Go to Tamil Nadu and see for yourself how tradition or the past shapes the future through the present. Savor the sense of beauty permeating a whole way of life in which woman is supreme. She is the principle of creation inspiring the most beautiful Chola bronzes among those of all the gods of the pantheon, many of whom fortunately are still in worship (the purpose for which they were originally cast by the lost wax process) in Madurai, Kanjeevaram, Kumbakonam, Tituvanaikkaval, Kanyakumari, Tiruvotryur and a thousand other temples.
No other part of India has had such a long contact with the West. An icon of the Madonna and the child painted by Luke himself can be seen in St Thomas church Madras, where the apostle, Thomas, lies buried. Armenian street, moor market and China bazaar are not mere place- names in Madras but tell of its history as the saracenic style of the old buildings do. Elihu Yale (of the university, not lock, fame) built the fort the east India company where a man called Robert Clive worked as a clerk. The records of the fort museum church record his marriage to Margaret Maskelyne, and Yale’s to Catherine.