For someone with just streaks of all these, a four-day engagement with this culture cosmos was overwhelming, to say the least. Especially the sites that will not feature in or be the focus of the usual trips that one may make to this temple town. Be it while alighting the steps into the Nadavavi, the step well, or taking the flight of steps up the coiled stairway leading to the top of the multi-storeyed vimana (pyramid-like roof of the sanctum sanctorum) of the Varadaraja Perumal temple, one can see that every step is a story waiting to be told.

Into The Womb Of The Earth

One sunny afternoon, the bus came to a halt outside a large space of fenced land. Driving closer, all that one could see is a large Vijayanagara style arch at one end and two tall pillars at the other at the centre of the land stretch. Having been haunted by stories of fallen structures and kingdoms and ‘what was once a …’ tales, one begins to wonder what this site could probably have been. Walking further into the fenced land, brings us face to face with the intricately carved arch that has a Gajalakshmi engraved on its perch. We realise it is indeed the doorway to a magnificent structure; just that this one is in the womb of the earth.

As you enter the arch and walk towards the two pillars, you notice a large square structure with steps leading into the earth. It is a step-well - the Nadavavi Kinaru. One doesn't really find many step-wells in this part of the country any longer, and of the few still in use is the Nadvavi Kinaru, or also called the Nada-vavi (walk-well), which is located close to the Sanjeevaraayar temple at Ayyangarakulam.