The bhootaganas (Siva's attendants) are normally found at the corner walls of Siva's temples - the old ones, especially. Mostly, they are little cared for and they sit, with the grime and dust of the ages wearing away their beings, like this one at the Tiruvottiyur Thyagarajar temple.
Rarely does one find a colourful gana, like this one here!
Here's one more rajagopuram; unlike the one pictured on this blog earlier, this gopuram is as old as the temple and not a later addition. Also, this is the entrance not just to one temple, but an entire complex, with at least 10 sannithis (sanctums), a goshala (dairy) and lots of space, both open and covered, for devotees to sit awhile. There is also a garden with 27 nakshatra lingams - according to lore, the 27 stars of the Hindu lunar calendar have worshipped at this temple at some time or the other.
It does appear to be a temple beyond time; the stones on the outer wall appear to be sagging from the weight of the ages, but most of the complex is reasonably well preserved. Inscriptions on the temple pillars date it back to the time of the early Chola kings, about 1500 years ago. Looking at it from the bustle of present day Chennai, or even British Madras, Tiruvottiyur appears a rather odd location for such a large and prestigious temple. The Thyagarajar temple (or more completely, the Thyagaraja Swamy udanurai Vadivudaiamman temple) is therefore a very visible reminder of the existence of a thriving town - one among several that have now been embraced by Greater Chennai - long before the British arrived.
About fifteen years ago, a friend and I were sitting late into the night on the beach - rather, on a ledge of sand that passed for a beach - at Tiruvottiyur. After a while, we noticed that the soil of the ledge under us was crumbling; the coastline of India, as my friend put it, was changing before our eyes! Within a year of that evening, the sea had gobbled up about 300 metres of beach, caved in part of the Ennore Expressway and then washed off another 100 metres or so of the land on the other side of the road. Though sea erosion had for long been a problem in North Madras, this rapid re-drawing of the coastline hastened action to stop further loss of the land.
Residents of Tiruvottiyur have always contended that it was the construction of the Jawahar Dock at the Port of Madras in 1964 that marked the beginning of their woes and that it was exacerbated by the Bharati Dock coming up in 1970. It is likely that these docks contributed to a minor change in the pattern of sea-currents and their effects. Normally, the currents would change their direction roughly every half-year therby alternating between erosion and accretion along the beaches. With a localised disturbance around the port, the effects were imbalanced along the coast to the north, resulting in the erosion. One estimate has it that almost 350 acres of land in Tiruvottiyur - another says 2800 acres along the Royapuram-Tiruvottiyur stretch - has been lost since 1970.
Since the late '70s, there have been several recommendations and some action on protecting the shoreline. Boulders along the shore, rubble-mound seawalls and several other measures have been tried, modified and tried again. The one measure that seems to have had reasonable success is the construction of groynes - there are 9 of them, of varying lengths, along the coast from Royapuram to Ennore. This is the second one (the first can also been seen in the distance), just north of Royapuram Fishing Harbour. All told, the groynes have helped to reclaim about 20 acres of land since they were built in 2004 - there's a long way to go before the sea gives up all that it has taken!
If it hadn't been for a small dial on the map, it would have been easy to go past this clock tower without realizing its existence. Unlike the ones on White's Road or at the end of Radhakrishnan Salai, this one is along the side of the road rather than at an island in the centre. In that aspect, it is more like the one at Doveton, though the latter has its own little island patch. Lacking any such build-up around it, this clock tower stands at the corner of Tiruvottiyur High Road and Sannithi Street, looking rather unkempt and forlorn.
Unkempt it is, alright. The three clock towers that have been written about earlier were all showing the correct time, even if the one at Doveton could have done with a coat of paint. This one seems to have had a recent paint job done on it, but that does not make up for the lack of functionality. Each face shows a different time; before anyone makes a claim that this clock tower shows international times, let me add that the clock has stopped running, too.
All told, the excitement of seeing the dial on the roadmap wore off very quickly. This is not one of the old world clock towers; the foundation stone at its base was in Tamizh, though the letters are indecipherable. From what can be seen, one would guess this tower to be about 30 to 40 years old; with the older ones working fine, age cannot be an excuse for its almost complete neglect!
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