For a long time, i wanted to write something about this city Tiruchirappalli, pre dominantly an agrarian zone. In general, its not so happening place. But this is the major city for many other tier 2 towns like Lalgudi, Ariyalur, Jayangondam, Perambalur, Thuraiyur, Manapparai, Pudukkottai, Kulithalai, Karur etc. This is because trichy is well connected to other major cities through rail and national highways. So all the supplies should go to other cities through trichy only. Even pirated DVDs are supplied to other small towns from trichy only. So the electronics, FMCGs and branded stuffs should be supplied from Trichy only. So its a hub for many things. Its located almost center of tamilnadu and most of the southern cities are connected to chennai via trichy only.
The city area is very limited to less than 10 km radius. In one circle from Main Guard Gate- Thillai Nagar - Woriur -Puthur - Junction - Palakarai - Main Guard Gate will cover half of the city. Edamalai Patti pudur, KK Nagar, Airport, Karumandapam, Thiruvanai kovil, Srirangam, Toll Gate, Srinivasa Nagar, BHEL Township are also in city limits. Most of the other places are sub urban areas and villages. Paddy and Banana are major cultivation in this Cavery Delta region.
Rockfort is the main attraction and icon for trichy. When you enter the city through cauvery bridge, the view of the rockfort is elegant. The width of cauvery here is huge than in any other city. The sub river for cauvery is Kollidam, where the water will be diverted when Cauvery is full. In between Cauvefry and Kollidam, Srirangam is situated. I hope its a peninsula. Once people used to consider Srirangam as a different city from Trichy. But now its part of trichy in every way.
BHEL, VKN, Cethar Vessels, RANE, Some steel companies are major players in industries. There were talks about creating IT parks in the city and now there is no news about it as the recession getting away with many jobs. Only the real estate prices shot up due to IT park talks.
Now only we have outlets for Addidas, Reebok, Sony etc. But so far people are living in harmony as there is not much places to spend and dont know about the "show off" culture like in any other big cities. But recently, i can see the influence of media and a different trends coming up in trichy as my teen age cousin want to buy all trendy clothes and spending Rs 250 for a hair cut in a place like "naturals". I hope this will increase over the time. Teen agers already caught up with some kind of addiction to orkut and trying to flirt with unknown people. I am not seeing the penetration of facebook here.
The best thing about trichy is its educational institutions. For Arts and Science colleges, we can look for
St Joseph's College
Bishop Heber College
National College
Jamal Mohammed College
Seethalakshmi Ramasamy College
Holy Cross College
Indra Gandhi College
Cauvery College
Chidambaram Pillai Women's College
Urumu Dhanalakshmi College etc.
For Engineering
NIT (Previously REC... For better understanding, In Vaaranam Aayiram, Sameera Reddy's college)
JJ Engineering College
Mookambigai Engineering College ( Surya's college in Vaaranam Aayiram)
Saranathan Engineering College
Angalamman Engineering College
MIET and many more....
For medicine
KAP Viswanathan Medical College
Education is still cheap here... not like chennai....
One of my cousin who wanted to join SRM in chennai was asked for 6 lakhs (Admission) + 50 k (AC bus fare for a year) for an engineering seat.
There are some quite number of famous personalities were students from trichy... To name few people
Sujatha (Writer)
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Former President)
R.Venkat Raman (Former President)
Many facilities are easily available in trichy. For some computer parts, in chennai, i need to go all the way to Ritchie street. But here in trichy i can get the same in some shop in Thillai nagar in a 10 minutes bike ride. But still Ritchie street got little cost advantage.
Jogging and Walking in Cauvery bridge, Fort Station, Bishop Heber College, St Joseph College and Karur Bye Pass road are really a fun. Particularly Cauvery Bridge is used like a beach in evenings. Standing there with friends and gossiping by watching 3/4 th empty cauvery and Rockfort is really a great thing to do with some "Kadalai" or "Bhel Puri".
Recently Femina Shopping Mall along side of hotel Femina is a big hit in trichy for hanging out for some time and pioneer in mall culture to trichy. No multiplex theatres are here yet. Even Big Cinemas are not here as they are in other cities.
Sangam Hotel's coffee shop (I think Cascade is the name) will be open during mid nights also, so you can have a sip of cold coffee with ice cream in mid nights. Apart from this place, Only around central bus stand we can get some food in the mid nights. Tea stall opposite to GH will be open through out the night. We used to have our mid night tea and biscuits when we do group studies (Most of the time, it will be group chats and group movie watching only) at college times. That time after 11 PM Aircel to Aircel calls were free. So we select a big play list in a computer and make a call from once Aircel to another Aircel, then keep one mobile near Computer's speaker and take the other mobile to hear songs on the way to tea shop to listen to music for that mid night short trips. I guess now this scheme is not there in Aircel. (They might have known these kind of mis uses) The best part in trichy is, you can avoid police in every major signals and can ride through small lanes to most of the place as we need to go more than 2 persons in a bike ( 3 or 4 depends on the day). There are few occassions we caught up by police in unusual places and set free after warnings.
The other main attractions of trichy are temples in and around the city. Srirangam, Samayapuram, Thiruvanaik Kovil, Malikkottai Uchipillayar, Thayumana Swami Kovil, Vayaloor, Viraali Malai, Uthamar Kovil, Bikshandaar Kovil, Guna Seelam, ThiruPaingili, Thiruvaasi, Thiruverumbur, Ayyappan Temple, Vekkaliyamman Kovil, Kallukuzhi Aanjaneyar temple etc. You need atleast 3 days to cover all temples here. Its an cost effective city to lead life. Bus facilities are amazing in this city. Bus frequency to almost all places are high. Both government buses and private buses are operating in the city. The big church opposite to main guard gate is elegant. I guess its a Catholic church.
Not much places for lovers to hang out in the city. Only place where you can think of a duet is Mukkombu park which is out of city limit in Karur road. Very cost effective place to take your valentine. 3 or 5 bucks is the entry fee. Job opportunities are very less for educated people, so most of the students are targetting chennai and bangalore for jobs from here.
Vasan Medical and Vasan group of hospitals are head quartered in Trichy. They are going to be the future sensation in the indian medical industry. Sarathas is the leader in garments. Recently Chennai Silks giving a tough competition to them here. Medical facilities are cheap and in abundance as compared to other cities.
Ragunath hotel food was good when i was in school ( but not sure now) , Mayas hotel, Sathyam hotel are located near chatram bus stand. Sangam, Femina and Jenneys residency are some high end places to stay in the city. There was one restaurant called Aadhi kudi Coffee Club in the city. It was a brahmin eat out place with strong filter coffee. I am not sure whether its still there or not.
Rockfort is a wonder in architecture. It was created by Pallavas. Rani Mangamma's head quarter was tiruchirappalli once. Its a Chozha's capital (Woriur) too. For East India Company also, it was a head quarter for other southern cities at once up on a time. Still we can see some English names in the city for roads and buildings. Clives Buliding, Williams Road, McDonald's road etc. are here. Woriur Cigars were world famous at pre independence days. Even people used to say Churchill's favourite cigars were from Woriur. Cigars exported from here to UK, Australia and many other foreign countries.
The first super star of Kollywood, Thiyagaraja Bagavathar is from trichy. Some of the famous musicians also from this place. I think Kalaivanar NSK also from here. Trichy Loganathan, Lalgudi Jayaraman, Sheik Chinna Moulana and many more. Currently B.Harikumar (Mridangam), Trichy Thayumanavan(Mridangam and my Guru), Ghatam Murali are from trichy.
Trichy airport is an international airport which has flights to Singapore, Dubai and Srilanka. I guess there is some expansion is happening. More domestic flights are needed for better business development. Telecom connectivity is excellent in the city as this is the hub for many other cities.
Totally this city has more scope for further development. This time i can see an increased traffic and the narrow city roads will not help in the future and the sub urbs will expand the city in coming days. This is a calm place for the pensioners to stay so far, but will take up the spilling buiness opportunities from chennai and other cities soon. If not chennai will suffer more with more traffic and pollution in coming years.
காவிரி ஆறும் கைக்குத்தல் அரிசியும் மறந்து போகுமா
தாவணி பெண்களும் தூது விடும் கண்களும் தொலைந்து போகுமா...
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