Indian Columbus

Madurai is the Temple City of India. In addition to the famous Meenakshi temple, there are many ancient temples at every nook and corner of the city, which is well known. However, most of us might not know that Madurai has an old mosque dating back to the 13th century. Kazhimar Big Mosque , called  Kazhimar Periya Pallivasal  in Tamil and Qadi Taj al-din, is the oldest mosque in Madurai. This mosque is located on Kazhimar Street, a small street that branches out near the Bus Stand. The mosque is traditionally believed to have been built in  1284 CE . It is said that Sayid Jamal Aldin, a descendant of Prophet Mohammad, was sent from Egypt as Qazi (the religious arbitrator) for Malabar in the 13th century CE. His son,  Qadi Sayyid Taj al-din , became the Qazi of Madurai. He built Big Mosque as a thatched structure originally. As per the legend, the Pandya King of Madurai donated the land and permitted Qazi to construct the mosque. (Who was that Pandya King? There...

The middle-aged man from Gujarat had a sleepless night. It was definitely not because of his stay in a stranger's house in a faraway city in South India. The sight of hundreds of poor people wearing only loin-cloth left him sleepless. He kept on thinking about the acute poverty condition that was prevailing in the county. On the very next day, he changed his attire. Since that day, he had worn only a short dhoti and additionally a shawl during the winter. He did not bother to change his attire when a world leader laughed at him and called him "half-naked Fakir".  Yes! The man was none other than Mahatma Gandhi. In Madurai city of Tamil Nadu, he delivered a speech to the peasants on 21st September 1921 CE. The peasants' poor condition made him give up his traditional attire and adopt short dhoti as the symbol of identification with the country's poor. Thus, Madurai played a vital role in the life of Mahatma. And we have a memorial museum for Gandhi in the ci...

As you might know, Madurai is called the "Temple City". Meenakshi Sundaresa Temple, one of the largest temples in the country, is located here. Beyond that, there are hundreds of smaller temples at every nook and corner. However, Madurai's second most tourist attraction is not a temple but a palace.  Tirumalai Nayakkar Mahal Palace  is the most visited place after Meenakshi Temple. In Tamil Nadu, thousands of ancient temples were built by different dynasties during different periods. But, we hardly get a chance to find palaces or other non-religious structures built in ancient times. In the entire state, there are at most ten palaces. All of them were built in the last 3-4 centuries. We do not find anything much older. Tirumalai Nayakkar Mahal can be considered the best among all those palaces. Before I delve into the Palace's details, let me briefly introduce Nayakkars and Tirumalai Nayakkar. Who are Nayakas? Madurai was the capital city of the  Pandya Empi...