Sunday, March 30, 2014

Madurai and Melbourne

Madurai, the temple town or city, was where I was born, and spent few years there.  Melbourne was the first place that I roamed around outside of India (forget the airports). So I was obviously, though unconsciously trying to find similarities between these two places. 

Though it's like comparing apple to oranges, I want to share my perspective primarily with respect to the structure of the cities. So, here goes the list of similarities.
  • River: Both (Madurai and Melbourne) have a river flowing through in the City. Madurai has Vaigai (though most part of it is without water, and poorly maintained) and its length is 258 KMs, Melbourne has Yarra river flowing through with a length of 242 KMs. (Yarra is beautiful and well maintained river supporting lot of recreational activities. ) 
  • Street Layout: Both Madurai (old Madurai) and Melbourne (Old Melbourne) have streets designed in a rectangular/squarish way, and from an inner rectangle, you move to an outer rectangle and so on. In case of Madurai, the Meenakshi Amman temple is considered as the central point, surrounded by the 4 Tower streets (North, South, East and West), and as you move outer and outer you will reach the 4 Veli streets (North, South, East and West). In case of Melbourne it has Flinders Street, Collins Street all parallel to each other in the rectangular pattern.
  • University: Madurai and Melbourne have a University starting with their name. - Madurai Kamaraj University and Melbourne University (Though Kamaraj refers to a person, atleast they are starting with the name of the place). 
  • Market: Though it is quite common for every city to have it, the structure of markets were quite similar - noise, smell :), dedicated day of the week for markets, etc... 



P.S: Do not get misled by the above, if you had never visited these places. Both of them are great and unique places in this world, that I would recommend you to see for yourself. Madurai has a very long history (several thousands of years), and one of the oldest continually inhabited city in the World (along with Varanasi, India). Melbourne, founded in 1835 (though occupied by local hunter-gatherers for thousands of years) is rated as one of the best places to live.

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