Latest revision as of 11:49, 25 June 2021

[edit] Nagaikadai Street temple

[edit] 2019: stolen idol recovered

Devanathan Veerappan, April 30, 2019: The Times of India

The Dhroupathi Amman idol
From: Devanathan Veerappan, April 30, 2019: The Times of India

A 700-year-old idol that went missing from a temple in Madurai in 1915 was found concealed in the wall of an old house. It had been stolen by Karuppasamy, one of the two priests at the temple.

Idol wing police retrieved the Dhroupathi Amman idol measuring around 1.5ft and handed it over to the temple, which will be celebrating its annual festival in a fortnight. The temple in Nagaikadai Street is said to be some 800 years old.

Murugesan, Karuppasamy’s grandson, revealed the family secret as he felt the “wrath of the goddess” had caused the deaths of many of his relatives. “Murugesan said he had, as a boy, seen his grandfather and father offer worship to a wall in their ancestral house,” said an officer from the Idol Wing.

Police said Karuppasamy had taken the idol following a dispute with the other priest. Karuppasamy dug out a part of the wall, placed the idol inside and plastered the surface.

[edit] Saurashtrian community

The Times of India, Apr 27 2016

Padmini Sivarajah  In the heart of Madurai, voters from Gujarat's Saurashtra play a deciding role. Their hold is so strong that DMK, AIADMK and BJP have fielded candidates for Madurai South from this non-Tamil community , which has lived in this city for 400 years.

“Our community hasn't been represented in the TN Assembly since 1996. So we resolved to vote for that party whose candidate is from our community. AIADMK responded first, naming a candidate from among us,“ says T D Easwara Moorthy , president of All-India Sourashtra dent of All-India Souras Madhya Sabha. After AIADMK named S S Saravanan, DMK followed with M Balachandran and BJP with AR Mahalakshmi. Now, the community will decide who to vote for. The fight for Madurai South has always been about cornering votes of this community , which usually supports a candidate en bloc. Of the 2.2 lakh voters in Madurai South, Saurashtrians number 70,000. Many have a soft spot for the BJP because of PM Narendra Modi. They've hosted him in Madurai twice.But this time, aware that local factors are at play , it may go with either AIADMK or DMK. “BJP's chances look bleak,“ says Moorthy .

Not all may toe the line this time though. T Raja, a teacher, says: “We vote the candidate we have confidence in. We voted communists six times,“ he said.

Madurai's Saurashtrians are descendants of master weavers in the court of Vijayanagar king Krishnadeva Raya. In the 17th century , King Thirumalai Naicker invited them to Madurai to weave silk for him. “We were Madurai's dominant community till the 1960s,“ says Moorthy . Though hit by the decline in weaving, they still hold land in Madurai, and show off palm leaf pattas (land deeds) the king gave them appreciating their weaving. With the advent of powerlooms in the 1970s, many `pattunoolkaarar' (silk thread people) migrat ed. The richer folk set up engineering colleges for their youngsters.

They no longer depend on their looms, but don't want to lose their deep roots with Madurai or weaving. The reason they want a candidate from their community is so they can reopen their 200 to 300 weaving co-operatives.“Around 30% still weave. Our glorious past can be revived if weaving is invigorated.Only our own MLA can do this,“ he said.

[edit] Palanganatham temple

[edit] 600 tonnes temple hall lifted off ground

M K Ananth, Nov 30, 2019: The Times of India

Palanganatham temple
From: M K Ananth, Nov 30, 2019: The Times of India

Key Highlights

Residents pooled in money to pull up the Mulaipari hall of Arulmigu Kaliamman temple on South Street which was located below the road level.

A Haryana-based firm helped lift the base height of the structure – that some claim to be up to 300 years old.

MADURAI: The hall of an over 100-year-old temple at Palanganatham in the city weighing more than 600 tonnes was lifted five feet off the ground. Residents pooled in money to pull up the Mulaipari hall of Arulmigu Kaliamman temple on South Street which was located below the road level.

Over the years the hall has been used for multiple purposes, including as a shelter for passersby, desolate people and as a place for elderly people and villagers to gather. The cost of lifting the structure was ?6 lakh.

A Haryana-based firm helped lift the base height of the structure – that some claim to be up to 300 years old. The firm had earlier shifted the Manthai Amman temple on Natham Road in the city by 25 feet, to make way for the construction of flyover in April. Paramjeet Kaur, the director of MCMD Engg Works Pvt Ltd, said the heavy stone structure did not have bonding materials and was made of loose stones arranged with the support of other stones. “This made the job a delicate one as we had to be very careful in lifting the 576 sq.ft structure that is 20 feet tall,” she told TOI.

A team of 15 labourers started lifting the stone hall a week before Diwali. Despite this being a much smaller structure compared to the hundreds of buildings the firm had lifted or shifted over the years, the weight of the stones made the task difficult. The stones below were first removed to lift the hall. It was then lifted for about 1.5 feet using jacks and the structure rested on heavy beams. Bricks were then used for construction and to fill the gap before the second phase for another 1.5-feet lift.

“The last phase of lifting and constructing the remaining two feet has also now been completed,” Kaur said.