In Tamil
This stone work is truly the inspiration behind this blog. It is from Varadharaja swami temple,in Kanchipuram, a town on the ourskirts of chennai, which is a honeycomb of temples and steeped in tradition. The stonecraft of this temple, especially the Kalyana mandabam ( marriage hall) is simply astounding,yet due to lack of proper upkeep the only safeguards are a few shrubs of thorny branches.254

What you are seeing,believe me is not just a chain,but one carved out of single stone,its hangs from the stone ceiling and is living testimony to the greatness of the divine sculptor.

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for how else can you describe this piece of art,thousands of years of sculpting knowledge resulting in this sheer essence of architectural brilliance by the master sculptor,imagine the pain passing through his veins as he delicately brought forth his years of knowledge filtered though generations by word of mouth, passing through his blistered hands, into making this poetry in stone, hoping that they will stand till the sun and the moon shine, a testimony to his work…unsigned. The stone too kept up its word, its withstood the onslaught of invaders, forgive them for they were a hostile crowd, at war, but how to forgive the wanton destruction that’s happening now. Sometimes we are left to wonder, if they are better served by art thieves selling them to European museums …at least they will live there, lest stand and rot in the dust here,unappreciated, forgotten, that is the greatest insult to the art and the artist.

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