Interpreted,Not Compiled.

For all those who didn't know and were not astute enough to guess, I grew up in the 'Temple City' of Madurai. Raised amidst the temples in the temples city, I once believed that there is no world outside this city and its Gods (and its eternally reigning Goddess). That was when I had barely seen ten winters (For the astute reader: this is a Classical English style of declaring your age, notwithstanding the fact that Madurai does not have a marked winter). As I continued to see more winters, I could not help but accrue a different set of perceptions about the place. Honestly, the city (or pattinam as it is called in Tamil) did not morph much, but I metamorphosed. If you pick a few random Maduraites who live or live not in Madurai now, (but have spent atleast a couple of years in the place in a bygone era) and inquire for any three spotlights of the city,  and compute the statistical modes of the answers, you are likely to get - Meenakshi Amman temple , Malligai (Jasmine

         I was born in an Independent India, so the astute reader can decipher that I am not too old. I was born in an India whose economy was still Nehruvian. Now, my dear astute reader can  deduce that I am neither too young. I was born in an India when Indian Airlines was the only airline operator covering the "major cities" of this country and when the Indian Railways covered the length and breadth of this land through one of the largest rail networks of the world. Now, a couple of decades later, Indian Airlines might not be the only airline operator in the country (thankfully), but Indian Railways is statistically the fourth largest rail network in the world, which my dear astute reader, has many implications and explications.            This post is not about the analyzing the track records of  the politics and economics of the Indian rail, it's more about cherishing a few romantic dates with it. True, the first railroads of the country were laid by the 'deve