To most Indians Madurai is synonymous with the famed Meenakshi temple. But the city deserves to be known as a harbinger of change. Like the transformation symbolised by the acclamation that the capital of the Pandya kingdom accorded Thirukkural, the ethical treatise at its celebrated Sangam despite opposition from conventional critics centuries ago.Or the metamorphosis of Mahatma Gandhi into a "half-naked fakir", after his shocked glimpse (it is said) of the pathetically-clad poor in the city streets. The temple itself witnessed a social change when a Brahmin freedom fighter led "untouchables" into its hallowed precincts.It was against casteism, again, that Madurai showed the way recently if a samathuvapuram (abode of equality) inaugurated on its outskirts were to live up to its name to any extent. A brainchild of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, it is a colony of peaceful coexistence among various, and often warring, castes.It was an aesthetically appealing idea of the Kalaigner (Artist), asthe DMK leader is described even in common discourse. But could it really work in practice?It was not an unduly cynical question. Not if you remember the caste riots of shameful virulence that have in recent times repeatedly rocked Tamil Nadu's southern districts, over which towers the city of all those exquisite `gopurams'. Could the samathuvapuram coexist with its social environs?I decided to visit the utopia and find out for myself. A photographer friend agreed to accompany me. We boarded the bus on a drizzly morning. The weather did not dampen the welcome that awaited us, after a 20-minute journey, at the settlement bedecked with arches and boards proclaiming the new experiment and its noble purpose.Spread over ten acres alongside the Madurai-Kanyakumari highway, the colony was assured of a serene setting for its envisaged evolution into an example of a multi-caste community. We arrived there to find a motley crowd moving towards a dais erected for the inaugural function.The colony,surely, had all the makings of an ideal village, or a self-sufficient one with a modicum of facilities and amenities. It had an overhead tank, a community hall, a children's park, a primary school, and a fair-price shop. Along with a house, every family was given a few cents of land to raise vegetables.The plan of the colony was dictated by its avowed purpose. The residential units were allotted so that the house of an Adi Dravida family was followed by those of its backward-class and most-backward-class counterparts. Good-neighbourliness promoted by the arrangement was intended to replace prejudices bred by ghettoes.This, however, was not where the unmistakably authentic Kalaigner touch was conspicuous. It was striking in the naming of all colony streets after great works of Tamil literature. Emphatically excluded was the name of any author with a caste component.Gurusamy, a young mason, took us around the village like a tourist guide. Wherever we went, we were greeted with a smile. At the communitycentre, people of two communities engaged in violent feuds for almost a decade could actually be seen exchanging pleasantries.I asked a resident whether this would last and for how long. He did not doubt that the harmony would endure. "We have given an undertaking to live in peace and amity with our neighbours." Will the pledge survive insidiously promoted caste animosities? Hope was the only possible answer.As we were leaving, my friend remarked: "Hope they will live together like Kalaigner and Tamil, and not like Vajpayee and Jayalalitha." That made up for the quality of his photographs!
