Published: January 16th 2018
Woolly Says – Our evening had been spent back at the palace, unsure what to expect from the advertisement for a light show we took our seats and waited to see what unfolded. As the lights dimmed the throne that sat centre stage was illuminated and loud speakers started to tell the story of how King Thirumalai Nayak built the Palace and some of the tales that they great ruler had been a part of. As the story unfolded different parts of the Palace lit up and the speakers from different areas told of battles and kind acts that he had been a part of during his reign. It wasn’t bad at all although the constant talking in the audience did become a little wearing after a while, most of the spectators had left before the end, unsure whether to clap the loud speakers or just leave we left our seats and set off to find a rickshaw to return us to our accommodation.
A different way to spend an evening but enjoyable all the same. The morning dawned and as we shoved our belongings back into our backpacks before checking out we had quite a few hours to kill before our night journey to our next destination.
Woolly says – Having failed in our first attempt to visit the Ghandi Memorial Museum we had thought this would be a pleasant way to end our time in Madurai. Pulling up in front to the fine white building Jo quickly snapped a picture of me and a statue of the great man before we climbed the stairs to the exhibit. The cool interior gave us board after board of information to read with pictures and photographs to look at, usually not one for reading so much, for once I stopped at every panel so engrossed in the story of India’s Independence. From the East Indian Company who had once ruled through to the British takeover it led me, Jo looked more and more pensive the more she read and having paused for a few minutes to allow Zoe to catch up I asked her why her brow was so furrowed.
I was finding it quite shocking, the history taught to us in British schools fails to mention the cruelty and deprivation we had put the nation through, I felt ashamed of my heritage and what we had done.
Woolly says – As the story moved onto the great man, Ghandi, himself and told us how he had started a pacifist movement of change within the country encouraging the Indian people to fight for their freedom but without violence. His incredible journey took us from the starting point of him telling the nation to take back the salt that the British denied them and to spread the word of peace between cultures and religions of the country. It wasn’t an easy road that he trod both literally and spiritually but one he did for his people, it took many years to attain the independent nation that they wanted but eventually it happened, due mainly to him and the people that followed his passive lead.
The story was inspiring and one that we can all learn from, having covered the historical side of the fight for freedom the museum then led us through rooms of Gandhi’s personal pictures and possessions.
Woolly says – Photographs of his meeting with world leaders and influential people as well as villagers and farmers from the land each one made us pause to admire him more. As we moved into a small dark room we found the last piece of cloth that he wore when he was shot by Nathuram Godse on 30th January 1948. Nathuram Vinayak Godse (19th May 1910 – 15th November 1949) was a right wing advocate of Hindu nationalism who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, shooting him in the chest three times at point blank range in New Delhi, a terrible ending for a man of peace. The next room showed us his spectacles and shoes that he had worn in his simple life as well as books that he had read and some of those that he had written in his lifetime. All to soon we had arrived at the end of the exhibit, wiser and humbler certainly than when we had started.
We can only be thankful that great men like this have existed in the world and as we took our last ride through Madurai to the bus station we wondered what he would make of India today.