes dry. Their candid chat with masseurs brought a very different part of their life.

It is the start of the season and being Tuesday, a week day only two policemen were allocated to the place. The place may get extremely crowded (read thousands) in the weekends. They were not able to control the freaks. Their claim is that more than 90% of people visiting the falls are drunk. Sometimes they come in groups and sometimes over power the police too. Felt bad for the policemen who were working in such harsh climate and the things they are tackling.

Enough of complaining about Policemen and their antics. As citizens we should also be responsible on behaving in public. I personally saw some 40+ years uncles making life of girl’s in the falls very tough. Though the males who accompanied the girls stood up for them, what should be a pleasant experience turns out to be a tense one. Such people should be punished without any mercy I think.

And also there is one another thing I want to mention here. I wrote about something about neighbors last week, which bothered many. But I was at this function, where I saw an elderly couple gifting clothes to all the four people in a family and their kids too. I was not sure about who they were and inquired about them to my cousins. I came to know they were our cousin’s neighbors few years ago. Though the cousins (four of them) moved far away from them, they are present in each and every function in the family and was gifting clothes to all the members in all the family members of four cousins. Great! Isn’t it?

After two days of drizzle and fun under the falls, I am back to Halwa City. The place once where i belonged. A place which changed so much but still smells the same. Tirunelveli. A post may follow tomorrow too..