Coimbatore, Coonoor, Ooty Diaries 1

Coimbatore has character. It is not just another manufacturing or industrial town. Cleanliness is Godliness is totally practiced in South India. Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan is for other parts of India. The joy of cleanliness starts from our destination airport toilets. The muggy lemongrass cleaning agent or diffuser oil smell which is prevalent in the Mumbai public toilets,  is missing in the public toilets of South India. They are actually clean without any artificial fragrance.The Race Course Road has a circular three km tree lined walking path. I walked there on two mornings and it was an experience. It wasnt as crowded as Mumbai. Open gyms, temple, church, hospital, grand houses of mill owners, Government bungalows of the District Collector are covered by this walkway. The benches and dustbins are very well placed. Very few girls were seen walking. Women, men-old and young and all backgrounds could be seen. On the other side of the circular road, there are some beauty parlours, office buildings, a few new boutiques and some lovely houses again. If you love South Indian food, the place to go is Annapurna Gourishankar. Annapurna is the Goddess of food...abundance of food and health. This chain of restaurants have great food and now the menu has Chinese and Punjabi dishes. The restaurant even sells sweets and snacks and diaries of  Swami Vivekanand, which I could not resist buying. This diary is in Tamil. My friends in Dubai had given me a diary which had stuff written in Arabic. I still use it. I do not manage to finish the diary in one year. The next year it is used to make lists, notes and hand over some instructions to people. 

Perur Patteshwarar temple is 2400 year old Shiva temple. When we reached there, the driver of the cab informed us that there was Arudram Darshan that day. Shiva is in the love form and gets married to Parvati. This happens once a year and we were there on the auspicious day. Figured this much from the devotees most of whom do not talk Hindi and were finding it difficult to explain the essence of the celebration in English. Ah the joys of the mother tongue. Some things just cant be described in English. The devotees were celebrating the Nataraja rup of Shiv and a Paalki was taken out of the temple. There was a band playing traditional festive temple music. Women in beautiful bright saree, lots of gold jewellery and white flowers in their hair. I did feel underdressed in my salwar kameez for the Lord's wedding. At the Parvati temple, a yellow thread was given to wear to the women. It's signficance is like Mangalsutra. Women keep wearing it and change this yellow thread next year at the Arudram Puja. People follow queues and are patient with other devotees.I was following the crowd and doing what they were. One section had a couple of trees on a marble platform. Some sages meditated there and people were sitting there and meditating.

Isha Ashram is a long drive but worth a visit. The place has amazing energy of the Dhyaanlinga. One just has to allow oneself to be touched by it. We bathed in the Chandrakund, which is the holy pond with healing properties. The pond for men to bathe is called Suryakund. The Chandrakund is in a covered section. We were handed over a thick cotton saffron robe/gown in our size to wear. Took a shower in the open air with jute curtains as cubicles. folded my clothes and kept in a rack which was like a swing. Then walked over to the steps which lead to Chandrakund. From here on we cant talk. Thirty or forty steps down from the ground level is a water fall with the pond. There is natural light in the steps. There is a Shivling in the middle of the pond. One lady was sitting under the waterfall and meditating.

 The best part of the city are the Saree shops in Gandhipuram area. They know their business. Mahaveer's is famous and has lot of tourists shopping from there. It is run by a Marwari family. They speak Hindi very well. No attitude but they do know they have a good collection. They do lack hospitality which we experienced in other shops later.We went to RamRaj which is a store selling cotton towels, Lungis, napkins, shirts. They also sell the Kerala Saree, the Mundu and the Angvastram. The Keral Lungis are pre stitched with a pocket for the cellphone and were on display all over the shop. Want to mention here that all big shops are of three floors with large number of uniformed staff.

By this we were tired, so we decided to take a break and have a fresh fruit juice. There was boiled corn being sold in the store with fresh fruits and vegetables too. We had to purchase a token and then buy our juice. The fresh boiled corn was opened from a packet. The sales boy proudly told me how this corn comes from Pune. He said corn does not grow in Tamil Nadu. My first sentence to him in Hindi  had us connected to being from the same homeland. He was from Vaishali in Bihar. His Uncles all worked in Coimbatore. He told me how there are two people from Dhanbad in this store itself. In my excitement, I ordered more corn and asked the family to eat it. In front of us were two big Saree showrooms/stores. I asked him where does he think I should visit or which gets more crowd. He mentioned Pothy Silks. The name did sound South Indian to me so I crossed the road to the store. Pothy Silk Sarees, I thought would be all grand but had sales lady or floor manager with very bad attitude. The sales men were polite. They started folding sarees before you could choose. For them, we were not potential customers. In fact, the sarees there looked little old or crushed.

We moved to our last store before we left for the airport. That was Sridevi Silk Textiles. This did not look as lavish as Pothy's but big nevertheless. A surprise awaited us as a man escorted us to another building where the Saree section was. Three floors in this building was huge enough for me. At the ground level there was a section to keep our bags from other stores. There were really clean toilets and water, tea and coffee. This section looked like a waiting hall in a bus depot. The staff very efficient and they knew exactly what their role was. The place was buzzing. I moved from here to the next building in the side lane. This section had traditional silk Sarees. The billing was in the ante room which was a small hall and it opened into a big hall of Sarees. The wood furniture was elegant and the lighting was right. The best was the attitude of the salesman whom we were handed over to. I mean, from first to second to the third person and each one was treating us so well. I immediately started making comparisons with Mumbaiites and then thanked my stars that I was not living in Delhi. We did not look like weary travellers as we had come from a beautiful drive through the Nigiris which was scenic to the core. One can never buy enough Sarees is what I realised in Coimbatore.

At the airport, I saw another saree shop called Chennai Silks. For an airport shop, the collection was quite good with wide spectrum of colour choices. The salesmen kept showing what I asked for, though I had told him that I won't be buying. No cyncism towards us who have just come to see.  Simply loved the attitude of the people. Love all around, is what I felt in Coimbatore.