Relate how travel has been of educational value to you. (You may consider meeting people, learning customs and traditions, discovering art and treasures and natural features, and increasing general awareness.)
One travel sticks to my memory as exclusively (= ruling out other) significant. I was accompanying my parents to Chennai and other places in the South.
My father had gone to a paper-reading seminar in Chennai, but he decided to combine it with sight-seeing.
We put up in an ordinary hotel but centrally located. The manager and the staff were very courteous and their hospitality was very impressive. I became quite friendly with them very soon. But I was finding difficulty in communicating with them since their knowledge of Hindi and English was both inadequate and I knew nothing of Tamil language. I found them to be considerate and cooperating as they gladly stood by when I requested them to tune the TV for Hindi films and songs. Left to themselves, they enjoy only regional programs due to language problems, I realized. The conservancy staff of the hotel was a merry going lot. They did all sorts of jobs and were always at the service of the borders. Once we left some clothes outside to dry and some odd things. My parents were a bit scared, but we found things safe on return. I realized that men are not essentially bad or evil. I had become very close to them and they called me ‘sister’.
One day as I stood on the balcony of our room, I observed great interest that the Tamil ladies clad in sarees and gents up to their knees swept and with wearing their double-folded dhotis cleaned their doorsteps with infinite care. They painted the floors with various charming colors – green, ocher, yellow, etc. In no time all the houses in the locality seemed to wear a new gala/ festive look. I learned that it was indeed a festival day.
In Madurai, I saw the Meenakshi Temple. I had read about it in books and had seen it in picture albums. But the visual experience lingers (= lives) as an indelible (=which cannot be wiped away) impression. As I entered the sanctum (= sacred area) of the temple, it seemed to greet us with its extraordinary grandeur and immensity. It was no more a simple structure rising upward with its monotonous size. On the contrary, it presented its walls with superb mural (= wall) sculptures. They were south-Indian dance postures of elegant shapes and designs. My father told me that in the ancient day places of worship were also treated as places where art flourished Often these buildings displayed the various aspects of man’s life through such artistic designs and descriptions.
Our last visit was to Kanyakumari and the Vivekananda Rock. The thrill of the place often disturbs me with pleasant memories and sensations. It is the meeting point of the three oceans – my teacher used to say. But the reality as it faced me told another story. Here it seemed as if the high wind will never cease! I call it ‘the windswept place’. It seemed to stir (= move) my senses with unspeakable joy. But the climax was yet to be. As I mounted the Vivekananda Rock I was amazed to find that the massive and heavily built statue of the great Swami seemed polished only yesterday! What a wonder, I thought! How could it be possible? In the Chowrunghee Park in Kolkata the statue of Surendra Nath Banerjee and others I always found soiled by droppings from crows and other birds! However, I heard that it was maintained by the Tamilnadu government. The perfection of maintenance has extended manifold the grandeur of the spot in the arena of International Canvas.
