Mylapore Temple Bazaar, Chennai

There are two kinds of people – those who hate chennai and those who love chennai. The ones who love chennai will always continue to love chennai, no matter where life takes them. As one of our friends put it: “It is only in chennai that you will meet an elderly mami (Tamil word for ‘aunty’) at a wedding, dressed in her traditional nine yard pattu (silk) saree, whom you begin to make conversation with, expecting the talk to revolve around the home and the hearth when you hear her wax eloquent about the latest happenings at Princeton and suddenly your own knowledge about matters of the world seem so limited. That kind of sums up what we like so much about Chennai – a globally aware metropolis where traditional customs are still followed and much of their meaning understood.

In Chennai, you come across a temple or a shrine ever so often as you walk along the streets, especially in Royapettah, Mylapore, Triplicane and the other older parts of the city. The city has two large temples, one at Mylapore – the Kapaleeswarar Temple, and the other at Triplicane – the Parthasarathy temple. Both the temples are enveloped by bazaars.

The Bazaar at Mylapore is primarily the four streets that border the temple and its tank. During festivals, these four traditional Mada streets that encircle the temple burst with people and celebration as the huge wooden temple car housing the idols is taken around the temple. 

In his book 'Madras Rediscovered' the historian, S.Muthiah notes that the Mylapore temple was on the shores in the 15th century and part of the great port of the Pallava Kings who bore the title Mylai Kavalar (Protectors of Mylapore). Meaning ‘Town of Peacocks’, Mylapore derives its name from a legend now depicted in one of the idols housed within the temple, where the Goddess Parvathi, the consort of Shiva, is shown worshipping him in the body of a peacock.

As you begin to walk along the North Mada street, you find shops that sell clothes for the deity. There is the Shree Sathyanarayana Silks – a Wholesale and Retail shop established in 1973 for Handloom Lace, Pure Silk sarees, Cotton sarees, Dhoties, etc. This is also the street that has the shops selling Temple Jewellery, which are worth a visit.
  
Earlier, the jewellery was all hand-made whereas today it is mass-produced. There are thousands of designs that have been carried on through generations of master artisans. They are now codified and each design has a name. The 'Radha Gold Jewellers' has 120 artisans working in silver and gold. The shop gets several orders from the Kalakshetra dance school, which was established by Rukmini Devi Arundale in Chennai and from well-known dancers all over South India.

Then, there are stores that sell Brass and Copper Pooja articles, Handicrafts, Gift articles and Devotional Decoration articles. These shops occupy some of the charming old vernacular houses that still exist in Mylapore, with their country tile roofs and their lime-plastered walls. The items for sale are displayed in the small rooms of the house and you pick up gifts for friends and family as you walk through the house with the salespeople being there when you need them.

At the entrance to the street leading to the east gate of the Temple and occupying a prominent corner is the Ambica Appalam Depot. It is actually 65 years old but in its current location since 12 years. When it first started on Madha Narayana Street, it sold primarily appalam and sambhar powder. Today, it sells all groceries and includes products such as Betel nut powder, Ginger sweets, Groundnut rounds, Idli Dosai chilly powder and the Payasam mix. There is a smaller outlet of Ambica Appalam also on the R.K.Mutt road.

There are shelves and shelves of ambica products such as the Lemon Rice paste, the Tomato Thokku, the Curry Leaf Rice paste, the Tiffin Sambhar paste, the Puliyodharai Rice paste and the Vathakuzhambu paste. You can also buy the MTR sambhar powder and Sri Ganeshram’s 777 brand of sambhar powder here. All of this makes Ambica Appalam a special place for those who miss what their mothers and grandmothers made ever so lovingly at home!

Facing the East entrance of the Temple is a small lane, which houses the well-known music shop – GIRI stores. This place is so special because you can find here recitations from the Gita, Carnatic Classical Vocal, Tamil discourses, Epic T.V.serials, Hindustani Classical and lots more. There is also music from Tamil films and Malayam songs.

There is Sanskrit devotional music that includes Sacred Vedic chanting, Veda Vahini, Chalisa, Shiva Stuti, Gayatri Mantram, Suprabhatam, MahaShivrathri puja, Shrimad Bhagvad Gita and the Lalitha Sahasranama Stothram. As you walk into the three-storeyed shop, there is devotional music playing in the background and pictures of Dr.Chitti Babu (Veena), Bombay S.Jayashri (Vocal), D.K.Pattamal (Vocal), Neela & Kunjumani (Flute), Prasanna (Guitar) and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan (Violin).

On South Mada street, you will see and smell coffee shops and more coffee shops!! There is the P.R.K.Nadar Sons who are wholesale merchants for coffee. There is the Leo Coffee shop, which is where we always bought our daily dose of “Houseblend” when we lived in Chennai some years ago. Further down the same road, there is the ‘Brahmalaya’s Kumbakonam Degree’ coffee. Then, there is the simple outlet ‘Sobana Tea and Coffee bar’ and the contemporary Café Coffee day as well.

The west entrance to the temple abuts the temple tank and the street is lined by flower sellers, a fortune teller and vendors selling stickers with kolam designs. Further west, on R.K.Mutt road is a house that is simple looking but prominent in the history of Mylapore. This is the 'Samaithu Par' house that belonged to Meenakshi Ammal who is well-known for her three-volume book series 'Cook and See' which was first publised in 1951. It was written at that time for the young bride with advice on how to make the perfect coffee decoction and with recipes for adais and dosais and guidelines for how to manage a wedding function in your family!

To the west of the tank is the famous Ramakrishna Mutt, on R.K.mutt road. Further north on this road are shops that sell musical instruments such as the violin and the veena. There are people who come from all over South India for purchase or repair of their instruments here. 

What we also loved when we lived in Chennai for three years, were the neighbourhood newspapers that provided so much local news. There is the Mylapore Times - a free, English weekly that covers news about Mylapore, Alwarpet, Santhome and R.A.Puram. Every year, in the month of January, there is the 4-day Mylapore Festival with its dance recitals, its storytelling, its Rickshaw tours, Temple tours and its kolam competitions!

The Mylapore temple bazaar has also come to be a place where the women of the music-loving city of madras, shop for their silk sarees. For sarees, there is the famous Raasi silks, which is the biggest in this part of Chennai. This is opposite the Karpagambal Mess, a place to visit for idlis and dosas when you are here. It is especially well-frequented in the Kutcheri months (Music season) in December/ January when the Gana Sabhas (music halls) in the Mylapore region are overflowing with ardent music lovers. You have just listened to Bombay Jayashree or Aruna Sairam sing at the Mylapore Fine Arts Society and then you come by here for a tiffin (snack) and a filter coffee which is an apt end to the blissful day.

On the food front, there is also the Vasantha Bhavan on South Mada and the Saravana Bhavan on the North Mada Street. What you don’t want to miss at Saravana’s is their natural icecreams - including flavours such as tender coconut, jackfruit and panchamrutam! Near Mylapore are also the Luz Church and the Santhome Cathedral, which was part of an old Portuguese settlement of the 16^th century - also worth a visit while you are at this most exciting temple bazaars of South India. If you want to get to know the real chennai this is the place to begin!

Other Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala
Bazaar Tour 4 : Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Market streets of Tiruvannamalai

Tiruvannamalai is a temple town in Tamil Nadu, situated 185 km from Chennai and 210 km from Bangalore. It is known for its centuries old Arunachaleswara Temple and for the Ramanashram, where Ramana Maharishi lived for many years after his sixteen years of deep meditation on the Arunachala hill. There is known to be a connection between Arunachala and Machu Picchu in Peru, both being along the axis of spiritual power.

There is so much about Tiruvannamalai that makes it belong to all those who have revered the Maharishi and worshipped the Shiva linga at the temple here. There are shops within the temple, shops along the temple street and shops all over the temple town. However, it is when you walk into the main bazaar streets in the centre of town that you realise that there is so much life also outside the silence of the ashram and the ritual of the temple.

As always, there is so much to see and so much to absorb. As much as you know that on a less busy time in the bazaar, you would be noticed immediately as being an outsider, this is not a day anyone pays attention to another passer-by. I move through the bazaar in perfect bliss – unnoticed and uninterrupted. There are enough customers to bother about without the vendors trying to catch the eye of an uninterested one. It is nearing the end of the day and business has to be brisk and good.

This bazaar has narrow streets that are crowded with goods and with people. In a few streets, there are vegetable vendors along the centre with people moving in aisles on both sides. In other streets, there are jute bags filled with whole red chillis, pulses and bags of rice. The shops that sell gold jewellery seem to be overflowing with people. Are these the pilgrims who are in the town for religious workship and a family outing combined with it?

The Bazaar is populated with the locals at the vegetable and grocery shops nad with pilgrims at the jewellery shops. As we learn from a young man who owns an Internet café in Tiruvannamalai, amongst the many foreigners who come here, there are ashramites, there are “tourists” and there are “travellers”. The tourists are those who are keen on a good holiday and will spend any amount for a room in the town, as they would in Goa or Pondicherry. There are the travellers who are careful with how much they spend and who want their money to last a long time. There are no tourists and no travellers at the Bazaar today. It is perhaps not a place they frequent so much. Besides, it is “off-season” in Tiruvannamalai, as many shop-owners on ashram road had pointed out earlier in the day.

It is that time of the year when many foreigners who have made the town their home go away for a month or more to their families in the countries they have come from. But, nothing about this bazaar would tell you anything about the presence of an ashram in the town or the tourists and the travellers. This could be a bazaar anywhere, in an interior part of Theni district or in Madurai district. It is the typical bazaar of a town in Tamil Nadu.

The market streets spread out in many directions, well, actually only four directions – North to South and West to East. The sun is setting over the west gopuram of the Arunachaleswara temple. You can see the Arunachala hill beyond and for a moment, it is so captivating a sight that it is the bazaar that seems more like that passing landscape through the window of a train compartment, a far away destination being all important.

Related Posts :
Bazaars within an Indian temple
Bazaar on a Temple street
Bazaar in a Temple Town

Gandhi Bazaar

This post is part of the Bazaar Tour Series. You can read here about Gandhi Bazaar: Street Vendor Eviction and about Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar.


The Gandhi Bazaar is a part of Basavanagudi, one of the older localities of this IT metropolis. It is a Street Bazaar, so you can get down anywhere along the street and start walking and exploring. On a festival day, such as Sankranti or Pongal (14th January) or Ugadi (first week of April) or Diwali (October or beginning November) Gandhi Bazaar has more lively shopping interactions and is a place to be a part of. On any given day of the year, the Bazaar opens at six in the morning and closes at nine in the evening.

The paths that take you towards the bazaar are territorialized by the informal sector, the paths within the market itself are patterns of human interaction and movement that are generated only to disappear again in a little while, to be created once more in another way. The vendor displays are simple creations that are changing and transforming themselves to attract and to sell better.





Amongst the shops that are very unique to this Bazaar are the Granthige stores i.e. shops that sell Puja items. I stop by at Ashwini Stores at the Vidyarthi Bhavan Circle. Besides all puja items, they also have Ayurvedic items, Dry fruits, Country drugs, Plastic covers, etc.


The other shops to look out for are the ones that sell local Kannadiga dry snacks, such as Holige (which is similar to the Maharashtrian Puran Poli), Jaggery & Peanut balls and Pickles. These often have nameboards that say, ‘Dealers in Condiments, Dry fruits and General Home products’. There is one off the Gandhi Bazaar Main road, on D.V.Gundappa Road.

As you walk along the main Gandhi Bazaar road, you see vendors stringing flowers into garlands with their dexterous hands. The jasmines (mallige), tuberoses, marigolds, asters and roses are coupled with leaves to make garlands for the temple deity or for a wedding ceremony. If you are in this area early morning, i.e. anytime between 5:30am to 10:00am, you can also step into the 'Corporation market', which is on the main road and is primarily a flower market.



There are shops along the Gandhi Bazaar main road that also sell Silk sarees. There is the Kancheepuram Silk Weavers'Co-operative Society shop. There is also the private Kancheepuram Silk showroom with a shopfront that is more modern.


When it is time to eat, there are two places that can be a worthwhile experience at Gandhi Bazaar. One of them is Vidyarthi Bhavan, on the Gandhi Bazaar main road. It was started in 1938 as an eating place that served students. It is known for its Benne (butter) masala dosas. Since this is the most popular item on the menu, you often see the waiter balancing several plates of dosas in his hand. It is not a sight you see anywhere else. From Monday to Thursday, it is open from 6:30am to 11:30am and 2:00-8:00pm. On Saturday & Sunday, it is open from 6:30am to 12noon and 2:30-8:00pm. It is closed on Fridays.


The Brahmins Café is the other very popular eatery here. You can walk to it from Gandhi Bazaar. It is on Rangarao road near Shankar Mutt. The menu lists Idli, Vada, Khara Baath, Kesari Baath and Tea/Coffee. It is open from 7am to 12noon and 4pm to 7pm. It is closed on Sundays. There is also the Kamat Bugle Rock, a great restaurant for a North Karnataka thali, on Bull Temple Road.


Gandhi Bazaar sits on land that has been an important part of Bangalore’s history. In the vicinity is the Bull Temple. Here the Nandi (Bull) actually belongs to a centuries old temple almost 2 km away – the Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple. The book ‘Deccan Traverses – The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain’ by Anuradha Mathur & Dilip da Cunha says “The Nandi Bull is a celebration of the rock outcrop, a sculpted summit enclosed by a pavilion on eight columns and a circumambulatory” It further says “An inscription below the right foreleg of Nandi declares that the waters of the Vrishabhavati originate here. These waters join the Kaveri”.

You wonder if the Gandhi bazaar is a Temple Bazaar, because you realise that it is a bazaar for flowers and a bazaar for puja items. These are two important elements of a Temple bazaar anywhere in India. The Gandhi Bazaar is perhaps different from the Temple bazaar in Tiruvannamalai or the Temple Bazaar in Mylapore, Chennai where the bazaars are streets that lead right upto the Arunachaleswarar temple or the Kapaleeswarar temple respectively. However, from what it sells and from its geography, one could assume that it is a Temple Bazaar that is gradually being penetrated with modern-day consumerism.


How to reach there : It is an area well-known and can be reached by bus or by taxi or by an auto-rickshaw. If you ask a cab-driver or an auto-rickshawdriver to take you to ‘Gandhi Bazaar’, he will bring you there. You will know when you are there as you spot flower garland and banana leaf sellers all over.

More about Gandhi Bazaar:
Gandhi Bazaar: Street vendor Eviction
Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar
A Street Bazaar and the City (a film)
An afternoon in Festive Dussehra

Other Bazaars in Bangalore :
How "green" is our Bazaar?
Urban Structure-City Market & Russell Market

Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala

Bazaar in a Temple town

I think that trade in present-day temple towns is as much for international tourists as for the local or domestic pilgrims who come from nearby towns or neighbouring states. As you walk along the Chengam road in Tiruvannamalai, the temple town which is 185 km from Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and 210 km from Bangalore (Karnataka) you see the ‘Tibetan Gifts Store - Manufacturer & Wholesaler for Tibetan Jewellery, Pashmina shawls, Carpets, Cloths, etc’. There is also the ‘Authorised Forex Money Changers-Indian Boutique’ that sells postcards and cotton blouses that foreigners visiting India often buy. This is on one side of the Chengam road.

Sandalwood paste and other puja items for sale near the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai

On the other side, you see Muggulu or Kolam – freshly done floral motifs in rice powder on earth that has been settled with sprinkling of water by the lady of the house. There is the shack of the local paan-shop that continues to exist, outside one of the community water tanks or the shop ‘Manjula Coffee bar’ with the traditional copper container for the filter coffee – a container that is smeared with ash and red kumkum. The acrylic board above the shop entrance advertises ‘Brooke Bond 3 Roses Tea’.

There’s the Tailor shop and the Ironing shop inside a remnant of a stone pillared pavilion along the roadside. Further down, another tailoring shop called the ‘Swiss’ Tailor next to the ‘Ellora Hair Style’ housed in a concrete structure, its frontage protected by the shade of a peepal tree. Under this tree, a stone ganesha idol with turmeric powder all over it. Its only one of the many little shrines that one would find if one walked the Arunagiri path around the mountain in this temple town.

Bazaar on a Temple street

At the street junction, a signboard that says ‘Thiru Annamalaiyar Thirukkoyil – Thiru Manjana Gopuram (South)’. The street to the right where the board points leads to the South Gopuram of the Arunachaleswarar Temple. This is what one may call the Temple Street. It has its own bazaar. There are push carts that sell plastic toys for children, for families who visit Tiruvannamalai to worship the Lord but also to rest and to enjoy a vacation. There are pushcarts with dates and halwa. There is the three feet diameter shallow bamboo basket that is balanced on the backseat of a stationery bicycle – the Indian shop that is customary of many small towns in India. It has on sale garlands of jasmine and garlands of rosepetals. There is the idli stall by the side of the plaintain bhajji stall and lungis on sale balanced on the more sturdy TVS motorcycle.

The morning conversations between the old-time traders and the old-time residents on a street in Madurai in the Meenakshi Temple zone. Conversations of this kind may have been more frequent and at the heart of bazaar culture when a bazaar was a place co-developed by the users. Today, the social distance has increased between the buyer and the seller and the bazaar is seen as a noisy, chaotic place to which the user has no sense of belonging.

I have walked the entire length of the temple walls at Tiruvannamalai. As I go past the south gopuram and towards the East-facing Rajagopuram, there are more permanent shops with corrugated asbestos roofs. Some of these sell framed pictures of deities and stone statues of nandi and ganesha. Other shops that you come across are the ones that sell brass puja items and steel utensils and shops with glass bangles. There are wholesale banana dealers in shelters with bamboo and banana leaf roof. Some shops are smaller and have on sale kumkum, turmeric powder and sandalwood. There are agarbathi or incense stick vendors and shops with aluminium pots and pans.

A Rajasthani Bhojanalaya or Eating place in the vicinity of Meenakshi Temple which is visited by both domestic tourists from all over India as well as by large numbers of international tourists. Here is a restaurant that serves north indian food in a predominantly south indian locality catering to the local people, the traders or shop owners, many of who are from gujarat and rajasthan and also to those who visit the temple as pilgrims from north india. Bazaars in temple streets in contemporary India have eating places that include the Indian chinese and the Italian Pizzeria.

I am curious to see what sells just outside the main gopuram. The most important place is the shop where you keep your footwear for a token amount while you go inside the temple barefeet. This is a shop you see in every temple street. In Tiruvannamalai, just outside the main entrance to the Arunachaleswara temple, there are two main shopping lanes – one that sells copper and brass and another that sells coconuts and flowers. I look up to read the name of a shop : ‘Gandhimati Metal Store P.V.R.S.Velliyan Chettiar & Brother – Copper, Brass vessels manufacturers & merchants and Stainless steel merchants, Sannathi St., Tiruvannamalai’. This is the main bazaar which is always full of people who come to the temple. The shop itself is constructed with metal I-sections for columns and rafters with wooden fascia board in a simple but slightly ornamental motif.

This is a bazaar on a temple street just like any other bazaar on a temple street, like the one in Mylapore in Chennai or the one adjoining the walls of the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, because it is also dotted by the Guest houses and the Lodges. Here, in Tiruvannamalai, there is the Hotel Arunachala, the Annamalai Guest house Lodge and the Abbirami hotel offering a place to rest for all those pilgrims and shoppers who are part of the temple and bazaar environment for those few days of the year.

Bazaar within an Indian temple

You read this board “Arulmigu Sri Arunachaleshwarar Temple – Devasthana Abisheka Special Panchamirtham Naivetya Prasadam available here”. Devotees gather around the shop inside the Arunachaleswara temple in Tiruvannamalai to buy pre-packed prasadam. Inside the temple at Tiruvannamalai as also at the Meenakshi temple in Madurai or in other temples in South India, there is a Bazaar that lives in different pockets within the stone walls of the temple. This sometimes includes a shop that sells prasadam; a shop that sells little baskets with flowers and coconut; a shop that sells bead necklaces or malas and sometimes a shop offering religious books for sale.


At the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, there is a flower bazaar within the temple itself

Often devotees buy the prasadam and sit with their families just outside the shop on the old stone floor to eat the prasadam before they move on. Some buy prasadam to take back home for sharing with extended family and neighbours. You can buy individual packets of laddus and individual packets of the three other items on sale. You can also buy the Nivethiya Prasadam set for Rs.100 that comes packed in a saffron cloth bag. Every once in a while, there is a coolie or helper who takes empty bamboo baskets from the prasadam shop to bring back filled baskets of bottles of Panchamrutham which are put for sale at the shop.


The Prasadam shop at the Meenakshi temple in Madurai

At another corner of the temple in Tiruvannamalai, you can also buy little oil lamps that you offer to the God. Right next to where these are sold, few women sit on the floor preparing the oil lamps for use – pouring the oil or ghee (home-made butter) into one-inch diameter clay crucibles and then putting into them cotton wicks, laying each of these now ready-to-use lamps onto large aluminium trays that are similar to the ones used for pouring indian sweets for sale. These trays are stacked one on top of another and sent to the counter nearby that sells the lamps to the devotees; there is a table nearby where the oils are lit. They are lit, they burn, they die out and are taken away by temple staff.

A third shop, which is closer to the first mantapam with carved temple pillar and near the elephant whom devotees feed bananas, is the shop that sells flowers and camphor and bead necklaces. These shops do not build a roof for themselves, only small side walls to create a sense of enclosure and a sense of “shop”. There is a stone roof up above, almost 14 feet high resting on the carved stone pillars between which the shop dwells. The main attraction here is the elephant who has a continuous stream of worshippers. It is a belief that feeding the elephant and seeking his blessings is a way to propitiate Lord Ganesha, the elephant God. In the gopuram itself, a shop that sells framed pictures of gods and goddesses – a board just above the main door in the gopuram that says ‘Sri Balaji Coconut Traders, no.108, Ayyenkulam street, Tiruvannamalai’

The steps to the Thousand Pillar Mantapam has an open-to-sky shop that has come up only this morning – a shop guarded on either side by two carved stone elephants. This is a part of the temple bazaar that sells books for the religious visitor and the sight-seeing visitor. There is yet another bookseller at the festival bazaar. He has books and prints of deities hung by plastic clips onto the coconut coir rope that ties itself to bamboo that supports the woven coconut leaf shelter or pandal. This is the bazaar within the temple that is typical of a festival day at the temple.

There is the official and more permanent devasthanam bookshop that highlights its most important two books by a large signboard that describes the books – ‘The Light of Arunachaleswarar’ – about how the small shrine by the side of the holy mountain grew into the large temple it is today and the ‘Arunagiri Valam’ – about the path around the holy hill of Arunachala and why saints have lived here and about the shrines that one will come across during the giripradakshina.

This blogpost has a description of the temple at Tiruvannamalai and photographs of the temple at Madurai, only because I had more time in Tiruvannamalai but was not carrying a camera on the trip!

As you walk a bazaar for the first time, memories of an experience of a bazaar elsewhere keep coming back. There is always so much that is not so different and yet what you go through is an experience you have not had before. Its like this gust of wind that you feel on your face, the same wind but never the same feeling.