The first time you see all these colors on the temples, you get a feeling of kitch, but when you start to understand Tamil culture then you know this is the outmost expression of Tamil life.
As you can eat spicy in the North, it would still taste sweet to a Tamil. Everything in his life is really an exponent compared with other states. The joy, the fights, the laughs, the respect the colors,the heat, the struggle everything is so intens here in Tamil Nadu. Other states sometimes charactarize Tamil Nadu as the land of children as in all their reactions they are so spontanuous, simple and at the same time so intens.

Here you see the top of a Gopuram newly paint at the rock-temple in Tiraparunkundram just outside Madurai. Gopuram means an entrance tower and every temple got four of them orientated to the North-South-West-East.
The smaller the Gopurams the elder the temple is.

Enjoy the colors of Tamil life.