Certainly not one of the pictures which could do justice to Thirumalai Nayak Palace. We look for information boards and knowledgeable visitors to garner information - the palace was divided into two major parts, namely Swargavilasa and Rangavilasa. We try to make out the royal residence, the theater, shrine, royal bandstand, quarters, palanquin place - my sister remarks one of the songs from the film 'Guru' was shot here. She is ready to step into a dance when I have an urge to find out where the king would watch dance performances., hear musical evenings and literary discourses. Is it the same place where today people come to watch evening dance programs - maybe not. An interior palace museum opens up and I feel it is a more befitting place for the same. It was also a place where the wives lived with concubines - or did they not?
One cannot but think more about those individual construction workers who built it. More than the king, more than the architect he employed for the purpose. That during those days they shifted palaces My mother gives me snippets of vital information as we ruminate on them immersed in the palace - its fragments of stucco works, pavilions, arches supported on columns communicating with us - The harem and the queen's place has gone. The grandson of the king Thirumalai Nayak, Chokkanatha Nayak broke down the palace and took materials for building another palace in Tiruchirapalli.
I start remembering lines from Marquez's "the autumn of the patriarch" and again note india might have a different magic reality to present.
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