Getting to know Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari , being the proverbial southern tip of our peninsula, is often imagined to be at the exact endpoint of an inverted triangle , with the three oceans neatly converging at that locus. The "ground reality", so to speak , is not all that geometrically precise . It did come as a surprise that the real tip of S. India is the estuary where River Pazhaiyaru enters the ocean. Kanyakumari stands a little way off center. At the real endpoint , there are no tourist mobs, no souvenir shops, no overcrowded ferry to Vivekananda Rock - no Rock or looming Statue . Just a broad dazzling river meandering from between the purple and gray ranges of the Western Ghats , slicing the town of Manakkudi into "Upper Town" and "Lower Town" on either bank and creating a gorgeous estuary at the sea , a wetland that teems with biodiverse life forms . The Virgin Goddess hailed by the hymning waves...