Holy moly I have one week left in India! It feels as though I just got here and it’s pretty hard to imagine being somewhere without auto-rickshaws, casual cows, and endless coconuts (and my ammaa’s cooking). As our time is coming to a close, my friends and I are trying to get the last of the remaining items checked off of our “India bucket lists.” Last Saturday, we had a full day that included paying a visit to the Gandhi Museum, heading to the tailors by the Meenakshi Temple, and eating some jigarthanda (guess what my favorite part of the day was).
Gandhi Museum
As someone who really enjoys frequenting museums at home, I really enjoyed paying a visit to Madurai’s Gandhi Museum. The museum is a colossal white building with ornate pillars and a two-part staircase welcoming visitors. The museum is dedicated to the life and times of Gandhi, and provided context for the political climate in India leading up to Gandhi’s rise to fame as well as showcasing artifacts from Gandhi’s life. Next to the entrance of the first exhibit hangs a painted text the size of the wall itself, celebrating Gandhi’s ability to unite India in a time of political turmoil and unrest. The first exhibit was a series of 26 hand-painted panels, organized in a chronological order and outlining India’s history of colonization and its subsequent impacts on India’s economy, military, and day to day lives of Indian citizens. The following rooms were full of manuscripts, letters, and books that belonged to Gandhi. We also saw a piece of the dhoti Gandhi was wearing at the time of his death. Being so close to artifacts from Gandhi’s life was a very powerful experience.
What I appreciated most about experiencing the museum was seeing the way that historical information about India’s complex and extensive history was presented. I like museums because they give you a hint as to what a community (or leaders in that community) values most about their history and their culture, as well as how they perceive others outside of that community. The structure of the museum was unlike that of museums I have been to in the U.S., and definitely broadened my perspective on how publicly accessible knowledge is validated and made palatable to larger audiences. There is no single way to achieve this goal, and this experience along with others I have had in India have taught me that there are so many types of knowledge outside the world of formal Western academia that are just as valuable and important. My visit also left me wondering about how this same information would be presented in a north Indian museum dedicated to Gandhi, and where there were overlaps or diversions in the narrative I saw.
A Visit to V Tex Tailors
After the Gandhi museum, we stopped for a tasty lunch of chicken tikka rolls, garlic naan, and fried rice, and made our way to V Tex Tailors, located in the Prithu Mandapam Market across from the Meenakshi Temple. V Tex Tailors is a destination for SITA students, as my resident director is a long time friend of the owner. We skirt past other tailors and vendors who, with a wave of their hand, display yards of bright fabrics and silver jewelry. We are welcomed to V Tex by walls of patterned fabric in endless hues. We spent nearly an hour pulling out what seemed like hundreds of fabrics and having measurements taken, and eventually the four of us selected fabrics for dresses, skirts, pants, and shirts (this visit has brought my total V Tex apparel to 5 tailor made items). The three tailors at the stall will joke with us about our indecisiveness, and our oohs and aahhs upon finding brilliant floral patterns under the pile of fabric we have accrued. The visits also give us a good chance to practice our Tamil (which is, to be honest, usually us saying “good,” “okay,” “this,” and “thank you”).
JIGARTHANDA (A word I now know how to spell properly after a series of rather comical attempts)
To end our day in the city, we stopped at Famous Jigarthanda for a sweet treat! Famous Jigarthanda, as I have been told, is the destination spot for getting quality jigarthanda in Madurai. Although I did become a little disoriented while navigating us to Famous Jigarthanda (in the moment I attributed these directional challenges to my less than perfect sense of direction, but looking back I may just have been too excited about jigarthanda to know the difference between right and left), we eventually arrived at this crisp white and bright pink establishment. In English, the cashier asks us what we would like, and I exclaim (much too loudly in the little shop) “jigarthanda!” The cashier, slightly confused (and maybe a little frightened) of my enthusiasm hands us a menu, and we select 5 miniature jigarthandas for 25 rupees apiece. I watch in delight as the cashier scoops and pours the jigarthanda into little plastic cups and tops it off with a little pink spoon.
These experiences are just some of the things I will miss about being in Madurai, and I intend to relish these last few days (that are sure to be full of jigarthanda).