An unplanned trip to historic sea shore town-பழவேற்காடு (Pulicat)
- Syed aakhil nawaz
- Dec 16, 2017
- 6 min read
“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” ― Maya Angelou,
As the title suggests it was an unplanned journey to Pazhaverkadu.Initially, we planned to go on a cycling trip to Marakkanam but as they say, there is always someone who takes birth just to spoil the plans the last moment, thankful to him we took the decision to visit Pazhaverkadu just to kill the boredom.
Pazhaverkadu was not an unfamiliar word to me. Since my father was a government servant and he was working in Pazhaverkadu. Every night for the first month he would return home with a tale about the town’s historic buildings. I knew Pazhaverkadu was famous for bird sanctuary and variety of fish but I never had any thoughts on visiting this place until now. When our cycling trip got cancelled my friend barath asked me about our weekend plan I had no idea and suddenly out of nowhere I said why not Pazhaverkadu? We agreed and made plans, as I live in Ponneri which is 20km away from Pazhaverkadu we decided barath will visit my place and we will start our expedition from here.
Dec 3rd 2017
We started comfortably at 11:00 AM as it was less than an hour drive from my place. We took Ponneri-Pulicat road the roads were in great condition without any potholes and bumps and were amazed by the scenic beauty of the roads with huge trees on either side; we were in ecstasy as we were traveling in empty roads which were surrounded by trees which were very different from our usual commute through city’s traffic and dust.
We were enjoying our ride through soft warm sunshine beaming through the tall trees and falling across the roads, it was amazing to see how the rays are going in different directions.And in no time we were nearing Methur we saw a group of young people playing cricket we took a break there for few minutes. We looked at them and discussed how we were in shackles of 9-5 boring life and how we rarely we went out.
We reached Methur at 11:40 AM and took a short break we had some fresh juice as it was sunny. We then resumed our journey and the sun kept looking down at us with huge smile which made our journey difficult but on the other hand smooth and empty roads with trees and grass made it pleasant to travel. After few minute our energy levels sky-rocketed after seeing at the bill board saying “PULICAT BIRDS SANCTUARY” our adrenaline pumped and we pumped the throttle harder and increased our speed.
At 12:10 PM we reached the seashore town to our surprise when we entered we saw the whole town was painted white. We saw people attending the Church mass in their white costume and on the other side we saw group of people with saffron dress playing Lord Ayyappan songs and few minutes later we heard adhan from the mosque, it was fine example for “Unity in diversity”. We quickly found our way to Dutch Cemetery and to our disappointment the gate which is guarded by skeletons was locked.
We quickly inquired about the lock on the gates, the local’s mentioned about Mr.hussain who takes care of the cemetery. Mr. hussain runs a small tailor shop near cemetery we went to him and requested him. He agreed to help us and opened the lock. Our faces grinned with smile when we heard the sound of lock opening.
Now all we had is Guardian skeletons on our way. We pushed the gate and made a heroic entrance in front of Dead Dutch Descendants.
We took lot of photos of the place and Mr. Hussain and his companion Mr. padmanaban were kind enough to tell us about cemetery. According to them the family of the deceased Chief of Fort visits the cemetery every year.
The two large tombs were the tombs of his two sons. It is believed that this cemetery had secret passage to the fort but it closed now and fort is now nothing but chunks of old stones. We then moved to tomb of Margaretha Moller and Ian Martens. We captured photos of the tomb, half of the time we were amazed by the design and construction techniques used but one specific tomb caught our attention we asked Mr.Padmanaban about the design he explained that it is believed to be the map of Pulicat which resembled the fort in middle and surrounded by the village. Seeing all this graves my friend barath quoted “From dust we come to dust we go” (NO IDEA FROM WHERE HE TOOK IT AND I AM SURE NOT HIS OWN WORDS).
A rough translation of what was written
We fall off, like a leaf!
Mr.Gallarts valued companion wrestled a lot of pain, and weeding him separated, by death, rest under this zark in peace, willing, and well prepared, moved uytal ditaards whip she now enjoys salvation, her eternal inheritance in heaven.
Here is buried
M’iufwanna Margaretha Moller, will be his wife of the Lord Michiel Gallart, Merchant, and Chief, in this Fort Geldira, to palliacatta (pulicat), born at the Cape Of Good Hope, the April 22nd, 1687 and died here at 18th February 1737, age of 49 years and 28 days old.
Below are buried Ian Martens; insynleven merchant in service and chief of the company, Palliacatta (Pulicat), their birth 21 June 1667, and deceased at March 1717, 49 years and 10 days old.
We looked at the clock it was around 12 50, and we decided its time to leave the spooky place. We wanted to visit the Dutch church but Sunday prayer was going on, so we decided to skip it and head to Chinna Pallivasal (Small Mosque).
Chinna Pallivasal was not just famous for its 300 hundred year old structure but also famous for its 200 hundred year old sundial or shadow clock. It is believed there only two such types of clocks are available in India one in Pazhaverkadu and other one is located in Delhi.
Unfortunately our visit coincided with timing of prayer, so we swiftly managed to capture some photos of clock and skipped the structural beauty of mosque since we didn’t want to trouble anyone.
Our next place on bucket list was Beach, it was no more than a 5 minutes drive to beach we reached light house and found it was closed to visitors. So we decided to head for beach. Pazhaverkadu’s beach was fascinating to see and it was very similar to a human. It had one beautiful face at front and hideous one at the back. We decided to head to our last place on bucket list with disappointment and sympathy for the people living among the litter.
Our last place was very special to us, It was ruined Adi-Narayana Perumal Temple this place was surprise to us, it was completely abandoned, the entrance was destroyed and the whole place was falling apart. There were no one except us, and we felt the charms of an old ruined temple, and we decided to capture photos of every possible thing.
This particular Temple is believed to have been built during 13th century, when the region was under the rule of Vijayanagara Empire. The Temple houses the main deity God Vishnu and it has three namely Thaayar sannidhi, Aandal sannidhi and Garuda sannidhi.
The main shrine was recently renovated. We were able to go inside and the shrine contained many pillars. It is believed that story of Ramayana was engraved on the pillars and roof.
On our way around the temple we found a small tunnel like structure. We didn’t risk going there as it was surrounded by bushes.
There is lot of that still survives in Pulicat, but not as much done to showcase them to visiting tourists. That’s what makes this place more exciting than other than a normal tourist place. This makes the possibility of exploration is endless. We returned home with heavy heart and a smile which displayed a small victory of mind over body.
Photo Credits - Barath Raj
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