Sathuragiri experience

 Sathuragiri is a pilgrimage site located in the district of Virudhunagar in Tamilnadu. The hills are actually a part of the Western Ghats. The name is in Tamil, as 'chaturam' means square and 'giri' means mountain. Many people say the the hill is square-shaped, so that's where the name originates from. I saw that the temple built around the 2 'suyambu' lingam or the two idols that are not installed by any person but they exist on their own is in the middle of 4 different hills. 

Our group consisted of 4 girls and their fathers and four other uncles. Everyone was a school friend except my father, our group’s leader and another uncle. Everyone is such an amazing person. We had great fun throughout the entire journey. They all taught me so much by talking about their life experiences and many other incidents that changed their lives.

We began our trek from a madam at the foot of the hills in SriVilliputhur. Filled with adventurous paths, I had great fun as the arduous journey was painless when accompanied by the funny jokes cracked by the jokers or our group. It almost felt like a get together after so many years! To be away from home was a great pleasure after the two long years of lockdown even though it was only for a night. 

The place never fails to amuse anyone with the serene sounds of nature. Even though there were many people trekking up and down the hill, a lot of sound was made by all of us - but it seemed as if nothing can disturb nature’s routine. 

It is a thick forest with exotic animals and flowers which made an able partner for the free flowing fresh water streams. It was a great pleasure to get the opportunity to trek through various challenging paths with the mesmerising views.

The beginning of the hill consisted of cement paths with boulders in a few places. There were people sitting on the side of the path. Some were treating the place as a picnic site. They had a sheet spread out with food. Some people were running as though they were in a great hurry. But we were at a steady pace with a lot of stops for snacks, energy boosting lemon soda and hot tea. 

Once the steps ended there was the 1st slippery path. It is more slippery when it rains but thankfully it only rained in the night . It is a steep boulder with less grips and a river flowing on the steep edge. Some people got on fours and slowly walked across but we got the help of the more experienced people of our group. Then we walked in a river to reach the other side. The river wasn't very deep nor too shallow, but the free pedicure by the fishes was a good treat after the long walk. From there onwards there were rocks only. In some places we had a steep ascend and in others the path dropped down. It almost felt like riding the waves except on rocks.

Now and then there was a refreshing breeze. The sun was of great advantage on that day. It only shone between the gaps in green, chill canopies. It was omnipresent all the other times. Due to these reasons we got through great distances without feeling exhausted by the heat. Only after we had passed the halfway mark to the temple did the girls begin asking when we would reach.

One uncle said, “ Only one right and one left and we will reach the temple.” It was very motivating to know that but just as he repeated it a few times , the girls stopped believing him. To change the thought, we were asked a few general knowledge questions and some dumb-witted riddles!! 

This way we walked to the temple and had a delicious rasam sadam with soya beans treat for lunch. After resting for a while we went to the sundara mahalingam first then a few of us went to the chandhana mahalingam temple too. We saw the entire archanai that went on for a long time. It began raining so we waited for sometime and ran to the madam near the sundara mahalingam temple. There we had dinner and slept in the night. We were all extremely grateful to get such a cosy, warm place in the freezing cold night. We had a mouse and cat running all around along with the loud snores of everyone. 

We woke up early and visited the temples once again. Then we had pongal for breakfast. We had a few group photos and began the trek back down!

It was a little more tiring than walking up. But with a few breaks we got down quickly. We almost reached the foot of the hills when it began drizzling. We thought it would stop but it began raining harder. So we got wet for that short time and went down. As we sat at the tea shop at the end of the hill our legs was almost shivering. 

No matter how tired we got at the end, it was an amazing experience. The most unforgettable part of the trek was the monkeys being more eager than us to see what snacks we managed to sneak by the guards !!!

I had taken all the pictures in this post too!!

                                            - Bharathi Senthilkumar