In 40 hours I should be flying out of Madurai airspace, leaving behind a city that has given me few memories to cherish. Never has any place given me the feeling that I would be better the farther I was from it. Thrice have I come here in the last 4 years and each and every time I have been gladdest when I saw the back of it. Hopefully this would be the last instance.
They say that every city has its own character. Madurai is old, insular, inward looking and static. While the rest of the world around it steps up its pace everyday, Madurai stands still. It cannot, it will not open its eyes and see the profound, drastic changes happening around it. Almost medieval in many ways. Take an overnight journey by train to Chennai and you awake in a whole new world. Yes, Madurai still belongs to a previous century.
When the past weighs heavy on you, forward motion is well nigh impossible. I guess there a number of such cities across the length and breadth of India. We are a nation that is a celebration of a living past. Only, in place like Chandigarh and Delhi that past has become an item of pop culture, a snack to be had once in a while, like a Filet-o-fish at a Big Mac. But in places like Madurai, it is very much a solid presence; the past overhangs us like an atmosphere of its own an dpervades into every nook and cranny of this ancient city.
I an not built for such a way of life. Much as I revel in the days gone by, in the aeons elapsed, I still want to live in tomorrow. I want to be in a city that looks forward, an atmosphere full of the promise of the future.
Rohtak was mush the same when I went there in '94. But over the course of the following decade I saw it roused out of its slumber and forced to stir. It was jsut sich a sleepy old town as I find myself in now, and has begun to change perceptibly. Vague factors came together in Rohtak's case to determine its course; nearness to Delhi, an abundance of youth, a sudden inflow of wealth, a local boy as CM. With none of these factors seen here, I wonder what might make Madurai metamorphose?
