The South Indian Paradise – Muttukadu

“I want to break free” sang Abhishek and we all closed our ears. It was not easy to listen to him singing. “IN this lovely ambience around, why does he have to sing?”  said Dipankar with a lot of frustration. I remembered all this as I saw the photos, and I was deciding to convert them into a CD.

WE had all set out to the suburbs of the state of Tamil Nadu. We were all in Chennai, on a project and we had a couple of days free. We were just wondering how to put it to good use when we chanced upon this lovely place called Muttukadu . It is a good place to go my uncle had told me. As we were discussing Abhishek had started singing. I remembered how we pummeled him with pillows for his tuneless voice.

So Muttukadu it was and we drove down to the place which lay around a little away on the southern part of Chennai. It lies north of the city of Pondicherry. The entire scenery around was so good and the picturesque surroundings so impressive that we were surely happy that we came to this land of beauty and fantastic greenery. The place was around the east coast road and was a small little town in the pristine ambience of the Tamil Nadu verdant expanse.

We halted at the place where there were lots of rickshaw stands. WE had hired a car to go there as we felt it was a better way to go around the place. We saw some commuters haggling with the auto fares.

It is required that these commuters should know a little bit about the place they visit as they could otherwise get lost her.

Muttukadu is only famous for its lovely sights around. There are other small towns which give Muttukadu its effect and the entire atmosphere is generally relaxing.

We halted at a restaurant nearby and had some lunch. The food was authentically South Indian and we felt nice and energetic after this. Then we went to the beach there and the place was normal but serene. However there were few plastic pieces that we found were lying around here and there. We went near the ocean but decided against swimming as we had heard too many cases of people drowning because of going  into deep waters. There were no life guards either so we just dint want to take any risks. After all our project was waiting for us if not anything!

We decided to just relax in the beach setting. There were families which had come here for some fun time. It was nice to see children enjoying themselves building mud castles. It was nice to see them play innocently there quite oblivious to the vagaries of life. I wished I could become like them and just be able to lay off all my worries and live life like them. Ah! The beauty of childhood!!

Then we went to  a place called Dakshinachitra. This was a great museum of art, architecture, crafts, lifestyles and major South Indian performing arts.

There were around 17 heritage houses here. We went strolling around the serene place and the museum was more of a relaxation centre for us as we saw the streetscapes and the exhibitions here. There were many artisans sitting there and working and we interacted with them and they came across as very simple, genuine people. Then we saw the folk performances here and the sheer ingenuity of the programme enthralled us.

We were not great dancers neither connoisseurs of music or dance. With Abhishek around who would get the interest in music ! Still when we saw the folk performance the honesty and modesty and the colorful score really interested us and we were surprised we sat through the entire show. That is the beauty of this place. You just get addicted to it easily. Here people don’t sit and watch just because you have bought a ticket for it. No. You would watch it because you are attracted to watch it.

Dakshinachitra literally means picture of the south. Then we went around and saw the Craft Promotion centers here and the goals of the museum was loud and clear that it intended to encourage creativity and innovation. The textiles that were exhibited across the museum were beautiful and attractive.

“Did you know that the Madras Craft Foundation has given direct job opportunities to people interested in crafts all the year through some schemes that are patronized by the Development Commissioner’s Office? There are handicrafts and crafts which are marketed through the direct marketing facilities here?” said Dipankar.

Yes, we knew about it from the pamphlet that we had picked up about this place. We saw the fair trade craft shop which had been purchased directly from the nongovernmental organizations.

As we came out of Muttukadu we saw the MGM resort here which is very famous. We were happy we had come here and today as I saw the photos I got very nostalgic and wrote this blog.