An Indian Bureaucrat's Diary

The City of Temples
and the Gate Way to the South

I have visited the 2500 old Madurai City many many times.

The Meenakshi Temple is the largest and most beautiful temple dedicated to any female deity in India.

Madurai is also the gateway to a number of tourist places in South India – such as Rameshwaram, Kanyakumari, Kodai Kanal and Yercaud.

Madurai is the headquarters of the world famous Aravind Eye Hospital, which is doing outstanding philanthropic work in the field of eye care.

And the hi-so Taj Hotel located on a vantage spot here is really affordable.
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A Lost Empire

Hampi is today a small hamlet in Karnataka (South India) with a population of about two thousand.
It is difficult to visualise that once upon a time, this was the glorious city of Vijayanagar (meaning City of Victory) – the capital of South India’s largest, prosperous and most beautiful empire.

History

The story of Vijayanagar takes us back to the 14th Century.
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