MAJESTIC MAHABALIPURAM
Located about 60 KM from Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu,
Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram) is an excellent tourist attraction and stress-buster
destination for a peaceful holidaying with majestically standing shore temples built
and other sculptural marvels carved during the 7th Century Pallavas’
rule here stealing the limelight, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Watching the Sun in its pristine splendour rising on the east
emerging after a bath in the sea-water in the morning and crawling upwards in
the sky, and then disappearing on the west as the dusk approached should be an awesome,
exciting, captivating, picturesque and scenic beauty par excellence! The mighty
sea and its frothy spray should provide joy for everyone.
The entrancing and magnetizing Mahabalipuram beach, shored up as it were by the incredible and staggering presence of Bay of Bengal with rocks cut and carved into magnificent statuettes and figurines - small, big and life-like - standing erect, and witness to world-class sculptural glory, offers visual treat to the discerning eyes and fine messages to the mind.
People especially foreigners say winter
months are the best time to visit this place, mostly December to February for a
fun-filled stay. It is certainly a good break-free hideaway for many for activities like
diving, wind surfing, motor boating and sunbathing.
Whenever I visited Mahabalpuram, it
would appear to me as if the shore temples and stone-sculpture works would
assert their glory, splendour and grandeur in these words, “Centuries have
rolled by since we were built but we still stand as strong as a mountain
braving the sea-erosion effects and bearing the brunt of bruises suffered by
efflux of time but still remaining good as gold, graceful as a swan, dainty as
a flower, and imperturbable and unflustered braving many a nature’s fury for
centuries. Now, beholders of curious sights, touches and questions about our
existence, we remain the remains and vestiges of the mysterious sculpture
relics and artifacts showcasing and trumpeting the fertile imaginations of the
sculptors who sweated it out to construct the ever-lasting marvels not to
smudge, stain or strain with efflux of time. We have stood the test of times. Haven’t
we?”
In olden days, many Indian films were shot
at Mahabalipuram being home to its scenic beauty with mind-blowing seashore. Decades
ago, a whole Tamil film titled ‘VAA RAJA VAA’ was shot in Mahabalipuram about a
little local boy living there. This film was screened in 1969 and I saw it when
I was a schoolboy.
Besides being an excellent entertainer, the movie imparted life
lessons to children. It was also a box office hit. The storyline goes thus: A
10-year-old boy Raja works as a tourist guide in Mahabalipuram. A senior
sculptor maintains a small rock sculpture tablet on which are engraved some adages.
Raja gets into a discussion with his mentor, wondering if those gems of wisdom
still hold relevance. The seven adages etched in the tablet are; (1) If you go
after something it will evade you; (2) If you go away from something, it may
come to you (on its own); (3) Whatever you see may not be true sometimes; (4)
Truth never perishes; (5) Whatever you desire may not happen; (6) Excess of
anything, even nectar, will turn into poison; and (7) Things happen only at appropriate
times. The sculptor tells him that these sayings are eternal and immortal. Raja
sets out to find the truth for himself. To his utter surprise and astonishment,
whatever axioms he had read about were turning a reality in his own life, one
by one. It gives lot of moral and ethical lessons to children who are the
future citizens. He meets with a number of tourists including foreigners.
Ultimately, he comes to understand that all those sayings hold good forever and
valid transcending times. That the rock edicts turning true one by one
impressed and fascinated me a lot then.
The last time a foreign dignitary had a tryst
with this ancient monumental seashore was Chinese President Xi Jinping when he had
a 2-day informal summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October
11-13, 2019. Chinese monk Hiusen Tsang had made a mention about this port town
in his Indian travel account in the 7th century A.D.
The magnificent Mahabalipuram will be resplendent with ‘light shows’
in evenings.
R.SAMPATH
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