June 9, 2011

Vintage India - Tamil Nadu

 This set of vintage photos is from the beautiful state of Tamil Nadu, on the south east coast of India.  While there I dipped my toes in the Indian Ocean, a transcendent experience for a small town girl whose previous beach experience was a single trip to Atlantic City, NJ.
 I visited the beach temple of Mahabalipuram, above, and detail, below:
 I toured the Meenakshi Temple, in Madurai, and I still remember it vividly.  The painted carvings are intricate and fascinating:
 I climbed up the interior and leaned out precariously to pose for this shot:
 And from that vantage point took this photo:
 On this next set I am perhaps fudging it a bit--I prefer positive identifications, but memory has faded, and intensive google image searching has failed to turn up anything definitive.  I believe it is a Jain temple shrine in Tamil Nadu, but can't be sure.  It's wonderful, regardless, so I am including it. Here's the approach to the shrine:

EDIT: many many thanks to the anonymous poster who correctly identified this shrine as GOMMATAGIRI - Jain temple shrine of Mysore - KARNATAKA. 
 A group of school children on an outing waiting in the line, along with a coconut water vendor:
 The view I had while shuffling very slowly up a long line to the statue in the shrine:
 The gorgeous view back over my shoulder while waiting in line, of flooded rice paddies:
 The statue at the top of the shrine, with a ceremony underway:
 Attendants and visitors to the shrine, looking a bit askance at the foreign visitors:
If you are new here, you can see more vintage photos by clicking on "India" under Labels in the right toolbar.  I am revisiting my time there as a student in the 1970's in preparation for a return trip later this summer.  So stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

4 comments:

allie aller said...

It is so wonderful that you are again traveling to India this summer! I hope you will post lots about your trip here...
I went in January 2001, to the Maha Kumbha Mela in Allahabad....one of the peak experiences of my life. I would so love to go back...one day!

Rachel Biel said...

Wow, Sue! Those are so cool! I don't know if you have seen the blog I have been doing on my family's time in Brazil (1962-1980, www.bielsinbrazil.blogspot.com), but I have seen several other TAFA members also post old travel photos lately. Would be fun to think of a way to bring some of them together...

Enjoy your trip!

Anonymous said...

GOMMATAGIRI - Jain temple shrine of Mysore - KARNATAKA

Sue Reno said...

To the poster with the comment about Gommatagiri - sorry, google just now served up this comment. My trip was a long time ago, and memory is not perfect. Thank you so for giving me the correct information.