Last hours in Trivandrum
A couple of annoying failed tasks before leaving.
I have filled my camera cards and have been trying without success for several days to find a shop which can burn a DVD rather than have to carry half a dozen CDs around with me. Then I met this rather bizarre Canadian, who came to Kerala to have 18 tooth implants (!) and is sitting in the YMCA twiddling his thumbs while he awaits the all-clear from the dentist. (He said that he was totally confident; the dentist had shown him papers proving that the implant materials came from Switzerland and the bone graft from California.) He had a brand new laptop and we spent an hour failing to burn a DVD. I wonder if his American PC didnt like my European zone DVD.
Then for the umpteenth time I tried to recharge my Indian phonecard. It turns out that the card I bought in Chennai cannot be topped up in Kerala. So once again I have had to buy a simcard, with a new number.
Travel companions
Then I had to dash to catch my train to Verkala. I had chosen this relatively small place (40,000) for my beach stay, rather than the better known Kovalam, as the guidebooks said the later was becoming very developed, with more and more package tours.
On the train I sat next to a really nice family from Hyderabad: grandparents, their daughter and two adult grandchildren. The grandfather had in public health, the grandson was a mechanical engineering student and the daughter was studying genetics.
As you gather, the family spoke some English and were clearly keen to practise. Once again I probed for views on the role of English, and suggested it had a value as the lingua franca. No need, said the grandson, most people already speak some Hindu. What about the Tamils in Tamil Nadu, I asked. Ah well, he said they are the exception....
I asked if they had been visiting family in Trivandrum. Oh no, he replied, they were simply exploring other parts of India. Indians like to travel, he adde3d, and they particularly liked to travel in family groups. I've noticed that!
Suddenly the train slowed and the grandson said we were arriving in Vwerkala. Panic as I had thought we had ages still and my camera (we had been swapping camera shots), ipod (I had been showing pictures of my family and home), water bottle and guide book were spilled out on the table. The grandchildren rushed to help me pack and all the family except granny, who used a rudimentary sort of zimmer, came to the door to carry my bags and wave goodbye.
I was lucky to find a rickshaw as there is apparently a strike at present. As a result I arrived just before some Italian women and we all found our hotel full as people had not been able to leave. Somehow or other a room was found for me, and the Italians were lodged nearby.
It is actually a pretty nice room, opening onto a communal balcony looking out over the thatched roofs of the huts I had hoped to be in, through the palm trees to the sea. I'm on the clifftop area, but the cliffs are not all that high, so one still hears the sound of the surf. Great.
Verkala clifftop turns out to be a non-stop row of guesthouses, stalls selling clothes, books, internet points, travel agents - all the usual tourist stuff. And pretty well everybody is a European tourist! At first I suffered a bit of culture shock. I'm so used to being almost the only European. And they all looked so sad.
In the afternoon I took a loooong walk, too long, along the clifftop path (well paved, somebody has paid for the infrastructure here) seeing if I could find another hotel in the guidebook which sounded more peaceful. Mine is one of the nicest I've seen, but a bit in the midst of the action.
At the end of the cliffs, as the path descended towards an enticing looking beach, I saw one which looked a bit upmarket, another which was too far from the sea - and then suddenly I had left tourist land and was passing rather scruffy fishermen's villages and a mosque (there seems to be a significant Moslem community here. Eventually I decided it was wise to turn. I had felt vaguely uncomfortable by men staring, though given my age and girth I should feel immune, so at first when three young men called out, I ignored them. Then I realised they were asking for water from my bottle. Well, that was a new line, so I stopped and offered the bottle and was pleased to note that they punctiliously poured the water rather than drinking from the bottle.
One man spoke quite good English and another understood it. The first explained that he was a student of civil engineering and his friend was studying management studies. But his family had money problems, so he had had to return to being a fisherman. He was clearly frustrated by this. Further, instead of having one of the larger boats with motors, which go out in the evening, he only had one of the skiffs with paddles, that fish nearer to shore in the early morning.
Then I fell in with a young Austrian and Belgian, conversing in English. I am noticing that quite a lot of the young are using English to cross the language barriers. But virtually no native English speakers, even here. Maybe they are all still in Spain, or Thailand. Maybe it is because Keralan licensing laws mean that this is a virtually alcohol free area (everyone is drinking lovely fruit juice cocktails) and the bookshops are selling an interesting eclectic collection, including Amartya Sen's 'The argumentative Indian' and various books by Arundhati Roy. I have just bought and started her 'The God of Small Things' and am instantly enthralled. It is an excellent book to read here, since it is about the stifling life in a small Keralan town.
On my walk I stopped by an enticing looking garden (that of the upmarket hotel I had seen earlier) and collapsed with a fruit juice. It is an idyllic place: comfy chairs, lovely drink, and a beautiful view of the sea through the palm trees. I thought I would just ask about the price of rooms here.
To cut a long story short, I have booked into this hotel at the extravagant price of 1200 rupees a night (about 14 pounds) for the following three nights. What's more I am committed to spend at least the same amount per day on a session of massage. This appears to be the most reputable Ayurvedic centre in Verkala and I decided to take advantage of this. After all, my attitude to arthritis is that one must be game to try anything. But it is above all the garden and the view which have enticed me.
You see, I have overcome my initial misgivings about a touristy seaside sojourn and am becoming sufficiently seduced by the place to double the length of my stay and strains on my budget!
Back at my initial guesthouse, Bamboo Hut Village (which really is a very pleasant place, but without the peace, view and proximity to the beach of the new one) I decided it was time to try again to update this blog.
First I checked my email (a regular postponement ritual) and found a tragic message from Claire, whom I had left about to catch the bus for walking in the hills. She had decided to treat herself to an extravagant hotel with hot water, a balcony and beautiful views, but during the first night she had a really bad attack of asthma and hayfever and, realising that the woollen blanket was perhaps to blame, spent part of the night in desperation shivering on the balcony. She was not up to walking and decided to abandon the hills and head for the coast. On the way down she discovered that her bus driver had for some inexplicable reason offloaded her rucksack at the previous stop. So she had to go back and spent the rest of the day wandering around asking rickshaw drivers, the assembled crowds, and the police (singularly unhelpful) if they had seen the rucksack. And all the time still feeling low with her asthma. Every backpacker's nightmare!
She decided she must be positive and DO something rather than sit down and burst into tears. So first she got a statement from the police to try to get something from her insurance (even though this has lapsed because she cant update it from abroad). Nextshe cancelled her bank cards (and again, the bank refused to agree to send the new card to India rather than the UK). And then she kitted herself out with toothpaste, new underwear, a skirt and blouse.
Anyhow, she wrote, she was moving out of the hills, which were not helping her asthma, and down to the coast. Maybe we would see each other in Verkkala, she added.
I started to write a long, sympathetic reply to this dejected message, was just about to hit 'Send', when a voice behind me said 'Hello'. It was Claire! Of all the many internet places in town she should end up in mine. Well, not surprising, actually, as she too had chosen Lonely Planet's recommendation - only to discover that there were no rooms. So once again she is sharing mine for the night.
Actually her story has a happy ending. She was just beginning to get used to the rather nice idea that one could in fact exist on one change of clothes plus toothpaste, squeezed into her daypack (although she did mourn the loss of her chargers for phone, ipod and camera), when she bumped into a couple of Israelis who had been on her bus. They had seen the rucksack lying on the ground and taken it to a friend's room for safety. Only problem was that they had not thought how to get it back to her. If only they had told the rickshaw drivers (who had been extremely helpful and refused payment for driving Claire round town in her search) she would not have had a day's angst.
Thursday, 25 January 2007
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Trivandrum
The city
I'm very relieved that everybody uses this shortened version, as Thiruvananthapuram would be another impossible mouthful.
Although this is the capital of Kerala, it is a bit out on a limb at the bottom of the state, and my first impressions were that it was quieter and more orderly than its Tamil Nadu counterparts. Actually it was just too early int he morning for complete lunacy to have set in.
Palace of Padmanabhapuram
Today's project was a visit to the former residence of the local rajas, the Palace of Padmanabhapuram. I'd never make a linguist: writing that was more difficult than remembering a telephone number. I made my way (longer than I estimated) down the hill to the bus station, to take a bus to the palace, some 60 km away. Bad idea. The trip took over two hours and I was squashed up against the window bars, on a seat meant for three skinny women, not three large ones. It is much hotter than in Tamil Nadu, so I was in a bit of a daze when I staggered out of the bus, and made my second wrong decision: to walk the "ten or 15 minutes" (Rough Guide) to the palace.
It was worth the trip, even if my account is shorter than the original one (two computer shutdowns and one screen-freeze ago). Built in the 16th to 18th centuries, it is apparently one of the best preserved examples of Keralan architecture. The distinguishing features were the steeply sloping roofs, which I now spot elsewhere here, with a distinctive shape of tiles, and the magnificent carved wood of the doors, windows, columns and walls of the shady galleries that surrounded the royal rooms. I was told this was jackwood which is harder than teak. It had a lovely hew and gave the whole palace a warm, albeit extremely dark, ambience. I'm glad I saw it, even if I cant think of anything more interesting to tell you.
Curiously there seemed to be a few English here - almost the first I have come across. I suspect from their age and manner they had come from some distinctly upmarket establishment... Back at the bus station, the other foreigners were the usual Germans, a couple and two girls inappropriately dressed.
Nightmarish bus journeys
I had hoped that the return journey would have been easier, as this was supposed to be an express bus. Instead, l'inferne.
The German couple and I struggled through the pushing crowd, and I just managed to get onto the bottom step as the bus moved off. Somehow I was squeezed in and the door was shut. The first few miles I clung onto the step rail, as the bus jerked its way forward. When you are standing like this you become more aware of how often buses have to jolt to a sudden halt as some other vehicle swerves across their bows. No sooner had I edged up off the steps than a group of men with huge drums climbed on board, so for the next few miles I had a drum rolling on my left foot. Then magic, a young girl offered me her seat, which I accepted with more gratitude than guilt.
It was not to be. Suddenly the bus stopped. We all had to climb out and wait for the next bus. When it arrived, it was already full, and the crowd did its usual surging forward. Somehow the Germans got on, though the man was still clinging to the bottom step when the bus left. I decided to be more assertyive when the next bus arrived, but there were women behind me who were even more aggressive. I only just made it, helped by the conductor of the original bus, who shoved me forward. Once again, a nasty time standingm and this time I only got a seat for the last few kilometres into Trivandrum.
At the time I occupied myself thinking, this is like being at the dentists - it will eventually stop. Looking back on it, I suppose I feel quite proud that I survived - Ive not done a trip like that for 40 years. And it is true, that journeys give a lot of time for people watching, even if much of it is watching their elbows. Incidentally I noticed that the women on the first bus were all at the front, with the men at the back, but the second half of the journey, such divisions were impossibleL the sardines remained where they were squashed, with no movement up or down the bus.
English on its way out?
The other thing I noticed was that yet again, nobody spoke English (Keralans speak Malayayam, rather than the more ancient Tamil). Just as I had been struck by the absence of French in Pondicherry, so I get the feeling that English might be disappearing in former British colonies. Good to lose the colonial trappings? Well, yes. But what does it doo for a nation where most people speak Hindi, but where significant parts of the country speak other languages, such as Tamil, Malayam and Gujeratyi? I wonder whether the lack of a common language serves to further separate states and cultures. It's not unlike the situation in Nigeria when we lived there, where English was indeed the language of the oppressors, but it was the only neutral common one.
Back in Trivandrum I first called in on what Rough Guide described as the main English language bookshop. In a city with at least one university I had expected something a little better than the curious, random collection I found up a dark, steep staircase. Authors like Bertrand Russell, Doris Lessing, A S Barratt, shared shelves with Harry Potter, Jeffrey ARcher, and there were books by someone called Danielle Steel - by the yard. What they didnt have in stock was the book I had come in for, a novel by a famous Keralan writer, Arundhati Roy.
The second abortive bit of shopping was to find somewhere that sells top-up cards for my sim card, bought in Chennai. I have been trying unsuccessfully for days and now I am told that I should buy another sim card (less than 100 rupees_ but it will only work while Im in Kerala. It's crazy, the whole mobile phone market appears to be run on state lines.
So I gave up on that, and tried, again without success, to find a shop that burnt DVDs rather than CDS. I have been gaily snapping away, have filled the cards for my camera, and had hoped not to have to carry a library of CDs around with me.
And the final irritation has been to swelter away in a cyber cafe noted as the best in town, only to lose much of what I had written as the computer flickered and died on me. Ive moved to another computer and am now saving every few minutes!
Anyhow, I must stop now, as tomorrow I move on from Trivandrum, for the beachside bit of my trip. I have decided against Kovalam, despite various friends saying how lovely it was, as the guide books all say that the past couple of years has seen a dramatic increase in hotel building and charter flight bookings. One referred to it as 'Kovalam del sol'. I fear I have missed the boat in experiencing an idyllic solitary beach hideawayL Kerala is following in Goa's footsteps. We will see when I get to a smaller place, Varkala, tomorrow.
I'm very relieved that everybody uses this shortened version, as Thiruvananthapuram would be another impossible mouthful.
Although this is the capital of Kerala, it is a bit out on a limb at the bottom of the state, and my first impressions were that it was quieter and more orderly than its Tamil Nadu counterparts. Actually it was just too early int he morning for complete lunacy to have set in.
Palace of Padmanabhapuram
Today's project was a visit to the former residence of the local rajas, the Palace of Padmanabhapuram. I'd never make a linguist: writing that was more difficult than remembering a telephone number. I made my way (longer than I estimated) down the hill to the bus station, to take a bus to the palace, some 60 km away. Bad idea. The trip took over two hours and I was squashed up against the window bars, on a seat meant for three skinny women, not three large ones. It is much hotter than in Tamil Nadu, so I was in a bit of a daze when I staggered out of the bus, and made my second wrong decision: to walk the "ten or 15 minutes" (Rough Guide) to the palace.
It was worth the trip, even if my account is shorter than the original one (two computer shutdowns and one screen-freeze ago). Built in the 16th to 18th centuries, it is apparently one of the best preserved examples of Keralan architecture. The distinguishing features were the steeply sloping roofs, which I now spot elsewhere here, with a distinctive shape of tiles, and the magnificent carved wood of the doors, windows, columns and walls of the shady galleries that surrounded the royal rooms. I was told this was jackwood which is harder than teak. It had a lovely hew and gave the whole palace a warm, albeit extremely dark, ambience. I'm glad I saw it, even if I cant think of anything more interesting to tell you.
Curiously there seemed to be a few English here - almost the first I have come across. I suspect from their age and manner they had come from some distinctly upmarket establishment... Back at the bus station, the other foreigners were the usual Germans, a couple and two girls inappropriately dressed.
Nightmarish bus journeys
I had hoped that the return journey would have been easier, as this was supposed to be an express bus. Instead, l'inferne.
The German couple and I struggled through the pushing crowd, and I just managed to get onto the bottom step as the bus moved off. Somehow I was squeezed in and the door was shut. The first few miles I clung onto the step rail, as the bus jerked its way forward. When you are standing like this you become more aware of how often buses have to jolt to a sudden halt as some other vehicle swerves across their bows. No sooner had I edged up off the steps than a group of men with huge drums climbed on board, so for the next few miles I had a drum rolling on my left foot. Then magic, a young girl offered me her seat, which I accepted with more gratitude than guilt.
It was not to be. Suddenly the bus stopped. We all had to climb out and wait for the next bus. When it arrived, it was already full, and the crowd did its usual surging forward. Somehow the Germans got on, though the man was still clinging to the bottom step when the bus left. I decided to be more assertyive when the next bus arrived, but there were women behind me who were even more aggressive. I only just made it, helped by the conductor of the original bus, who shoved me forward. Once again, a nasty time standingm and this time I only got a seat for the last few kilometres into Trivandrum.
At the time I occupied myself thinking, this is like being at the dentists - it will eventually stop. Looking back on it, I suppose I feel quite proud that I survived - Ive not done a trip like that for 40 years. And it is true, that journeys give a lot of time for people watching, even if much of it is watching their elbows. Incidentally I noticed that the women on the first bus were all at the front, with the men at the back, but the second half of the journey, such divisions were impossibleL the sardines remained where they were squashed, with no movement up or down the bus.
English on its way out?
The other thing I noticed was that yet again, nobody spoke English (Keralans speak Malayayam, rather than the more ancient Tamil). Just as I had been struck by the absence of French in Pondicherry, so I get the feeling that English might be disappearing in former British colonies. Good to lose the colonial trappings? Well, yes. But what does it doo for a nation where most people speak Hindi, but where significant parts of the country speak other languages, such as Tamil, Malayam and Gujeratyi? I wonder whether the lack of a common language serves to further separate states and cultures. It's not unlike the situation in Nigeria when we lived there, where English was indeed the language of the oppressors, but it was the only neutral common one.
Back in Trivandrum I first called in on what Rough Guide described as the main English language bookshop. In a city with at least one university I had expected something a little better than the curious, random collection I found up a dark, steep staircase. Authors like Bertrand Russell, Doris Lessing, A S Barratt, shared shelves with Harry Potter, Jeffrey ARcher, and there were books by someone called Danielle Steel - by the yard. What they didnt have in stock was the book I had come in for, a novel by a famous Keralan writer, Arundhati Roy.
The second abortive bit of shopping was to find somewhere that sells top-up cards for my sim card, bought in Chennai. I have been trying unsuccessfully for days and now I am told that I should buy another sim card (less than 100 rupees_ but it will only work while Im in Kerala. It's crazy, the whole mobile phone market appears to be run on state lines.
So I gave up on that, and tried, again without success, to find a shop that burnt DVDs rather than CDS. I have been gaily snapping away, have filled the cards for my camera, and had hoped not to have to carry a library of CDs around with me.
And the final irritation has been to swelter away in a cyber cafe noted as the best in town, only to lose much of what I had written as the computer flickered and died on me. Ive moved to another computer and am now saving every few minutes!
Anyhow, I must stop now, as tomorrow I move on from Trivandrum, for the beachside bit of my trip. I have decided against Kovalam, despite various friends saying how lovely it was, as the guide books all say that the past couple of years has seen a dramatic increase in hotel building and charter flight bookings. One referred to it as 'Kovalam del sol'. I fear I have missed the boat in experiencing an idyllic solitary beach hideawayL Kerala is following in Goa's footsteps. We will see when I get to a smaller place, Varkala, tomorrow.
Goodbye Tamil Nadu, Hello Kerala
The train was supposed to go at 7pm. why am I not surprised that it was over an hour late? Just as well there was no change of platformk given its immense length, though I did discover in daylight that nobody uses the bridge which is miles away - we all walk over the line.
Apart from the time, I had a smooth journey. Probably the only English speaker in the carriage helped me establish myself on a seat and the inspector passed in due course. I'm beginning to think one can get away without making reservations unless the train is really packed.
Lucky I had an Indian mobile as I was able to phone the YWCA, who said they would be closed when I arrived and to go to the YMCA instead. I rolled up after 11pm, with a rickshaw driver trying to persuade me the whole way it would be closed and he knew of cheaper places. Well, the YMCA has come up with the cleanest room since I arrived in India! And telly to boot. I have been astonished by the omnipresence of TVs and it has made for some entertaining snippets of bollywood.
I'm going to stick to the YMCA for my stay here.
Apart from the time, I had a smooth journey. Probably the only English speaker in the carriage helped me establish myself on a seat and the inspector passed in due course. I'm beginning to think one can get away without making reservations unless the train is really packed.
Lucky I had an Indian mobile as I was able to phone the YWCA, who said they would be closed when I arrived and to go to the YMCA instead. I rolled up after 11pm, with a rickshaw driver trying to persuade me the whole way it would be closed and he knew of cheaper places. Well, the YMCA has come up with the cleanest room since I arrived in India! And telly to boot. I have been astonished by the omnipresence of TVs and it has made for some entertaining snippets of bollywood.
I'm going to stick to the YMCA for my stay here.
Tuesday, 23 January 2007
Down at the bottom of India
Train to Tirunelveli
The rickshaw driver did turn up and I arrived at the station in good time and for once my train was to come on platform 1. I made my way to the "Upper Class Waiting Room" for what I thought was going to be a brief wait. Ho ho, the train was an hour late and meanwhile the mosquitoes were having a rare old time. Luckily a couple understood English and reassured me that I had the right train when it finally drew up, and what's more a young man actually helped carry my bags to an empty seat while we waited for the conductor to allocate berths. One of the benefits of being over 60 is that I am ensured a bottom berth and finally crawled into it just after 2am.
In no time at all it was unfortunately 5.30 am and we had arrived in Tirunveli. I climbed down (literally - Indian trains have two very steep steps which can be precarious with a heavy rucksack on your back) and followed the crowd down what must be the longest platform in India, over the bridge and once again into the melee that meets one outside a railway station.
I was the only European in sight and so a natural target. I was immediately accosted by a taxi driver and negotiated the price of 450 rupees (a fiver) to take me the 25 km trip to the temple at Thiruppadaimarudur (impossible to pronounce and my driver did not read, so had to show my piece of paper to the assembled crowd).
Temple at Thiruppadaimarudur
We set off in the dark and it was rather eerie driving along almost traffic free roads, although people were already up and busy opening stalls or standing around at tea stalls. The road was very rural: lots of potholes or total disappearance of tarmac, and very little traffic. I bounced up and down in the back of the Ambassador, which had seen better days; its suspension hardly existed and the diesel fumes were a bit off-putting.
When dawn came, it cast a lovely hazy light on the rice paddy fields, banana plantations and coconut groves. I really must try to get up early more often...
When we finally arrived at Thiruppadaimarudur it was little more than a single road leading up to the temple, which turned out to be a little gem. Perhaps my mood was influenced by the almost total absence of people. Apart from temple workers washing the floors and a couple of priests getting ready for the day, there was just a handful of worshippers, mainly old men, purposefully doing their circuits round the various shrines.
I'm getting accustomed to the dark inside Hindu temples (a total hindrance for photographers) and was soon peering happily at the carvings on the lovely Cholan columns.
I was looking for the way up to the east tower, where there are supposed to be some magnificent medieval carvings (only Rough Guide mentions this place) but nobody spoke even a smattering of English. One toothless gent tried to be helpful, but never quite grasped that my Tamil is non-existent.
Finally I found the rickety ladder up to the next level. Its balustrades were broken, but I took a deep breath and climbed it - only to discover there was yet another precarious one and perhaps even more. Given my vertigo and hips, I very sadly decided it was too risky to continue. In a sense this was a failed expedition, but I had enjoyed being back in rural India and had enjoyed wandering round the temple.
On the journey back the road was filling up with oxen carts, bicycles and the occasional bus or motor bike.
Tirunelveli
I had hoped to stop off at the only hotel given any rating at all in Rough Guide and hire a room for a few hours to recover from the night, but it was full. So after breakfast (I left half, I can't cope with the size of portions they give me), I hired another car to take me to the other temple, at Tiruchendur, 60 km to the south east. The return trip cost 740 rupees (8 quid) and was in Tata - a smaller car, but in good nick. Still, cash flows are evidently low for all - once again we stopped at a garage and I handed over half the money for fuel.
Tiruchendur
How I wish I could have an English speaking driver to answer my questions: why, for example, were the bananas grown in huge plantations, invariably surrounded by coconut groves? Are there small banana farmers, or are they all working for some banana multinational? I stopped at one point to photo women working in the paddy fields. They spotted me and waved cheerily - and posed, which was NOT what I had wanted.
Very few villages, but plenty of interesting posters beside the road, including one which said "Long live classical divine Tamil". We did pass two colleges of education, one of physical education and one for women, all institutional concrete blocks plonked down in the middle of nowhere (which reminded me so of my school in Nigeria). Not much fun for the students.
The temple, originally built in the ninth century by the Pallavas, but heavily restored this century, was a most extraordinary affair, quite unlike all the others.
I approached it down an extremely long - over half a km - covered walkway packed with pilgrims souvenirs, flowers for the temple, and a wide range of plastic toys, balloons and what looks like pink candy floss. This is pretty standard for the temples here, but what made it feel different was that the temple is right beside the sea. I felt half transported onto Brighton beach! Beside the temple, crowds of people were enjoying themselves on the beach and quite a few were jumping into the surf. And there were 'professional' photographers taking family photos.
The temple is dedicated to Murugan, Shiva's son, and is one of the holiest shrines to him in India. So the place is packed with pilgrims, but I get the feeling that a pilgrimage is also a family outing, as everywhere there were clearly families enjoying a day by the sea.
Inside were the familiar carved columns, many badly damaged by the sea and neglect, or covered with oil and garments. I enjoyed trying to take photos of blackened statues in a totally impossible dark light because all around were encouraging me, including a party of jolly, fat priests. As usual I spent a lot of time responding to requests for photos. But I rather hesitate to snap the more extraordinary scenes of prostrated figures in fervent prayer. I also decided not to pay to go into the inner shrine; I didnt feel up to another dose of garlands, white ash and tipping priests.
Lunch was in a rather dodgy looking hotel. I went upstairs, along a pink corridor with dark, windowless hotel rooms on either side, into an equally dark dining room. (Actually all the hotel dining rooms go in for bad lighting.) I was the only customer and was wathced by the usual cheery crowd of three or more waiters, none of whom spoke English. My vegetable pulao was very tasty, though I only ate a third. I have failed to get over the concept of a small portion, and I hate leaving food.
Then back to Tirunveli, where I am marking time (five hours!) before my evening train takes me on to Trivandrum, capital of Kerala.
Well I have successfully squandered some time getting money out of a cash machine (always a bizarre experience as the ATM machines are invariably in a guarded glass cubicle, with only one person allowed in at a time) watched by the assembled crowd outside), bought a new spiral notebook (for 30 rupees), have spent a couple of hours at the computer, and am about to return to the hotel where I left my bags for a looong cup of tea.
The rickshaw driver did turn up and I arrived at the station in good time and for once my train was to come on platform 1. I made my way to the "Upper Class Waiting Room" for what I thought was going to be a brief wait. Ho ho, the train was an hour late and meanwhile the mosquitoes were having a rare old time. Luckily a couple understood English and reassured me that I had the right train when it finally drew up, and what's more a young man actually helped carry my bags to an empty seat while we waited for the conductor to allocate berths. One of the benefits of being over 60 is that I am ensured a bottom berth and finally crawled into it just after 2am.
In no time at all it was unfortunately 5.30 am and we had arrived in Tirunveli. I climbed down (literally - Indian trains have two very steep steps which can be precarious with a heavy rucksack on your back) and followed the crowd down what must be the longest platform in India, over the bridge and once again into the melee that meets one outside a railway station.
I was the only European in sight and so a natural target. I was immediately accosted by a taxi driver and negotiated the price of 450 rupees (a fiver) to take me the 25 km trip to the temple at Thiruppadaimarudur (impossible to pronounce and my driver did not read, so had to show my piece of paper to the assembled crowd).
Temple at Thiruppadaimarudur
We set off in the dark and it was rather eerie driving along almost traffic free roads, although people were already up and busy opening stalls or standing around at tea stalls. The road was very rural: lots of potholes or total disappearance of tarmac, and very little traffic. I bounced up and down in the back of the Ambassador, which had seen better days; its suspension hardly existed and the diesel fumes were a bit off-putting.
When dawn came, it cast a lovely hazy light on the rice paddy fields, banana plantations and coconut groves. I really must try to get up early more often...
When we finally arrived at Thiruppadaimarudur it was little more than a single road leading up to the temple, which turned out to be a little gem. Perhaps my mood was influenced by the almost total absence of people. Apart from temple workers washing the floors and a couple of priests getting ready for the day, there was just a handful of worshippers, mainly old men, purposefully doing their circuits round the various shrines.
I'm getting accustomed to the dark inside Hindu temples (a total hindrance for photographers) and was soon peering happily at the carvings on the lovely Cholan columns.
I was looking for the way up to the east tower, where there are supposed to be some magnificent medieval carvings (only Rough Guide mentions this place) but nobody spoke even a smattering of English. One toothless gent tried to be helpful, but never quite grasped that my Tamil is non-existent.
Finally I found the rickety ladder up to the next level. Its balustrades were broken, but I took a deep breath and climbed it - only to discover there was yet another precarious one and perhaps even more. Given my vertigo and hips, I very sadly decided it was too risky to continue. In a sense this was a failed expedition, but I had enjoyed being back in rural India and had enjoyed wandering round the temple.
On the journey back the road was filling up with oxen carts, bicycles and the occasional bus or motor bike.
Tirunelveli
I had hoped to stop off at the only hotel given any rating at all in Rough Guide and hire a room for a few hours to recover from the night, but it was full. So after breakfast (I left half, I can't cope with the size of portions they give me), I hired another car to take me to the other temple, at Tiruchendur, 60 km to the south east. The return trip cost 740 rupees (8 quid) and was in Tata - a smaller car, but in good nick. Still, cash flows are evidently low for all - once again we stopped at a garage and I handed over half the money for fuel.
Tiruchendur
How I wish I could have an English speaking driver to answer my questions: why, for example, were the bananas grown in huge plantations, invariably surrounded by coconut groves? Are there small banana farmers, or are they all working for some banana multinational? I stopped at one point to photo women working in the paddy fields. They spotted me and waved cheerily - and posed, which was NOT what I had wanted.
Very few villages, but plenty of interesting posters beside the road, including one which said "Long live classical divine Tamil". We did pass two colleges of education, one of physical education and one for women, all institutional concrete blocks plonked down in the middle of nowhere (which reminded me so of my school in Nigeria). Not much fun for the students.
The temple, originally built in the ninth century by the Pallavas, but heavily restored this century, was a most extraordinary affair, quite unlike all the others.
I approached it down an extremely long - over half a km - covered walkway packed with pilgrims souvenirs, flowers for the temple, and a wide range of plastic toys, balloons and what looks like pink candy floss. This is pretty standard for the temples here, but what made it feel different was that the temple is right beside the sea. I felt half transported onto Brighton beach! Beside the temple, crowds of people were enjoying themselves on the beach and quite a few were jumping into the surf. And there were 'professional' photographers taking family photos.
The temple is dedicated to Murugan, Shiva's son, and is one of the holiest shrines to him in India. So the place is packed with pilgrims, but I get the feeling that a pilgrimage is also a family outing, as everywhere there were clearly families enjoying a day by the sea.
Inside were the familiar carved columns, many badly damaged by the sea and neglect, or covered with oil and garments. I enjoyed trying to take photos of blackened statues in a totally impossible dark light because all around were encouraging me, including a party of jolly, fat priests. As usual I spent a lot of time responding to requests for photos. But I rather hesitate to snap the more extraordinary scenes of prostrated figures in fervent prayer. I also decided not to pay to go into the inner shrine; I didnt feel up to another dose of garlands, white ash and tipping priests.
Lunch was in a rather dodgy looking hotel. I went upstairs, along a pink corridor with dark, windowless hotel rooms on either side, into an equally dark dining room. (Actually all the hotel dining rooms go in for bad lighting.) I was the only customer and was wathced by the usual cheery crowd of three or more waiters, none of whom spoke English. My vegetable pulao was very tasty, though I only ate a third. I have failed to get over the concept of a small portion, and I hate leaving food.
Then back to Tirunveli, where I am marking time (five hours!) before my evening train takes me on to Trivandrum, capital of Kerala.
Well I have successfully squandered some time getting money out of a cash machine (always a bizarre experience as the ATM machines are invariably in a guarded glass cubicle, with only one person allowed in at a time) watched by the assembled crowd outside), bought a new spiral notebook (for 30 rupees), have spent a couple of hours at the computer, and am about to return to the hotel where I left my bags for a looong cup of tea.
Thanks for messages
Heyho. Here we go again. Another silence caused by not being able to log on to the blog site. I switched to Google blogger site for this trip but it is proving a bit of a nightmare. I'm beginning to suspect it does not like computers running Windows98 and using an ancient browser.
Anyhow, before I continue, I just want to give a big thanks to Clare, Heleen, Margaret, Paul and Wenol - and of course Chris - for your encouraging remarks. It's good to feel there is an audience, almost like a conversation.
Anyhow, before I continue, I just want to give a big thanks to Clare, Heleen, Margaret, Paul and Wenol - and of course Chris - for your encouraging remarks. It's good to feel there is an audience, almost like a conversation.
Monday, 22 January 2007
Madurai - more temples and Gandhi museum
Another temple
Today's programme started with another temple: a much older, eighth century temple a few kilometres outside Madurai. Luckily I had an above average autorickshaw driver who didn't hoot all the time and only had a few hair-raising narrow misses. Pity he didnt have any mirrors... I somehow get the impression that the traffic in Madurai is even denser than Chennai and Pondicherry, if that is possible.
This temple was in a (relatively) quiet location and I was almost the only non-Indian in the crowd. The temple is literally carved out of the rockface of a huge granite hill. An elderly man who spoke some English attached himself to me as a guide. I allowed him to and it turned out to be a good decision. He led me past the rows of people doing the weekly counting of the takings from the temple collection boxes, up stairs pass a succession of shrines to the main shrine, high up in the rockface.
In theory this area is closed to non-Hindus, but on our way out, my guide instructed me to pay the guard 10 rupees, so this must be a regular 'arrangement'. Inside the shrine, the atmosphere was dark, hot and smelly (all the things put on statues and people). I was pushed forward to the priest, who proceeded to put a garland round my head and mark my forehead with the Siva rede and white markings (for which honour I was then expected to hand over more cash).
We passed the temple holy tree with a shrine to the six-headed god Murugan (who had two marriages, one arranged and one for love). There were various garments and objects left on the shrine and tree, left by women wanting to marry, have children or a long life. The best of the statues was one showing the vehicles of three gods: the mouse of Ganesh, the bull of Siva and the peacock of Durgan. As in Madurai, there were images of the planets, one for each day, with Jupiter being the most important. As Raj had said, the Indians knew about the planets long before the Europeans.
I came across some boys wearing yellow robes. My guide explained they were Brahmin boys learning sanskrit. They are admitted to the temple school between the ages of 10 and 20 and stay there for five years before becoming priests. I met the teacher, who spoke some English and was taken to see the groups of boys quietly studying. I wonder if it was like this in an RC seminary?
Gandhi Museum
My second expedition was to the Gandhi Museum, the other side of the city. The first part, in a series of well presented panels with text and photos, consists of a story of India's subjgation to British control. The text was written with passionate - and justified - indignation as it told the story of the brutal and cynical exploitation of India by British interests, primarily the East India Company, followed by only slightly less insensitive administration by the British Government, ending with the messy period when the British had to be dragged unwillingly to grant independence. It ends however, with a quote from Gandhi that we should hate British control of India, not the British.
The second part depicts the life of Gandhi, from his childhood as a shy boy in Gujerat, an indifferent law student in London, and an unhappy victim of racism as a young barrister in South Africa. It covered in some detail Gandhi's growing involvement in politics in South Africa and his key role in organising and rallying the Indian population there.
His return to India was more complex; as well as his championing of non-violent passive resistance and call for an end to the caste system, there was his growing ascetism. I wonder whether the very qualities which make him so revered in India also prevented him from being a totally effective politician. The tragedy of the failure to prevent partition is still with us. I think I really must learn more about this period of history when I get back.
The exhibition ended rather gruesomely with the relic of the loincloth Gandhi had been wearing when shot - appropriately as it was in Madurai that he first started to wear it.
Buying a railway ticket
I have decided on a rather rash project for tomorrow: a train journey to Tirunveli, where I hope to hire a car to see my final two temples of Tamil Nadu, before taking the evening train to Trivandrum, capital of Kerala. Rash, because the train leaves at 2.15am! That's why I'm having a quiet afternoon.
But first, I had to get my ticket. The first thing you have to do is filling in a reservation application form, including details like the number of the train. I was helped by a young woman in front of me, who turned out to be a third-generation Gujerati who lives in Leicester, but returns with her family to India each year. She and the woman in the ticket office were probably the only people there who spoke English. I am becoming increasingly aware of how little English is spoken. I wonder indeed if, like French in Pondicherry, it is on the decline as colonialism recedes into history.
I joined the queue in the ticket office at 12.26pm. For ages the queue didn't move. My one wish was to advance enough to join the lucky ones on the seats. When it was my turn, the whole operation was very smooth. The computer was working slowly (I had been told that Indian Rail is in the middle of upgrading its system) but it worked, and soon I had my printout. The whole journey in 2AC - the best class - is costing me 456 rupees (about a fiver), including my concession for being over 60. The two journeys will take about seven hours in all. Time is only relative...
I've booked a rickshaw, I just hope the driver turns up at 1.30 as arranged.
Today's programme started with another temple: a much older, eighth century temple a few kilometres outside Madurai. Luckily I had an above average autorickshaw driver who didn't hoot all the time and only had a few hair-raising narrow misses. Pity he didnt have any mirrors... I somehow get the impression that the traffic in Madurai is even denser than Chennai and Pondicherry, if that is possible.
This temple was in a (relatively) quiet location and I was almost the only non-Indian in the crowd. The temple is literally carved out of the rockface of a huge granite hill. An elderly man who spoke some English attached himself to me as a guide. I allowed him to and it turned out to be a good decision. He led me past the rows of people doing the weekly counting of the takings from the temple collection boxes, up stairs pass a succession of shrines to the main shrine, high up in the rockface.
In theory this area is closed to non-Hindus, but on our way out, my guide instructed me to pay the guard 10 rupees, so this must be a regular 'arrangement'. Inside the shrine, the atmosphere was dark, hot and smelly (all the things put on statues and people). I was pushed forward to the priest, who proceeded to put a garland round my head and mark my forehead with the Siva rede and white markings (for which honour I was then expected to hand over more cash).
We passed the temple holy tree with a shrine to the six-headed god Murugan (who had two marriages, one arranged and one for love). There were various garments and objects left on the shrine and tree, left by women wanting to marry, have children or a long life. The best of the statues was one showing the vehicles of three gods: the mouse of Ganesh, the bull of Siva and the peacock of Durgan. As in Madurai, there were images of the planets, one for each day, with Jupiter being the most important. As Raj had said, the Indians knew about the planets long before the Europeans.
I came across some boys wearing yellow robes. My guide explained they were Brahmin boys learning sanskrit. They are admitted to the temple school between the ages of 10 and 20 and stay there for five years before becoming priests. I met the teacher, who spoke some English and was taken to see the groups of boys quietly studying. I wonder if it was like this in an RC seminary?
Gandhi Museum
My second expedition was to the Gandhi Museum, the other side of the city. The first part, in a series of well presented panels with text and photos, consists of a story of India's subjgation to British control. The text was written with passionate - and justified - indignation as it told the story of the brutal and cynical exploitation of India by British interests, primarily the East India Company, followed by only slightly less insensitive administration by the British Government, ending with the messy period when the British had to be dragged unwillingly to grant independence. It ends however, with a quote from Gandhi that we should hate British control of India, not the British.
The second part depicts the life of Gandhi, from his childhood as a shy boy in Gujerat, an indifferent law student in London, and an unhappy victim of racism as a young barrister in South Africa. It covered in some detail Gandhi's growing involvement in politics in South Africa and his key role in organising and rallying the Indian population there.
His return to India was more complex; as well as his championing of non-violent passive resistance and call for an end to the caste system, there was his growing ascetism. I wonder whether the very qualities which make him so revered in India also prevented him from being a totally effective politician. The tragedy of the failure to prevent partition is still with us. I think I really must learn more about this period of history when I get back.
The exhibition ended rather gruesomely with the relic of the loincloth Gandhi had been wearing when shot - appropriately as it was in Madurai that he first started to wear it.
Buying a railway ticket
I have decided on a rather rash project for tomorrow: a train journey to Tirunveli, where I hope to hire a car to see my final two temples of Tamil Nadu, before taking the evening train to Trivandrum, capital of Kerala. Rash, because the train leaves at 2.15am! That's why I'm having a quiet afternoon.
But first, I had to get my ticket. The first thing you have to do is filling in a reservation application form, including details like the number of the train. I was helped by a young woman in front of me, who turned out to be a third-generation Gujerati who lives in Leicester, but returns with her family to India each year. She and the woman in the ticket office were probably the only people there who spoke English. I am becoming increasingly aware of how little English is spoken. I wonder indeed if, like French in Pondicherry, it is on the decline as colonialism recedes into history.
I joined the queue in the ticket office at 12.26pm. For ages the queue didn't move. My one wish was to advance enough to join the lucky ones on the seats. When it was my turn, the whole operation was very smooth. The computer was working slowly (I had been told that Indian Rail is in the middle of upgrading its system) but it worked, and soon I had my printout. The whole journey in 2AC - the best class - is costing me 456 rupees (about a fiver), including my concession for being over 60. The two journeys will take about seven hours in all. Time is only relative...
I've booked a rickshaw, I just hope the driver turns up at 1.30 as arranged.
Sunday, 21 January 2007
Madurai
The day did not start auspiciously. I was sitting down to a modest, cautious, continental breakfast, when I suddenly felt sick. I called hastily for my bill and rushed back to my room. Just in time. Sat feeling miserable for half and hour, and then decided that yesterday's supper was well and truly away (I blame that rash decision to have ice cream) and set off for my 9am meeting with Claire.
As usual I take a rickshaw, even though our hotels are only about a kilometre apart, partly to save my energies (in the case more than usually depleted) but partly because walking that distance in an Indian city can take a looong time. You are constantly weaving a dangerous route between broken drains on one side and loony traffic on the other, hassled by rickshaw men, people wanting to sell you something, and children asking for pens (I always refuse) and then to have their photos taken (which I often do). Madurai seems to be particularly hectic, even - especially - round the temple area.
Madurai has been a holy city for over 2000 years, and there are records of trading by the Greeks, Romans and CHinese since the fourth century BC. For over a thousand years, until the tenth century AD, it was the capital of the Pandyan empire and developed as a centre of Tamil culture. There followed a period when the Pandyans and Cholans fought for supremacy, with the Cholans eventually winning out.
Today the city is dominated by the awe-inspiring Sri Meenakshi-Sundareshwarar Temple, built mainly between the sixteenth century but with parts dating back to the 12th century. Outside there are more touts, beggars and people inviting you to see special dancing or views of the temple complex from their shop rooftop. We walk firmly past, find the official place (one beside each of the temple's five entrances) where we leave our shoes (in theory free, but Europeans are invariably asked to pay something), take a deep breath and with guidebooks in hand, enter this giant complex.
We realise within minutes that this is one occasion when it would be a good idea to have a guide and go back to an official guide who had already approached us. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Apart from the fact that he spoke good English, Raj turned out to be articulate, knowledgeable and informative. He was also a thoroughly entertaining character. A lot of what follows comes from his tour, and I'm writing it to remind myself of this visit, so apologies if it bores.
You simply cannot avoid having to understand something about Hindu religion in order to appreciate Hindu architecture. I'm beginning to get the hang of the principle characters in the vast cast of Hindu gods and godesses, though it doesnt help matters that they have several names and personae. A reminder that the three principle gods are Brahma, Siva (wife Parvati, sons Ganesh and Murugan) and Vishnu (wife Lakshmi).
Well, just when I thought I had got that straight, I have been confused by Raj's explanation that the temple is named after the godess Meenakshi (fish-eyed - which is regarded as a beautiful shape for eyes), noted for her beauty except she had a third breast which, according to prophesy, would disappear when she met her future husband. She defeated Siva in battle and on meeting him, the third breast disappeared and they were married in Madurai. So, I think Meenakshi is also Parvati. And this temple is therefore dedicated to Siva and Parvati, each having their own important temple within the huge, maze-like complex.
The first sight of the temple complex is over the top ice-cream 'accretions'. The focus for these is on the giant gopuras - the tall towers containing the entrances into the temple complex and to subsequent courtyards. At Madurai there are 12 gopuras in all and they are huge. The largest, on the east side, is 46 metres high. The base is made of solid granite, while the towers on top have hollow brick interiors covered in a higgledy piggledy, almost random crowd of figures - gods, their guards, and various significant animals, in a huge range of well-known (to Hindus) fables.
Raj explained that the temple is now owned by the state government, which is responsible for its upkeep and administration (rather like the partnership between church and state in France) and they decided in the 1980s to restore and paint the gopuras, and they are now on a ten-year repainting programme (the last time this cost 23m rupees). Indians like their gods to be coloured, said Raj, but the government also knows that most foreigners like them plain, so - to please all, many of the statues within this (and other government owned temples) remain unpainted.
At this point we passed the temple elephant. Elephants are a symbol of royalty and importance, and hence it is appropriate that the gods are treated as royalty. At first I had thought that people were feeding the elephants, but Raj explained that people were offering money, which the elephant took in his trunk, and tapped the donor on the head in gratitude. We saw camels too and Raj said that this was to signify that Siva was a protector of animals.
We passed through a dark but hectic shopping arcade, selling mostly temple artefacts. Bizarre to see these stalls perched in front of ancient Cholan columns, many covered in garlands and blackened with frequent doses of camphor oil. Raj explained that a temple is as much a social centre as a place for praying and the Hindus see nothing incongruous in shopping and indeed eating within a temple complex.
We saw a group of women sitting round a chanting priest. This was the Hindu equivalent of a funeral, Raj said; the priest was praying for the dead person. The length of his prayer depended on whether you have paid the 35 or 20 rupee tariff!
This was when we began to have an inkling of Raj's politics. The prayers are said in Sanskrit, he said, which nobody but the priests understand, and the priests work on a shift system 'like a factory'. You notice, he added, that many of them are fat - only the rich are fat in India. This temple complex collects4m rupees amonth in its collection boxes and this goes towards paying all the people working in the temple as well as associated tasks like running schools. The government is trying to get the temples to have non-Brahmin priests, but is not having any success, at least not in Madurai.
There are Ganesh shrines all over the place - he is a much loved god. We stopped in front of the largest and most impressive (although I still cannot get over the practice of modestly covering Ganesh in a skirt) and watched people praying. The camphor candles are lit, because light is sacred (sounds familiar?). But instead of crossing themselves, worshippers pray, they may prostrate themselves on the ground, walk several times clockwise round the statue, and then bang their knuckles on their head, a humbling gesture, to signify there ignorance in the presence of a wiser god.
Praying is predominantly an individual act, hence people praying all over the place, though on occasions worshippers are responding to the prayers chanted by a priest.
Then we came to a huge tank. Outside the temples these have a second value, as water stores. Within the temple they are an essential part of the ritual: worshippers purify themselves by washing in the water before going to pray - except that here the water is so stagnant that they only do a token wash. I'm afraid the tank has seen better days, though the gold-leafed lotus in the middle is impressive, and from one point you can also see the two gold-leafed towers of Visa's and Parvati's temples. On the walls of the passageway round the tank are stone panels engraved with ancient tamil scripts - the equivalent of the psalms.
We constantly see worshippers dipping their finger into bowls of white and red powder and marking their foreheads. The white ash is in fact made of cow shit, said Raj, and is a reminder of mortality, while the red is a symbol of the body, of life. Life-death, the very Indian love of complementing opposites. This is also why we see so many places in temples painted with red and white stripes.
There are apparently over 30,000 sculptures in this complex, and one does tend to feel somewhat punch drunk looking at them, particularly as so many are difficult to see, given the dark columned interior of temples and the tendency to cover revered statues in oil. But Claire and I are particularly fond of the strange horse-like statues we have seen here and at other places like Trichy. Raj explained that they are mythical creatures - "yalis" which are made up of six animals, including the head of a lion, the body of a horse, the trunk of an elephant and the tail of a cow.
Outside the two main shrines, entry forbidden to non Hindus, were some more extraordinarily good statues, in particular one of Siva and Parvati getting married, with Vishnu blessing them. Raj pointed out Parvati is looking down, in pleasure but modestly, while Siva is looking ahead with pride. (Lets hope my photo works.)
This was a very busy place as a large group of people were sitting on the ground engaged in a communal chant in front of another shrine. There was no priest present this time, the chant seemed to be led by a succession of the participants, including women, reading from what was presumably a book of Tamil rather than Sanskrit verses.
Raj said that every morning rice was handed out in front of the Ganesh statue, ostensibly to the poor, but others took advantage of this. He's good on figures: India has 1.2 billion people and 70% live in villages. He comes from a village, his parents were primary school teachers, he was the ablest of the children and so sent to a Jesuit college, which is where he learnt such good English and a critical view of all religions, and then university. He did indeed know the Marxist quote "Religion is the opium of the masses". But at the same time, he said, where would all these poor people be without the comfort of religion?
We then passed on to India's problems and his view that the main one is overpopulation. There must be birth control and the solution must come through education.
He was considered a rebel in his family, a socialist, who refused to carry on the family tradition as a teacher and marry until he was 40 (he is now 44) and then insisted on looking for a wife himself. His wife is five years younger than him and they both agreed before marrying that they didn't want children. But this is unheard of in Indian families -Hindu or Christian - so they have not told anyone of their decision and the families continue to be concerned at his wife's barren state.
An excellent guide and I said I would publicise his cellphone number on my website - only I've lost his card. Will add this when I get it from Claire.
Talking of cellphones or mobiles: these are VERY popular in India, leading to some incongruous sights of men wearing traditional clothes, their ear pressed to a mobile. In this internet cafe I'm beginning to tire of the tunes of the mobiles on either side of me. As Amartya Sen said at the start of 'The argumentative Indian': "Indians like to talk".
Our visit concluded with Claire and me losing each other, compounded by my inability to grasp the layout of the whole complex, so I walked round three sides of the outer wall before finding the exit where we had left my shoes. So we each spent half an hour going round in circles and were ready to collapse. So time to go back to my hotel for a delicious lunch - or rather lunch for Claire (I risked a cup of tea). The waiters clearly like her enthusiasm for the Indian half of the menu. Claire went on for a late afternoon's sightseeing, while I concentrated on recovering. I did this rather well, as I too tucked into another good meal in the evening. We shared a table with an elderly Parisian couple travelling round Tamil Nadu with their own driver, a guide in each town and staying in more upmarket hotels than ours. A different experience :-)
In the evening Claire and I returned to the temple to witness the evening ceremony of the images of the Siva and Parvati being removed from their shrines and taken to their bedchamber. It was supposed to happen at 9pm and indeed we did see some sort of movement of images, but we don't reckon this was the real thing, as there was no accompanying ringing of bells and drums. We were getting eaten by mosquitoes and increasingly anxious that the shoe place would close down (I have come to India with just the one pair of sandals!) so decided to call it a day. Ours were indeed the last shoes left.
So, the last rickshaw drive together. In the morning Claire sets off to walk in the hills, while I continue further south. Meeting her has made travelling round Tamil Nadu a very pleasurable experience. She is half my age but we were on the same wavelength all the time (she was tolerant of my more limited physical capacities), with similar reactions to what we were seeing. She is going to be jobhunting when she gets to the UK in late spring and I will be passing her CV to friends and relatives - she is the sort of person I would have loved to have had in my team at the University.
As usual I take a rickshaw, even though our hotels are only about a kilometre apart, partly to save my energies (in the case more than usually depleted) but partly because walking that distance in an Indian city can take a looong time. You are constantly weaving a dangerous route between broken drains on one side and loony traffic on the other, hassled by rickshaw men, people wanting to sell you something, and children asking for pens (I always refuse) and then to have their photos taken (which I often do). Madurai seems to be particularly hectic, even - especially - round the temple area.
Madurai has been a holy city for over 2000 years, and there are records of trading by the Greeks, Romans and CHinese since the fourth century BC. For over a thousand years, until the tenth century AD, it was the capital of the Pandyan empire and developed as a centre of Tamil culture. There followed a period when the Pandyans and Cholans fought for supremacy, with the Cholans eventually winning out.
Today the city is dominated by the awe-inspiring Sri Meenakshi-Sundareshwarar Temple, built mainly between the sixteenth century but with parts dating back to the 12th century. Outside there are more touts, beggars and people inviting you to see special dancing or views of the temple complex from their shop rooftop. We walk firmly past, find the official place (one beside each of the temple's five entrances) where we leave our shoes (in theory free, but Europeans are invariably asked to pay something), take a deep breath and with guidebooks in hand, enter this giant complex.
We realise within minutes that this is one occasion when it would be a good idea to have a guide and go back to an official guide who had already approached us. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Apart from the fact that he spoke good English, Raj turned out to be articulate, knowledgeable and informative. He was also a thoroughly entertaining character. A lot of what follows comes from his tour, and I'm writing it to remind myself of this visit, so apologies if it bores.
You simply cannot avoid having to understand something about Hindu religion in order to appreciate Hindu architecture. I'm beginning to get the hang of the principle characters in the vast cast of Hindu gods and godesses, though it doesnt help matters that they have several names and personae. A reminder that the three principle gods are Brahma, Siva (wife Parvati, sons Ganesh and Murugan) and Vishnu (wife Lakshmi).
Well, just when I thought I had got that straight, I have been confused by Raj's explanation that the temple is named after the godess Meenakshi (fish-eyed - which is regarded as a beautiful shape for eyes), noted for her beauty except she had a third breast which, according to prophesy, would disappear when she met her future husband. She defeated Siva in battle and on meeting him, the third breast disappeared and they were married in Madurai. So, I think Meenakshi is also Parvati. And this temple is therefore dedicated to Siva and Parvati, each having their own important temple within the huge, maze-like complex.
The first sight of the temple complex is over the top ice-cream 'accretions'. The focus for these is on the giant gopuras - the tall towers containing the entrances into the temple complex and to subsequent courtyards. At Madurai there are 12 gopuras in all and they are huge. The largest, on the east side, is 46 metres high. The base is made of solid granite, while the towers on top have hollow brick interiors covered in a higgledy piggledy, almost random crowd of figures - gods, their guards, and various significant animals, in a huge range of well-known (to Hindus) fables.
Raj explained that the temple is now owned by the state government, which is responsible for its upkeep and administration (rather like the partnership between church and state in France) and they decided in the 1980s to restore and paint the gopuras, and they are now on a ten-year repainting programme (the last time this cost 23m rupees). Indians like their gods to be coloured, said Raj, but the government also knows that most foreigners like them plain, so - to please all, many of the statues within this (and other government owned temples) remain unpainted.
At this point we passed the temple elephant. Elephants are a symbol of royalty and importance, and hence it is appropriate that the gods are treated as royalty. At first I had thought that people were feeding the elephants, but Raj explained that people were offering money, which the elephant took in his trunk, and tapped the donor on the head in gratitude. We saw camels too and Raj said that this was to signify that Siva was a protector of animals.
We passed through a dark but hectic shopping arcade, selling mostly temple artefacts. Bizarre to see these stalls perched in front of ancient Cholan columns, many covered in garlands and blackened with frequent doses of camphor oil. Raj explained that a temple is as much a social centre as a place for praying and the Hindus see nothing incongruous in shopping and indeed eating within a temple complex.
We saw a group of women sitting round a chanting priest. This was the Hindu equivalent of a funeral, Raj said; the priest was praying for the dead person. The length of his prayer depended on whether you have paid the 35 or 20 rupee tariff!
This was when we began to have an inkling of Raj's politics. The prayers are said in Sanskrit, he said, which nobody but the priests understand, and the priests work on a shift system 'like a factory'. You notice, he added, that many of them are fat - only the rich are fat in India. This temple complex collects4m rupees amonth in its collection boxes and this goes towards paying all the people working in the temple as well as associated tasks like running schools. The government is trying to get the temples to have non-Brahmin priests, but is not having any success, at least not in Madurai.
There are Ganesh shrines all over the place - he is a much loved god. We stopped in front of the largest and most impressive (although I still cannot get over the practice of modestly covering Ganesh in a skirt) and watched people praying. The camphor candles are lit, because light is sacred (sounds familiar?). But instead of crossing themselves, worshippers pray, they may prostrate themselves on the ground, walk several times clockwise round the statue, and then bang their knuckles on their head, a humbling gesture, to signify there ignorance in the presence of a wiser god.
Praying is predominantly an individual act, hence people praying all over the place, though on occasions worshippers are responding to the prayers chanted by a priest.
Then we came to a huge tank. Outside the temples these have a second value, as water stores. Within the temple they are an essential part of the ritual: worshippers purify themselves by washing in the water before going to pray - except that here the water is so stagnant that they only do a token wash. I'm afraid the tank has seen better days, though the gold-leafed lotus in the middle is impressive, and from one point you can also see the two gold-leafed towers of Visa's and Parvati's temples. On the walls of the passageway round the tank are stone panels engraved with ancient tamil scripts - the equivalent of the psalms.
We constantly see worshippers dipping their finger into bowls of white and red powder and marking their foreheads. The white ash is in fact made of cow shit, said Raj, and is a reminder of mortality, while the red is a symbol of the body, of life. Life-death, the very Indian love of complementing opposites. This is also why we see so many places in temples painted with red and white stripes.
There are apparently over 30,000 sculptures in this complex, and one does tend to feel somewhat punch drunk looking at them, particularly as so many are difficult to see, given the dark columned interior of temples and the tendency to cover revered statues in oil. But Claire and I are particularly fond of the strange horse-like statues we have seen here and at other places like Trichy. Raj explained that they are mythical creatures - "yalis" which are made up of six animals, including the head of a lion, the body of a horse, the trunk of an elephant and the tail of a cow.
Outside the two main shrines, entry forbidden to non Hindus, were some more extraordinarily good statues, in particular one of Siva and Parvati getting married, with Vishnu blessing them. Raj pointed out Parvati is looking down, in pleasure but modestly, while Siva is looking ahead with pride. (Lets hope my photo works.)
This was a very busy place as a large group of people were sitting on the ground engaged in a communal chant in front of another shrine. There was no priest present this time, the chant seemed to be led by a succession of the participants, including women, reading from what was presumably a book of Tamil rather than Sanskrit verses.
Raj said that every morning rice was handed out in front of the Ganesh statue, ostensibly to the poor, but others took advantage of this. He's good on figures: India has 1.2 billion people and 70% live in villages. He comes from a village, his parents were primary school teachers, he was the ablest of the children and so sent to a Jesuit college, which is where he learnt such good English and a critical view of all religions, and then university. He did indeed know the Marxist quote "Religion is the opium of the masses". But at the same time, he said, where would all these poor people be without the comfort of religion?
We then passed on to India's problems and his view that the main one is overpopulation. There must be birth control and the solution must come through education.
He was considered a rebel in his family, a socialist, who refused to carry on the family tradition as a teacher and marry until he was 40 (he is now 44) and then insisted on looking for a wife himself. His wife is five years younger than him and they both agreed before marrying that they didn't want children. But this is unheard of in Indian families -Hindu or Christian - so they have not told anyone of their decision and the families continue to be concerned at his wife's barren state.
An excellent guide and I said I would publicise his cellphone number on my website - only I've lost his card. Will add this when I get it from Claire.
Talking of cellphones or mobiles: these are VERY popular in India, leading to some incongruous sights of men wearing traditional clothes, their ear pressed to a mobile. In this internet cafe I'm beginning to tire of the tunes of the mobiles on either side of me. As Amartya Sen said at the start of 'The argumentative Indian': "Indians like to talk".
Our visit concluded with Claire and me losing each other, compounded by my inability to grasp the layout of the whole complex, so I walked round three sides of the outer wall before finding the exit where we had left my shoes. So we each spent half an hour going round in circles and were ready to collapse. So time to go back to my hotel for a delicious lunch - or rather lunch for Claire (I risked a cup of tea). The waiters clearly like her enthusiasm for the Indian half of the menu. Claire went on for a late afternoon's sightseeing, while I concentrated on recovering. I did this rather well, as I too tucked into another good meal in the evening. We shared a table with an elderly Parisian couple travelling round Tamil Nadu with their own driver, a guide in each town and staying in more upmarket hotels than ours. A different experience :-)
In the evening Claire and I returned to the temple to witness the evening ceremony of the images of the Siva and Parvati being removed from their shrines and taken to their bedchamber. It was supposed to happen at 9pm and indeed we did see some sort of movement of images, but we don't reckon this was the real thing, as there was no accompanying ringing of bells and drums. We were getting eaten by mosquitoes and increasingly anxious that the shoe place would close down (I have come to India with just the one pair of sandals!) so decided to call it a day. Ours were indeed the last shoes left.
So, the last rickshaw drive together. In the morning Claire sets off to walk in the hills, while I continue further south. Meeting her has made travelling round Tamil Nadu a very pleasurable experience. She is half my age but we were on the same wavelength all the time (she was tolerant of my more limited physical capacities), with similar reactions to what we were seeing. She is going to be jobhunting when she gets to the UK in late spring and I will be passing her CV to friends and relatives - she is the sort of person I would have loved to have had in my team at the University.
Saturday, 20 January 2007
Train to Madurai
The night before I met a French couple who had just got off the train after a 16-hour trip from Mangalore. They had not been able to reserve but said if you get on, the ticket inspector usually finds a space for you. So I decided to risk this, while Claire continued with the bus trip, to save money and to get to Madurai in time for some initial sightseeing.
Neither of us had a smooth journey. Her bus was held up when the driver knocked over a cyclist (not serious) and all the men on the bus got out to discuss the event. She said the trip was a bit of a nightmare as the woman next to her took up most of the space, so she was squeezed against the open window. Now one understands why there are so many people leaning out of the windows in Indian buses. Also there is no room in these buses for rucksacks, so I was more than relieved I had not accompanied her with my TWO bags.
The train was not due till 12.45, but to be safe I got to the station at 11, just in case... Amazingly and unlike the day before, there was no queue at the ticket office and I bought an ordinary ticket to Madurai. costing 50 rupees (about 60p) for a journey of over 100 lm. No wonder the trains are so crowded.
Anyhow, I decided to instal myself on Platform 4, as directed, and do some people watching. The platform was already crowded nearly two hours before the train was due. Several family groups were seated in circles on the ground, eating a hearty meal. I've noticed a distinct enthusiasm for eating in public and everywhere there are men passing with trays of goodies. I joined in with a bag of bombay mix, which I reckoned would be safe.
I enjoyed watching the other trains passing through the station; Indian engines are great, romantic monsters. The most impressive of all was a goods train, which took over 15 minutes to haul its 45 giant wagons through the station.
Then the fun started. An announcement that our train would arrive at 12 noon - 15 minutes late. Then 12.10, then 12.25, 12.45... ... Then a different announcement and enough people spoke English to advise me to join the rush towards the steps: our train would be coming on Platform 3. Not so easy when you have to get one of these huge backpacks onto your back.
A little after 2pm there was another announcement: the train would shortly be arriving on platform 1! As I struggled again down the steps and along the subway, a kindly elderly Indian, struggling more than I was, said to me : "I apologise on behalf of Indian Railways".
L'm getting wise to the system now: you have to find out if possible where the AC compartments are likely to stop on the platform and work your way that end of the very long platforms before the train arrives. As an old hand I helped a young Dutch girl, still shell shocked after only a week in India, find the right compartment. Luckily the inspector was on the platform, perusing his huge printouts of seat reservations. He indicated to get in and he would find seats for us. I try to go for 2AC when travelling at night: the 2 refers to two tiers of bunks and the AC of course air conditioned. This is how most middle class Indians travel. In the daytime 3AC (three tiers) is OK because everyone is sitting on the bottom bunks, and this is where we were now.
There is something very pleasant about the way an Indian train ambles through the countryside. We passed through fields of rice, bananas, sugar, and coconut trees - plus lots of other things I couldnt recognise. How nice it would be to have someone to answer ones questions all the time. The scenery was more rural than when I travelled by road: there were obviously villages all the time, but not that endless roadside struggle of huts and stalls.
Men passed regularly down the train with enticing trays of things that looked like pakooras, chai, ice cream, and coffee. We resisted all these but I began to feel hungry.
At last we were in Madurai - only two hours late - and with great relief I took a rickshaw to Hotel Supreme. This was not as grand as the ones I had in Thanjavur and Trichy, but still catering for the same market, predominantly Indian businessmen, with a small sideline in tourists.
First impressions of my room were not good: it smelt strongly of cigarette smoke. Ugh! I made a comment which I think was registered as the next day it smelt of some scented spray. I was on the fifth floor but any eager expectations of a view on the temples was dashed: I was at the back, facing a blank wall. I have come to the conclusion that this is where you get sent if you ask for single non-AC. Still, cant complain at just under 500 rupees (about 5.60 pounds). And the bathroom was clean and the plumbing works.
Claire, who was as usual in a cheaper hotel, joined me for supper on the rooftop restaurant of my hotel, which is noted for its view towards the temples. Yes the towers of the temple are there, and were impressive, as was the panorama of a bustling city. Madurai is the second largest city in Tamil Nadu, with a population of 1.2 million people.
I have felt queasy and not hungry for a lot of my time so far and sadly not been able to sample as much South Indian food as I would like. Now at last I felt hungry and we tucked into a delicious meal: my old favourite from Edinburgh - a Navratan Kurma - and a hotter mushroom masala. I'm enjoying sampling the different types of bread too. We decided to take a risk and follow this with icecream, given the quality of the food.
I have to say the service was not up to the same standard as the food. We are beginning to learn that in these large business hotels there are staff all over the place, but each person seems to have a specific role. If you happen to ask the wrong person for a bottle of water, he nods, and later you discover does nothing. You have to suss out which is the one who takes the orders; others are there to bring the dishes, lay the table, bring you the bill etc etc (not to mention the people opening doors, pressing buttons in lifts and generally standing around to say good evening).
I finished with a cup of tea - yes, my habits are quite different here. I'm not too keen on the coffee one gets. I got into the habit of drinking chai (tea with milk and sugar) in North India. Here you have a choice of "black tea" or "milk tea". But I reckon it is safe to drink tea anywhere.
Otherwise we rely a lot on bottles of water which are sold everywhere for about 13 rupees - oh those mountains of plastic.
By the time we left we were surrounded by large Indian family groups. This is clearly a popular place for a Saturday night out.
More newspaper snippets
These come from the time when I lost a lot of text - so I may be repeating myself.
- during the Pongal festivities, in one town a bull charged the crowd, killing one man and injuring more than 20 others. In another town, a man released his neighbour's bull, causing a fight with clubs and sickles between the two families, the man was killed and his aggressors are in prison.
- a preservation society is pressing for plastic bags to be banned in the temples and the tanks to be cleaned. It is also concerned by a decline in the bird population and calls 'to preserve nature to nurture birds'.
- there is a national plan for ID cards, as much for the organisation of benefits as for security reasons
- Bangalore has got wimax (why not the Ceevennes??)
- the different states seem to be all preparing IT strategies and appear to some extent to be in competition with each other. One of the issues is the lower rate of tax levied as an incentive to software initiatives; another is the role and rights of trade unions.
Neither of us had a smooth journey. Her bus was held up when the driver knocked over a cyclist (not serious) and all the men on the bus got out to discuss the event. She said the trip was a bit of a nightmare as the woman next to her took up most of the space, so she was squeezed against the open window. Now one understands why there are so many people leaning out of the windows in Indian buses. Also there is no room in these buses for rucksacks, so I was more than relieved I had not accompanied her with my TWO bags.
The train was not due till 12.45, but to be safe I got to the station at 11, just in case... Amazingly and unlike the day before, there was no queue at the ticket office and I bought an ordinary ticket to Madurai. costing 50 rupees (about 60p) for a journey of over 100 lm. No wonder the trains are so crowded.
Anyhow, I decided to instal myself on Platform 4, as directed, and do some people watching. The platform was already crowded nearly two hours before the train was due. Several family groups were seated in circles on the ground, eating a hearty meal. I've noticed a distinct enthusiasm for eating in public and everywhere there are men passing with trays of goodies. I joined in with a bag of bombay mix, which I reckoned would be safe.
I enjoyed watching the other trains passing through the station; Indian engines are great, romantic monsters. The most impressive of all was a goods train, which took over 15 minutes to haul its 45 giant wagons through the station.
Then the fun started. An announcement that our train would arrive at 12 noon - 15 minutes late. Then 12.10, then 12.25, 12.45... ... Then a different announcement and enough people spoke English to advise me to join the rush towards the steps: our train would be coming on Platform 3. Not so easy when you have to get one of these huge backpacks onto your back.
A little after 2pm there was another announcement: the train would shortly be arriving on platform 1! As I struggled again down the steps and along the subway, a kindly elderly Indian, struggling more than I was, said to me : "I apologise on behalf of Indian Railways".
L'm getting wise to the system now: you have to find out if possible where the AC compartments are likely to stop on the platform and work your way that end of the very long platforms before the train arrives. As an old hand I helped a young Dutch girl, still shell shocked after only a week in India, find the right compartment. Luckily the inspector was on the platform, perusing his huge printouts of seat reservations. He indicated to get in and he would find seats for us. I try to go for 2AC when travelling at night: the 2 refers to two tiers of bunks and the AC of course air conditioned. This is how most middle class Indians travel. In the daytime 3AC (three tiers) is OK because everyone is sitting on the bottom bunks, and this is where we were now.
There is something very pleasant about the way an Indian train ambles through the countryside. We passed through fields of rice, bananas, sugar, and coconut trees - plus lots of other things I couldnt recognise. How nice it would be to have someone to answer ones questions all the time. The scenery was more rural than when I travelled by road: there were obviously villages all the time, but not that endless roadside struggle of huts and stalls.
Men passed regularly down the train with enticing trays of things that looked like pakooras, chai, ice cream, and coffee. We resisted all these but I began to feel hungry.
At last we were in Madurai - only two hours late - and with great relief I took a rickshaw to Hotel Supreme. This was not as grand as the ones I had in Thanjavur and Trichy, but still catering for the same market, predominantly Indian businessmen, with a small sideline in tourists.
First impressions of my room were not good: it smelt strongly of cigarette smoke. Ugh! I made a comment which I think was registered as the next day it smelt of some scented spray. I was on the fifth floor but any eager expectations of a view on the temples was dashed: I was at the back, facing a blank wall. I have come to the conclusion that this is where you get sent if you ask for single non-AC. Still, cant complain at just under 500 rupees (about 5.60 pounds). And the bathroom was clean and the plumbing works.
Claire, who was as usual in a cheaper hotel, joined me for supper on the rooftop restaurant of my hotel, which is noted for its view towards the temples. Yes the towers of the temple are there, and were impressive, as was the panorama of a bustling city. Madurai is the second largest city in Tamil Nadu, with a population of 1.2 million people.
I have felt queasy and not hungry for a lot of my time so far and sadly not been able to sample as much South Indian food as I would like. Now at last I felt hungry and we tucked into a delicious meal: my old favourite from Edinburgh - a Navratan Kurma - and a hotter mushroom masala. I'm enjoying sampling the different types of bread too. We decided to take a risk and follow this with icecream, given the quality of the food.
I have to say the service was not up to the same standard as the food. We are beginning to learn that in these large business hotels there are staff all over the place, but each person seems to have a specific role. If you happen to ask the wrong person for a bottle of water, he nods, and later you discover does nothing. You have to suss out which is the one who takes the orders; others are there to bring the dishes, lay the table, bring you the bill etc etc (not to mention the people opening doors, pressing buttons in lifts and generally standing around to say good evening).
I finished with a cup of tea - yes, my habits are quite different here. I'm not too keen on the coffee one gets. I got into the habit of drinking chai (tea with milk and sugar) in North India. Here you have a choice of "black tea" or "milk tea". But I reckon it is safe to drink tea anywhere.
Otherwise we rely a lot on bottles of water which are sold everywhere for about 13 rupees - oh those mountains of plastic.
By the time we left we were surrounded by large Indian family groups. This is clearly a popular place for a Saturday night out.
More newspaper snippets
These come from the time when I lost a lot of text - so I may be repeating myself.
- during the Pongal festivities, in one town a bull charged the crowd, killing one man and injuring more than 20 others. In another town, a man released his neighbour's bull, causing a fight with clubs and sickles between the two families, the man was killed and his aggressors are in prison.
- a preservation society is pressing for plastic bags to be banned in the temples and the tanks to be cleaned. It is also concerned by a decline in the bird population and calls 'to preserve nature to nurture birds'.
- there is a national plan for ID cards, as much for the organisation of benefits as for security reasons
- Bangalore has got wimax (why not the Ceevennes??)
- the different states seem to be all preparing IT strategies and appear to some extent to be in competition with each other. One of the issues is the lower rate of tax levied as an incentive to software initiatives; another is the role and rights of trade unions.
Friday, 19 January 2007
Trichy - temples
I felt we had to have a break yesterday, rather than risk temple-itis! This morning we felt strong enough to tackle the Ranganathaswamy Temple, in Srirangam, about six km out of Trichy. In case you think that when in Tamil Nadu these lengthy names roll easily off the tongue, they don't. And you may also have noticed that I refer to Trichy (which I can remember) rather than its other name, Tiruchirapali.
Anyhow, this temple complex is another huge one, built over several centuries starting in the fifth, but principally the 14th. As we walked through the crowded streets we could see the now familiar sight of gopuras, the high entrance gates, covered on what Claire and I now enjoy calling "Disneyland accretions" or just "accretions".
In this case there are rather a lot of gopuras, as the complex consists of seven courtyards, one within another, each one containing several temples and other buildings such as mandapas - the open halls filled with columns. The first three layers were essentially a town within the temple walls, bustling with life, as usual, and very much geared towards pilgrims, with stalls selling food and religious artefacts, and what we think were signs for cheap lodgings.
We knew we had arrived at the temple proper when we saw a sign, in English too, telling us to leave our shoes in a little booth covered in pigeonholes with shoes. At first when we did this we were a bit anxious we would not be reunited with our shows, but we now have more confidence in the complex systems of storing, plus the feel of honesty here. Just as well, as I have come to India with just the one pair of sandals (which are large, ugly and extremely comfortable - another good buy from Blacks Camping).
As we entered the next courtyard we came across an extraordinary sight: the centre of the entrance hall was filled with rows of men counting huge trays of money, presumably the collections from all the temples, as priests seemed to be surveying the scene. Then a new box of money arrived and was put into a giant sieve, held by several men. They rattled it vigorously for several minutes until all the coins had fallen through, leaving just the notes. During our walk through the temples we heard a louder mechanical noise and on our way out we saw that there was also a larger mechanical machine which rattled huge amounts of coins on a tray with several layers of holes of different sizes, sorting the different sized coins into different containers. The mind boggles at how many single rupees are collected in a day.
Most of the temples are not open to non Hindus, but we were able to wander through several, with yet more examples of the square-based Chola columns covered with carvings. Some of these appear to be late CHola, about the 14th century; the carving is more sophisticated, though very worn, and I noticed that some of the columns were round, or rather multi-facetted polygons.
The innermost temple, in the seventh courtyard is the most holy, and closed to non-Hindus. It used to be closed also to lower caste Hindus. One of the signs outside said in English "No entry for lunghis" (the long, wrap-around garments for men). Since we watched men wearing lunghis go inside, I assume that there was no equivalent sign in Tamil. Unlike most of the temples we have seen so far, this one is dedicated to Vishnu, not Shiva.
I've noticed that this entry has not registered my final remarks, that Claire
and I had spent an 'interesting' time at the railway station, being shunted
between the reservations and ticket offices, only to discover that all trains to
Madurai are full for the next two days. Our last decision of the day was to take
a three-hour bus trip in the morning. Gulp.
Anyhow, this temple complex is another huge one, built over several centuries starting in the fifth, but principally the 14th. As we walked through the crowded streets we could see the now familiar sight of gopuras, the high entrance gates, covered on what Claire and I now enjoy calling "Disneyland accretions" or just "accretions".
In this case there are rather a lot of gopuras, as the complex consists of seven courtyards, one within another, each one containing several temples and other buildings such as mandapas - the open halls filled with columns. The first three layers were essentially a town within the temple walls, bustling with life, as usual, and very much geared towards pilgrims, with stalls selling food and religious artefacts, and what we think were signs for cheap lodgings.
We knew we had arrived at the temple proper when we saw a sign, in English too, telling us to leave our shoes in a little booth covered in pigeonholes with shoes. At first when we did this we were a bit anxious we would not be reunited with our shows, but we now have more confidence in the complex systems of storing, plus the feel of honesty here. Just as well, as I have come to India with just the one pair of sandals (which are large, ugly and extremely comfortable - another good buy from Blacks Camping).
As we entered the next courtyard we came across an extraordinary sight: the centre of the entrance hall was filled with rows of men counting huge trays of money, presumably the collections from all the temples, as priests seemed to be surveying the scene. Then a new box of money arrived and was put into a giant sieve, held by several men. They rattled it vigorously for several minutes until all the coins had fallen through, leaving just the notes. During our walk through the temples we heard a louder mechanical noise and on our way out we saw that there was also a larger mechanical machine which rattled huge amounts of coins on a tray with several layers of holes of different sizes, sorting the different sized coins into different containers. The mind boggles at how many single rupees are collected in a day.
Most of the temples are not open to non Hindus, but we were able to wander through several, with yet more examples of the square-based Chola columns covered with carvings. Some of these appear to be late CHola, about the 14th century; the carving is more sophisticated, though very worn, and I noticed that some of the columns were round, or rather multi-facetted polygons.
The innermost temple, in the seventh courtyard is the most holy, and closed to non-Hindus. It used to be closed also to lower caste Hindus. One of the signs outside said in English "No entry for lunghis" (the long, wrap-around garments for men). Since we watched men wearing lunghis go inside, I assume that there was no equivalent sign in Tamil. Unlike most of the temples we have seen so far, this one is dedicated to Vishnu, not Shiva.
I've noticed that this entry has not registered my final remarks, that Claire
and I had spent an 'interesting' time at the railway station, being shunted
between the reservations and ticket offices, only to discover that all trains to
Madurai are full for the next two days. Our last decision of the day was to take
a three-hour bus trip in the morning. Gulp.
Thursday, 18 January 2007
Trichy
First as usual, a word on my hotel. Tourism in India is hard work for the individual traveller and so hotels play a large part, ideally as havens of peace and rest between the different expeditions. I know from last time friends asked for recommendations, so it is useful for me to mention the hotel as an aide memoire.
The Hotel Femina was recommended in Rough Guide (which I am beginning to rely on rather than Lonely Planet) and apart from its attractive name, has turned out to be an excellent choice. I find that most hotels I am using are frequented more by Indian middle classes than backpackers. This one has a tremendously plush public area - acres marble floor and gaudy gold chandeliers etc and TWO lifts.
My room, a single non-AC is at the far end of a corridor, opposite the service lift, so a bit noisy. But impeccably clean, with armchair, telly, a table to write on and a comfy bed, the essential fan (not AC which I dont like anyhow), and all for 430 rupees (about a fiver) so I’m not complaining! Once again Claire is paying 100 rupees less for her hotel and says the bathroom is not particularly clean and her room is bang opposite the bus station and so very noisy. She tried to switch to mine, but now the only room available is 1500 rupees!
The two restaurants here are good as well; we have just had lunch (attended by five waiters because we were early) and it cost us 50p each! Better still there are two modern PCs with Windows XP for hotel clients (albeit a network collection which falls over from time to time) and I have just completed the Pondicherry to Trichy sections. Up to date at last! It has been such a shame that I had to keep repeating myself as I lost text again and again. It somewhat dampened the freshness I fear.
Anyhow I've spent the morning at the computer. This was intentional as I reckon I needed a break from sightseeing. Now Claire and I are off to see the Fort.
The Fort stands on a high, rocky hill in the middle of the Old City. Claire and I took a bus there. Quite an experience as nobody spoke English. There was no room for our knees but as the journey was only a few kilometers we survived. The conductor rushed up and down, blowing his whistle to get the driver to stop or start and yelling what sounded like “hurry. Hurry. Hurry” at every stop. At any rate, the bus would start before people had really got on and they had to cling on to avoid falling out of the open door. We had no idea when to get out, but luckily a schoolgirl plucked up courage to ask us “Where are you going?” and showed us when to get off.
We were still quite a way from the Fort; in fact including some wrong turns I must have walked at least three kilometres. At least, that is what my back tells me. We made our way through the Old City bazaar, which was humming with life and seemed more varied than the usual row of stalls selling the same things. We spotted a couple of bookstalls, selling such thrilling items as elderly physics text books and a manual for Cobol (a programming language which went out in the 80s). The stalls were interspersed with shops with actual shop windows, usually clothes or materials.
We eventually found our way to the foot of the hill. The way up was through a series of temples, so with much trepidation we had to leave our shoes at the bottom. However there was a railing up the 400 plus steps and although they were steep, they were relatively smooth, and I don’t actually find climbing uphill too difficult.
The view outside the Ganesh temple at the top was actually a little disappointing, not least because the city was shrouded in a dusty, polluted haze. It is not a romantic view, as over the blue houses of Jodhpur, but it did give us a good impression of the size of Trich (800,000 inhabitants) and we could see the towers of the temple we are visiting tomorrow.
As usual the way up was packed with Indian tourists as well as people coming to pray in the various temples (many of which, including the most ancient Pallavan ones, were only open to Hindus).
We wandered further in the Old City and came across a group of buildings containing a dilapidated Registry Office, a Police Office and museum, and looking as if they had seen better days in the time of the Raj. In the middle of this slummy area there was a surprising green pocket: public gardens. We didn’t like to explore them as it seemed a men-only area.
On our way back, Claire showed me her hotel room, which was the same size as mine but distinctly more grubby, with a front row view of the bus station below. We then decided to take a look at the ‘shopping mall’ next to my hotel. It made me think of a tatty bottom of the range Lidl. Lots of the brand names were familiar – Pedigree food for dogs, Kelloggs, Horlicks etc – though the actual products had clearly been made in India for the local market. Claire hankered after some chocolate, until I pointed out the Best Before date and reminded her what chocolate which has melted and then hardened again tastes like. I wonder if the staff, let alone the customers can read these dates, as they appeared to be in English only.
Instead we went had a cup of tea in my hotel. Actually Claire had an Indian snack and so liked the sauces that, much to the amusement of the five waiters watching us, asked for a dosa so she could continue sampling the sauces. I am suffering a rather mysterious loss of appetite, which I suppose I should be pleased about. So instead I looked at my recent output of photos. Very soon all the waiters were peering at them, happily identifying the various gods and temples. When they asked about our route I explained that I came from the UK and Claire from New Zealand and instantly one of them chanted the names of the key kiwi cricketers. They clearly regarded us as eccentric but amusing and bid us a cheerful goodbye when we left.
I’ve just been watching some Indian telly. They specialize in slow motion close camera work, with intense studies of people agonizing over someone or something, with more observation of behavioural conventions than realism. The plot is usually quite clear, which is just as well, since the films are in Hindi whereas the Tamils here speak Tamil…
The Hotel Femina was recommended in Rough Guide (which I am beginning to rely on rather than Lonely Planet) and apart from its attractive name, has turned out to be an excellent choice. I find that most hotels I am using are frequented more by Indian middle classes than backpackers. This one has a tremendously plush public area - acres marble floor and gaudy gold chandeliers etc and TWO lifts.
My room, a single non-AC is at the far end of a corridor, opposite the service lift, so a bit noisy. But impeccably clean, with armchair, telly, a table to write on and a comfy bed, the essential fan (not AC which I dont like anyhow), and all for 430 rupees (about a fiver) so I’m not complaining! Once again Claire is paying 100 rupees less for her hotel and says the bathroom is not particularly clean and her room is bang opposite the bus station and so very noisy. She tried to switch to mine, but now the only room available is 1500 rupees!
The two restaurants here are good as well; we have just had lunch (attended by five waiters because we were early) and it cost us 50p each! Better still there are two modern PCs with Windows XP for hotel clients (albeit a network collection which falls over from time to time) and I have just completed the Pondicherry to Trichy sections. Up to date at last! It has been such a shame that I had to keep repeating myself as I lost text again and again. It somewhat dampened the freshness I fear.
Anyhow I've spent the morning at the computer. This was intentional as I reckon I needed a break from sightseeing. Now Claire and I are off to see the Fort.
The Fort stands on a high, rocky hill in the middle of the Old City. Claire and I took a bus there. Quite an experience as nobody spoke English. There was no room for our knees but as the journey was only a few kilometers we survived. The conductor rushed up and down, blowing his whistle to get the driver to stop or start and yelling what sounded like “hurry. Hurry. Hurry” at every stop. At any rate, the bus would start before people had really got on and they had to cling on to avoid falling out of the open door. We had no idea when to get out, but luckily a schoolgirl plucked up courage to ask us “Where are you going?” and showed us when to get off.
We were still quite a way from the Fort; in fact including some wrong turns I must have walked at least three kilometres. At least, that is what my back tells me. We made our way through the Old City bazaar, which was humming with life and seemed more varied than the usual row of stalls selling the same things. We spotted a couple of bookstalls, selling such thrilling items as elderly physics text books and a manual for Cobol (a programming language which went out in the 80s). The stalls were interspersed with shops with actual shop windows, usually clothes or materials.
We eventually found our way to the foot of the hill. The way up was through a series of temples, so with much trepidation we had to leave our shoes at the bottom. However there was a railing up the 400 plus steps and although they were steep, they were relatively smooth, and I don’t actually find climbing uphill too difficult.
The view outside the Ganesh temple at the top was actually a little disappointing, not least because the city was shrouded in a dusty, polluted haze. It is not a romantic view, as over the blue houses of Jodhpur, but it did give us a good impression of the size of Trich (800,000 inhabitants) and we could see the towers of the temple we are visiting tomorrow.
As usual the way up was packed with Indian tourists as well as people coming to pray in the various temples (many of which, including the most ancient Pallavan ones, were only open to Hindus).
We wandered further in the Old City and came across a group of buildings containing a dilapidated Registry Office, a Police Office and museum, and looking as if they had seen better days in the time of the Raj. In the middle of this slummy area there was a surprising green pocket: public gardens. We didn’t like to explore them as it seemed a men-only area.
On our way back, Claire showed me her hotel room, which was the same size as mine but distinctly more grubby, with a front row view of the bus station below. We then decided to take a look at the ‘shopping mall’ next to my hotel. It made me think of a tatty bottom of the range Lidl. Lots of the brand names were familiar – Pedigree food for dogs, Kelloggs, Horlicks etc – though the actual products had clearly been made in India for the local market. Claire hankered after some chocolate, until I pointed out the Best Before date and reminded her what chocolate which has melted and then hardened again tastes like. I wonder if the staff, let alone the customers can read these dates, as they appeared to be in English only.
Instead we went had a cup of tea in my hotel. Actually Claire had an Indian snack and so liked the sauces that, much to the amusement of the five waiters watching us, asked for a dosa so she could continue sampling the sauces. I am suffering a rather mysterious loss of appetite, which I suppose I should be pleased about. So instead I looked at my recent output of photos. Very soon all the waiters were peering at them, happily identifying the various gods and temples. When they asked about our route I explained that I came from the UK and Claire from New Zealand and instantly one of them chanted the names of the key kiwi cricketers. They clearly regarded us as eccentric but amusing and bid us a cheerful goodbye when we left.
I’ve just been watching some Indian telly. They specialize in slow motion close camera work, with intense studies of people agonizing over someone or something, with more observation of behavioural conventions than realism. The plot is usually quite clear, which is just as well, since the films are in Hindi whereas the Tamils here speak Tamil…
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
Thanjavur
Not a bad night, apart from the mosquitoes (thanks for the net, Ed and Jude). AFter breakfast I was off to see the grandest of the Cholan temples.
The Bridharishwara Temple is immense, far bigger than either of the two previous ones, and very obviously more on the main tourist route; it was already crowded when we arrived at 10am. You go through two huge gopuras to the inner courtyard which is vast, which a cloister-like walkway the whole way round the courtyard, covered with fading friezes.
The first thing you see on entering the courtyard is, guess what, a huge black Nandi (Shiva’s bull), the third largest in India. Like so many statues here, Nandi was clothed in a white cloth, as well as the usual garlands and flowers. I do find it quite unnerving to come across dressed statues.
The main temple, built of granite, has the feeling of a gigantic cathedral. The passageway leading the the shrine (like all these temples, at the west end) is immensely long. I found myself in a long line of pilgrims slowly moving towards the shrine. They were all so friendly, even though our conversation was the usual “Coming from?” and “What is your name?”. Even the priests at the shrine beckoned me forward to have a better look. I stayed back a little, feeling intrusive, but did stay to watch devotees handing over what looked like garlands and receiving in return what looked like white grains.
Outside again I continued to enjoy the magnificent statues on the exterior, some of them in the same cobalt black I had seen elsewhere. People seemed to be in a particularly partyish mood here. I do love seeing the way Indians go out in family groups and the fathers take an active role in caring for and cuddling their children. I was approached endlessly by children calling out “photo photo” and when I took one and showed it to them they exclaimed “thank you. Thank you” – and rushed off to get all their friends for another photo. The parents are pleased too, and we have aimable language-restricted ‘conversations’. It reinforces one’s appreciation of Tamils as warm, gentle, friendly people. There were quite a lot of people dressed all in black (with a gold edging). I had seen them in Chennai and asked someone else where they were from. I think he said Yuppa, but I cant find any reference to this word.
One family was keen that I should go to the museum. The entrance was so small I would have missed it if not. It turned out to be a little treat: a wall showing high quality reproductions of the Cholan frescoes (now closed to the public), photos of the before and after of restoration, and some excellent panels explaining how the temples were built and illustrating the difference in design (the Gangawhatsit tower has concave sides, while the Thanjavur one is higher and with a more solid base). The granite comes from about 50km away. Rather than scaffolding, the Cholans built giant earth ramps round the tower and one illustration showed an elephant dragging stone blocks up to the top of the tower. Like the pyramids, the engineering of the towers is immensely accurate and complex. Sadly the recommended booklet on Cholan temples was out of stock.
A very good visit, though perhaps I retain greater affection for the two previous ones.
After lunch Claire and I went to the palace (the family of the former rulers still live in part of it). It showed sad signs of neglect and decay. However, my main objective was to visit the museum of Cholan bronzes, housed in an immense 17th century hall within the palace complex. This is perhaps the largest collection of Cholan bronzes in the world, and some of them were of exquisite quality although not displayed as well as those in Chennai. One of the officials accompanied me. He has worked there for 20 years and is clearly proud of the collection. Unfortunately his English was not very good, but he was very helpful. I fear that the glass casing may mean that my photos don’t do the statues justice.
Half way round a young Indian asked my guide a couple of questions – the same ones I had already asked. We got talking and I discovered he was an engineering student from Calcutta (also stuck on chapter 1 of Amyarta Sen’s ‘The argumentative Indian’!). I asked him if his impeccable English was typical of Calcutta or the result of a middle class background. He was clearly pleased and said it was thanks to his Jesuit teachers. I don’t know why he is studying engineering. He says he is not very good at it and would rather be a musician. We talked about politics, economics, and history. Despite the greedy East India Company, he thought India had a lot to thank the English for, in particular hits political and judicial institutions. And he too was despairing about the immensity of the problems facing the country, in particular water, sanitation and health. He gave me the name of two writers whom he thought had written well on the Indian character (Rabindranath Tagore and Anand Kentishcoomaraswami).
That was the first of two very pleasant discussion with Indians that day; the second was with a Goan couple on the train.
We were due to catch the 7.15 express to Trichy, a daunting task as it turned out as the rickshaw driver delivered us to the ticket office on one side (which turned out to be for non AC seats) and the correct ticket office was the other side, over an immensely long bridge – with the platform in the middle section. Thank goodness I was with Claire. I guarded our luggage on the platform, while she went in search of tickets.
I sat down next to a pleasant, English-speaking woman, who turned out to be a Goan with a British passport, living in London, and travelling with her partner (!), a Goan on a Goan passport, working as an aeronautical engineer at Croydon. They had been visiting a Catholic shrine near Trichy and were returning to her family in Goa (via Bangalore, where they fly to Kochin – the complication of interstate connections). While Al went off to find out where we should be (they didn’t speak Tamil either), Patricia, Claire and I had a jolly discussion about Indian loos and the advantages of travelling in a skirt …
Thank goodness Al was there: the train turned out to be totally full and we had to struggle with bags (he carried my heavier one) through to the non-AC class. Apart from the smell as you switch from one carriage to the other, these are fine by day – it is the nights which can be a trial. The journey to Trichy is only an hour and passed quickly, thanks to Al and Patricia.
Then an expensive (60 rupees) rickshaw trip (our first woman driver) to my hotel via Claire's.
The Bridharishwara Temple is immense, far bigger than either of the two previous ones, and very obviously more on the main tourist route; it was already crowded when we arrived at 10am. You go through two huge gopuras to the inner courtyard which is vast, which a cloister-like walkway the whole way round the courtyard, covered with fading friezes.
The first thing you see on entering the courtyard is, guess what, a huge black Nandi (Shiva’s bull), the third largest in India. Like so many statues here, Nandi was clothed in a white cloth, as well as the usual garlands and flowers. I do find it quite unnerving to come across dressed statues.
The main temple, built of granite, has the feeling of a gigantic cathedral. The passageway leading the the shrine (like all these temples, at the west end) is immensely long. I found myself in a long line of pilgrims slowly moving towards the shrine. They were all so friendly, even though our conversation was the usual “Coming from?” and “What is your name?”. Even the priests at the shrine beckoned me forward to have a better look. I stayed back a little, feeling intrusive, but did stay to watch devotees handing over what looked like garlands and receiving in return what looked like white grains.
Outside again I continued to enjoy the magnificent statues on the exterior, some of them in the same cobalt black I had seen elsewhere. People seemed to be in a particularly partyish mood here. I do love seeing the way Indians go out in family groups and the fathers take an active role in caring for and cuddling their children. I was approached endlessly by children calling out “photo photo” and when I took one and showed it to them they exclaimed “thank you. Thank you” – and rushed off to get all their friends for another photo. The parents are pleased too, and we have aimable language-restricted ‘conversations’. It reinforces one’s appreciation of Tamils as warm, gentle, friendly people. There were quite a lot of people dressed all in black (with a gold edging). I had seen them in Chennai and asked someone else where they were from. I think he said Yuppa, but I cant find any reference to this word.
One family was keen that I should go to the museum. The entrance was so small I would have missed it if not. It turned out to be a little treat: a wall showing high quality reproductions of the Cholan frescoes (now closed to the public), photos of the before and after of restoration, and some excellent panels explaining how the temples were built and illustrating the difference in design (the Gangawhatsit tower has concave sides, while the Thanjavur one is higher and with a more solid base). The granite comes from about 50km away. Rather than scaffolding, the Cholans built giant earth ramps round the tower and one illustration showed an elephant dragging stone blocks up to the top of the tower. Like the pyramids, the engineering of the towers is immensely accurate and complex. Sadly the recommended booklet on Cholan temples was out of stock.
A very good visit, though perhaps I retain greater affection for the two previous ones.
After lunch Claire and I went to the palace (the family of the former rulers still live in part of it). It showed sad signs of neglect and decay. However, my main objective was to visit the museum of Cholan bronzes, housed in an immense 17th century hall within the palace complex. This is perhaps the largest collection of Cholan bronzes in the world, and some of them were of exquisite quality although not displayed as well as those in Chennai. One of the officials accompanied me. He has worked there for 20 years and is clearly proud of the collection. Unfortunately his English was not very good, but he was very helpful. I fear that the glass casing may mean that my photos don’t do the statues justice.
Half way round a young Indian asked my guide a couple of questions – the same ones I had already asked. We got talking and I discovered he was an engineering student from Calcutta (also stuck on chapter 1 of Amyarta Sen’s ‘The argumentative Indian’!). I asked him if his impeccable English was typical of Calcutta or the result of a middle class background. He was clearly pleased and said it was thanks to his Jesuit teachers. I don’t know why he is studying engineering. He says he is not very good at it and would rather be a musician. We talked about politics, economics, and history. Despite the greedy East India Company, he thought India had a lot to thank the English for, in particular hits political and judicial institutions. And he too was despairing about the immensity of the problems facing the country, in particular water, sanitation and health. He gave me the name of two writers whom he thought had written well on the Indian character (Rabindranath Tagore and Anand Kentishcoomaraswami).
That was the first of two very pleasant discussion with Indians that day; the second was with a Goan couple on the train.
We were due to catch the 7.15 express to Trichy, a daunting task as it turned out as the rickshaw driver delivered us to the ticket office on one side (which turned out to be for non AC seats) and the correct ticket office was the other side, over an immensely long bridge – with the platform in the middle section. Thank goodness I was with Claire. I guarded our luggage on the platform, while she went in search of tickets.
I sat down next to a pleasant, English-speaking woman, who turned out to be a Goan with a British passport, living in London, and travelling with her partner (!), a Goan on a Goan passport, working as an aeronautical engineer at Croydon. They had been visiting a Catholic shrine near Trichy and were returning to her family in Goa (via Bangalore, where they fly to Kochin – the complication of interstate connections). While Al went off to find out where we should be (they didn’t speak Tamil either), Patricia, Claire and I had a jolly discussion about Indian loos and the advantages of travelling in a skirt …
Thank goodness Al was there: the train turned out to be totally full and we had to struggle with bags (he carried my heavier one) through to the non-AC class. Apart from the smell as you switch from one carriage to the other, these are fine by day – it is the nights which can be a trial. The journey to Trichy is only an hour and passed quickly, thanks to Al and Patricia.
Then an expensive (60 rupees) rickshaw trip (our first woman driver) to my hotel via Claire's.
Tuesday, 16 January 2007
Gangaikondacholapuram & Darasuram
We set off early in the morning to continue our Cholan temple trail. There was a particularly beautiful hazy light over the countryside which was predominantly fields of rice, patches of sugar cane, palm trees and picturesque but clearly manky pools. The high pothole count indicated this was definitely a minor road and for the first hour we passed just a few buses and motor bikes, though a larger number of local bicycles and oxen carts. This may be the country, but we passed what seemed to be a continuous stream of villages and the road is of course never empty of people.
Gangaikondacholapuram
This must surely be the longest name for the site of a temple. We resorted to calling it Gangaburbleburbleburble, which highly amused our driver. It apparently means "the town of the Chola who took the Ganges" referring to the 11th century king Rajendra I during whose reign it was built.
The Brihadishwara temple stands peacefully in the countryside rather than in the middle of a town and there were far fewer visitors - Indian or other - than elsewhere. We instantly warmed to it. We walked up to the huge wall that encloses the temple complex and entering through the gateway saw that the temple was surrounded by well maintained lawns and gardens. In the centre is a huge tower over the main shrine, and in front an enormous Nandi (Shiva's bull) facing towards the temple - so your first view is of Nandi's bum.
The Nandi dates from the seventeenth century and to its right there is a an equally big statue of a lion, facing respectfully towards Nandi. Lots of people appear to pray to Nandi, so having a closer look involved squeezing between crowds lighting their candles and praying. It was worth it, as the carvings at the foot of the bull and lion were beautiful.
The exterior of the temple is also covered with carvings of lions, ornamental scrolls and endless statues of Shiva in his various incarnations. Huge statues of guards protect the entrance. Inside I am becoming familiar with the church-style layout: a long, multi-columned dark "nave" culminating in the main shrine.
I won't bore you with further detail about the temple; suffice to say seeing it was an eminently satisfying experience (more about beauty than the ritual we had witnessed in Chidambaram) and we continued on our way thoroughly satisfied.
Darasuram
The Airavateshwara Temple in the little village of Darasuramis later than that of Gangawhatsit: it was built during the 12th century reign of King Rajaraja II. It also was surrounded by a huge wall, indeed it felt more like a citadel than a temple complex, with just one wee tower peering over the height of the walls.
This is a smaller, cosier sized complex, focussing very much on the charming
temple in the centre, preceded as usual by Nandi. The memorable thing about Darasuram was the fine quality of the carvings. In front of the temple there is a mandapa - an open multi-columned hall. Here and everywhere were beautifully sculpted columns, fine black basalt statues, charming lions, bulls and other figures.
We wandered around for a long time, reluctant to leave this delightful place. It was difficult to decide which of the two temples of the day was more satisfying, as they were the same (columns, figures etc) yet so different in character.
But we pulled ourselves away to continue the road to Thanjavur. It was dark when we arrived in what appeared a huge, bustling town. I had been sorely tempted by the guide books' (and my friend Rose Marie's) description of a luxury guesthouse outside the town, complete with eco farming and bicycles to visit nearby villages. But since the price has apparently soared recently, I settled for a more modest place, down a dirt-track past welders and garages. Hotel Valli was at first unprepossing, but the woman running it was hard-working and spoke some English and the rooms were very clean and satisfactory if you ignored the mosquitoes and the window opening onto a blank wall. Can't complain for 315 rupees (under 4 pounds)!
Gangaikondacholapuram
This must surely be the longest name for the site of a temple. We resorted to calling it Gangaburbleburbleburble, which highly amused our driver. It apparently means "the town of the Chola who took the Ganges" referring to the 11th century king Rajendra I during whose reign it was built.
The Brihadishwara temple stands peacefully in the countryside rather than in the middle of a town and there were far fewer visitors - Indian or other - than elsewhere. We instantly warmed to it. We walked up to the huge wall that encloses the temple complex and entering through the gateway saw that the temple was surrounded by well maintained lawns and gardens. In the centre is a huge tower over the main shrine, and in front an enormous Nandi (Shiva's bull) facing towards the temple - so your first view is of Nandi's bum.
The Nandi dates from the seventeenth century and to its right there is a an equally big statue of a lion, facing respectfully towards Nandi. Lots of people appear to pray to Nandi, so having a closer look involved squeezing between crowds lighting their candles and praying. It was worth it, as the carvings at the foot of the bull and lion were beautiful.
The exterior of the temple is also covered with carvings of lions, ornamental scrolls and endless statues of Shiva in his various incarnations. Huge statues of guards protect the entrance. Inside I am becoming familiar with the church-style layout: a long, multi-columned dark "nave" culminating in the main shrine.
I won't bore you with further detail about the temple; suffice to say seeing it was an eminently satisfying experience (more about beauty than the ritual we had witnessed in Chidambaram) and we continued on our way thoroughly satisfied.
Darasuram
The Airavateshwara Temple in the little village of Darasuramis later than that of Gangawhatsit: it was built during the 12th century reign of King Rajaraja II. It also was surrounded by a huge wall, indeed it felt more like a citadel than a temple complex, with just one wee tower peering over the height of the walls.
This is a smaller, cosier sized complex, focussing very much on the charming
temple in the centre, preceded as usual by Nandi. The memorable thing about Darasuram was the fine quality of the carvings. In front of the temple there is a mandapa - an open multi-columned hall. Here and everywhere were beautifully sculpted columns, fine black basalt statues, charming lions, bulls and other figures.
We wandered around for a long time, reluctant to leave this delightful place. It was difficult to decide which of the two temples of the day was more satisfying, as they were the same (columns, figures etc) yet so different in character.
But we pulled ourselves away to continue the road to Thanjavur. It was dark when we arrived in what appeared a huge, bustling town. I had been sorely tempted by the guide books' (and my friend Rose Marie's) description of a luxury guesthouse outside the town, complete with eco farming and bicycles to visit nearby villages. But since the price has apparently soared recently, I settled for a more modest place, down a dirt-track past welders and garages. Hotel Valli was at first unprepossing, but the woman running it was hard-working and spoke some English and the rooms were very clean and satisfactory if you ignored the mosquitoes and the window opening onto a blank wall. Can't complain for 315 rupees (under 4 pounds)!
Monday, 15 January 2007
Chidambaram
Our car is luckily a roomy Ambassador, the classic Indian car. They are heavy monsters and I dread to think how much petrol they consume. The driver doesn’t speak a word of English (a pity – we miss Basha’s little nuggets of information) and drives like a maniac. He goes right up to the vehicle in front and attempts to overtake even when there is a bus careering towards us. When he wants to turn right, he turns right – and the oncoming traffic swerves to one or the other side of him. That is how most people drive here, but he takes it to extremes.
After an hour of negotiating Pondicherry traffic, we drove along a highway (definition of a road with fewer potholes…) to our first destination, Chidambaran. Our first impressions were not promising: the usual mad, noisy traffic and smells, but as one of the Belgians said to her friend, if you reacted to these first impressions and headed out of town, you would never see India.
It was a particularly hot, enervating day, so we started by collapsing in the most promising restaurant in town. No English spoken, but we gathered that since it was Pongal, the menu at my hotel (Saradharm) was rice – or rice. At least Claire and I had some lunch; the two Belgians had not been able to find anywhere open in the town.
One problem with temple touring is that they tend to be closed between 12 and 4, so Claire and I filled the time with a stroll round the town. Once you get off the main traffic arteries, the town immediately assumes a different ambience. It was much calmer, the houses were extremely poor, usually little more than shacks with thatched roofs (even a tall stone temple had a thatched roof, curious since we reckoned that underneath the roof was stone too). The people were, as usual in Tamil Nadu, extremely friendly, and one man rescued us when a cow with a crumpled horn decided to charge us (didn’t know that cows were xenophobic). There were temples everywhere and lots of houses have their own personal temple, invariably decorated in lurid colours. We passed a huge tank, with carved bulls on the walls. I wish I knew about the history of these tanks, whether they were simply water supplies or whether they have some religious significance.
Now it was time to head for the Sabhanayaka Temple complex. This is a 55-acre site, with four giant gopuras (gateways) in its surrounding wall. At first sight these are a little disappointing: they appear to be entirely covered in what Rough Guide described somewhere as “Disneyland accretions”. These in your face, voluptuous luridly coloured figures (eighteenth century or later?) do take some getting used to. But then we saw that the lower storeys, up to about 5 metres, were still covered in the original, more restrained, Cholan statues of about the tenth century. The statues were worn, but still beautiful.
Inside there is a gigantic outer circle, with a large tank, and several temples, a middle courtyard and at the centre the third, most holy place. Walking round the outer circle was quite tiring, we had already had to leave our shoes outside and the ground was quite pebbly (remind me next time to train barefeet on rough ground before going to India).
We went into one of the temples, devoted to Parvati, Shiva’s wife. The shrine was guarded by rather fierce looking young priests, with white loin cloths, stripped to the waist, and their hair in top knots. They demanded that we sign the visitors’ book which indicates the size of donations of other visitors. Luckily Guide Routard had warned me to deduct a zero from the amounts fabricated in the book. The priests accepted our 20 rupees with bad grace. We are becoming accustomed to the dark interiors of Cholan temples and their generally run-down feeling, but I do like the carved columns, which are basically square in contrast to the European round ones. I particularly liked the roof of this temple, which had some excellent sixteenth century friezes, side by side with some horrible, lurid 20th century ones.
We then passed through the middle circle into the inner sanctuary, for a memorable experience of intense religious fervour. The three most important Hindu gods are Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. The Sabhanayaka Temple is the most important in India for the Shaivites (Shiva worshippers), identifiable by the horizontal stripes painted on their foreheads. These gods have a confusing number of identities and Shiva is also Nataraja, Lord of the Dance – and as this is the main temple of Nataraja, many of the carvings here depict dancing figures.
Curiously the first temple we came to in this inner sanctuary was actually dedicated to Vishnu. As we arrived there was a bustle of priests rushing around and bells clanging, the sign that some sort of ritual was being performed. The crowd surged towards the shrine, the men in particular praying fervently. We could also hear the chanting of ancient Tamil verses.
People spend their time lighting the equivalent of the Catholic candles in front of the many shrines within a temple. They seem to either buy little pots already prepared with a central wick and what looks like melted wax, or to produce a length of wick from their bag and make their own.
As we passed to other bits of the inner sanctuary, we came across one of the Belgian women sitting quietly on a step, doing a sketch/water colour. She does this as her visual blog in each temple she visits and you would think that this was a way of quietly melting into the background. But no, there was a non-stop stream of passers by – adults as well as children – who stopped in front of her, peering transfixed at her canvas.
The main shrine (which we could not get near to because of the crowd) has images of Nataraja and his consort, and behind them a curtain hiding some sort of (invisible) symbol of the basic elements of life (fire, water etc) and also an actual crystal which the priests bathe in oil several times a day. We knew that 6pm was the time for one of these rituals, and indeed the temple was filling up rapidly. We chose a quiet discreet (we thought) corner to sit and observe.
We noticed that a lot of the men here seemed to have fat Buddha-like stomachs, in contrast to the predominantly very thin Indian population, and debated the reason. Was it over-eating? A heavy rice diet? Or a genetic disorder??
One woman, accompanied by an older priest, stopped to chat to us. She told us she was from Chennai and doing a doctorate on this temple. When I asked about the priests, she said they were of course Brahmins and trained for seven years, during which time they learn by heart extremely lengthy ancient Tamil verses (which we could hear as one of the background noises as we passed through this and other temples). They could only perform puja on behalf of devotees once they were married.
At 6pm priests suddenly rushed around and there was a sudden explosion of sound: the giant bells (just behind us!) began to swing causing a relentless, deafening ear-splitting noise, a huge rattle in front of the shrine was being rotated, there were bells everywhere, priests chanting and lighting torches and doing some sort of rituals around the various figures in the shrine, people praying, some intoning verses, others prostrating themselves. The men seem to press forward in front of the shrine, with the woman praying more discreetly behind. Electric lights attached to the ancient Cholan columns were flashing.
We were overwhelmed by the charged atmosphere, much of it incomprehensible to us two doubters. The Hindus sure do beat the Catholics at this game of ritual!
As we left many of the devotees were settling on the ground within the temple complex for family picnics. Claire and I adjourned to my hotel for a delicious supper (although I chose ginger chicken, which turned out to be too hot for me, so we did a swap!). We decided this was a clean restaurant and took the risk of indulging ourselves in kulfi malai, the Indian ice cream I so loved in Edinburgh. It was delicious.
Once again I had chosen well: my hotel cost 475 for the night (a little over five quid). We have come to the conclusion there is a significant jump in quality if you pay that extra 100 or so rupees. Neither the Belgians’ nor Claire’s were anyway near as comfortable as mine and their mosquito count was higher.
After an hour of negotiating Pondicherry traffic, we drove along a highway (definition of a road with fewer potholes…) to our first destination, Chidambaran. Our first impressions were not promising: the usual mad, noisy traffic and smells, but as one of the Belgians said to her friend, if you reacted to these first impressions and headed out of town, you would never see India.
It was a particularly hot, enervating day, so we started by collapsing in the most promising restaurant in town. No English spoken, but we gathered that since it was Pongal, the menu at my hotel (Saradharm) was rice – or rice. At least Claire and I had some lunch; the two Belgians had not been able to find anywhere open in the town.
One problem with temple touring is that they tend to be closed between 12 and 4, so Claire and I filled the time with a stroll round the town. Once you get off the main traffic arteries, the town immediately assumes a different ambience. It was much calmer, the houses were extremely poor, usually little more than shacks with thatched roofs (even a tall stone temple had a thatched roof, curious since we reckoned that underneath the roof was stone too). The people were, as usual in Tamil Nadu, extremely friendly, and one man rescued us when a cow with a crumpled horn decided to charge us (didn’t know that cows were xenophobic). There were temples everywhere and lots of houses have their own personal temple, invariably decorated in lurid colours. We passed a huge tank, with carved bulls on the walls. I wish I knew about the history of these tanks, whether they were simply water supplies or whether they have some religious significance.
Now it was time to head for the Sabhanayaka Temple complex. This is a 55-acre site, with four giant gopuras (gateways) in its surrounding wall. At first sight these are a little disappointing: they appear to be entirely covered in what Rough Guide described somewhere as “Disneyland accretions”. These in your face, voluptuous luridly coloured figures (eighteenth century or later?) do take some getting used to. But then we saw that the lower storeys, up to about 5 metres, were still covered in the original, more restrained, Cholan statues of about the tenth century. The statues were worn, but still beautiful.
Inside there is a gigantic outer circle, with a large tank, and several temples, a middle courtyard and at the centre the third, most holy place. Walking round the outer circle was quite tiring, we had already had to leave our shoes outside and the ground was quite pebbly (remind me next time to train barefeet on rough ground before going to India).
We went into one of the temples, devoted to Parvati, Shiva’s wife. The shrine was guarded by rather fierce looking young priests, with white loin cloths, stripped to the waist, and their hair in top knots. They demanded that we sign the visitors’ book which indicates the size of donations of other visitors. Luckily Guide Routard had warned me to deduct a zero from the amounts fabricated in the book. The priests accepted our 20 rupees with bad grace. We are becoming accustomed to the dark interiors of Cholan temples and their generally run-down feeling, but I do like the carved columns, which are basically square in contrast to the European round ones. I particularly liked the roof of this temple, which had some excellent sixteenth century friezes, side by side with some horrible, lurid 20th century ones.
We then passed through the middle circle into the inner sanctuary, for a memorable experience of intense religious fervour. The three most important Hindu gods are Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. The Sabhanayaka Temple is the most important in India for the Shaivites (Shiva worshippers), identifiable by the horizontal stripes painted on their foreheads. These gods have a confusing number of identities and Shiva is also Nataraja, Lord of the Dance – and as this is the main temple of Nataraja, many of the carvings here depict dancing figures.
Curiously the first temple we came to in this inner sanctuary was actually dedicated to Vishnu. As we arrived there was a bustle of priests rushing around and bells clanging, the sign that some sort of ritual was being performed. The crowd surged towards the shrine, the men in particular praying fervently. We could also hear the chanting of ancient Tamil verses.
People spend their time lighting the equivalent of the Catholic candles in front of the many shrines within a temple. They seem to either buy little pots already prepared with a central wick and what looks like melted wax, or to produce a length of wick from their bag and make their own.
As we passed to other bits of the inner sanctuary, we came across one of the Belgian women sitting quietly on a step, doing a sketch/water colour. She does this as her visual blog in each temple she visits and you would think that this was a way of quietly melting into the background. But no, there was a non-stop stream of passers by – adults as well as children – who stopped in front of her, peering transfixed at her canvas.
The main shrine (which we could not get near to because of the crowd) has images of Nataraja and his consort, and behind them a curtain hiding some sort of (invisible) symbol of the basic elements of life (fire, water etc) and also an actual crystal which the priests bathe in oil several times a day. We knew that 6pm was the time for one of these rituals, and indeed the temple was filling up rapidly. We chose a quiet discreet (we thought) corner to sit and observe.
We noticed that a lot of the men here seemed to have fat Buddha-like stomachs, in contrast to the predominantly very thin Indian population, and debated the reason. Was it over-eating? A heavy rice diet? Or a genetic disorder??
One woman, accompanied by an older priest, stopped to chat to us. She told us she was from Chennai and doing a doctorate on this temple. When I asked about the priests, she said they were of course Brahmins and trained for seven years, during which time they learn by heart extremely lengthy ancient Tamil verses (which we could hear as one of the background noises as we passed through this and other temples). They could only perform puja on behalf of devotees once they were married.
At 6pm priests suddenly rushed around and there was a sudden explosion of sound: the giant bells (just behind us!) began to swing causing a relentless, deafening ear-splitting noise, a huge rattle in front of the shrine was being rotated, there were bells everywhere, priests chanting and lighting torches and doing some sort of rituals around the various figures in the shrine, people praying, some intoning verses, others prostrating themselves. The men seem to press forward in front of the shrine, with the woman praying more discreetly behind. Electric lights attached to the ancient Cholan columns were flashing.
We were overwhelmed by the charged atmosphere, much of it incomprehensible to us two doubters. The Hindus sure do beat the Catholics at this game of ritual!
As we left many of the devotees were settling on the ground within the temple complex for family picnics. Claire and I adjourned to my hotel for a delicious supper (although I chose ginger chicken, which turned out to be too hot for me, so we did a swap!). We decided this was a clean restaurant and took the risk of indulging ourselves in kulfi malai, the Indian ice cream I so loved in Edinburgh. It was delicious.
Once again I had chosen well: my hotel cost 475 for the night (a little over five quid). We have come to the conclusion there is a significant jump in quality if you pay that extra 100 or so rupees. Neither the Belgians’ nor Claire’s were anyway near as comfortable as mine and their mosquito count was higher.
Sunday, 14 January 2007
Computers rrrrrr!
Thanjavur. Tuesday
I have just spent the past hour writing the same thing again and again, each
time a leetle shorter. I've had a bad time with internet places. In
Pondicherry I spent quite some time trying to connect to my site before
discovering the manager had blocked the google blog site. Something to do with
Saddam Hussein. Then in Chidambaram I gave up when the ancient Windows 98 machine
hung for the third time. Now in Thanjavur on a computer with a faulty shift
key, every time I SAVe everything disappears!
Thanjavur. Wednesday
Well I wrote that yesterday. Here I am on another ancient slooow computer in
another place. My feet are being devoured by mosquitoes, but at least the
keyboard works. Here goes: this is what I wanted to say about Indian newspapers in Pondicherry (I've added the end of my stay in Pondicherry to the previous posting).
Indian newspapers
In the larger hotels I find a newspaper pushed under my bedroom door in the
morning and I've become quite attached to reading them. The indian press
appears earnest, with very little silly gossip. Here are some snippets whih
have interested me:
- A government ministry in Chennai announced that henceforth all bids for
contracts had to be done online and gave the site address for downloading the
form.
- the Sunday paper reported that Pondicherry had been exceptionally busy with
pongal shoppers (sounds familiar?) buying mainly clothes and food. There are 15
varieties of rice for sale. One man interviewed (a taxi driver with his mother)
said that Pongal was more important than the festival of Deepavali "for those
who toil".
- the mosquito problem is getting worse, with many more in the day as well as
night 9I can vouch for that) and there have been 61 cases of Chickungune,
whatever that might be. The mosquitoes are proving resistant to pesticide and
desilting (canals) programmes ahve failed. Nobody can come up with a solution..
- doctors have expressed concern at the number of fatalities from head injuries
caused by motor cyclists not wearing helmets. It is apparently the sixth
highest cause of death.
- a woman has lodged a harassment complaint at the All Women Police Station
against her husband (the son of a former minister) and his mother. She said
that when she married last year she brought a car and gold worth 100 sovereigns
as her dowry and now they were demnding a further Rs 10 lakhs.
- a BJP leader spoke out against the proposed Indo-US deal for genetically
modified seeds to be sold by multinationals. He said that apart from anything
else, the seeds had been developed in totally different climatic conditions.
I have just spent the past hour writing the same thing again and again, each
time a leetle shorter. I've had a bad time with internet places. In
Pondicherry I spent quite some time trying to connect to my site before
discovering the manager had blocked the google blog site. Something to do with
Saddam Hussein. Then in Chidambaram I gave up when the ancient Windows 98 machine
hung for the third time. Now in Thanjavur on a computer with a faulty shift
key, every time I SAVe everything disappears!
Thanjavur. Wednesday
Well I wrote that yesterday. Here I am on another ancient slooow computer in
another place. My feet are being devoured by mosquitoes, but at least the
keyboard works. Here goes: this is what I wanted to say about Indian newspapers in Pondicherry (I've added the end of my stay in Pondicherry to the previous posting).
Indian newspapers
In the larger hotels I find a newspaper pushed under my bedroom door in the
morning and I've become quite attached to reading them. The indian press
appears earnest, with very little silly gossip. Here are some snippets whih
have interested me:
- A government ministry in Chennai announced that henceforth all bids for
contracts had to be done online and gave the site address for downloading the
form.
- the Sunday paper reported that Pondicherry had been exceptionally busy with
pongal shoppers (sounds familiar?) buying mainly clothes and food. There are 15
varieties of rice for sale. One man interviewed (a taxi driver with his mother)
said that Pongal was more important than the festival of Deepavali "for those
who toil".
- the mosquito problem is getting worse, with many more in the day as well as
night 9I can vouch for that) and there have been 61 cases of Chickungune,
whatever that might be. The mosquitoes are proving resistant to pesticide and
desilting (canals) programmes ahve failed. Nobody can come up with a solution..
- doctors have expressed concern at the number of fatalities from head injuries
caused by motor cyclists not wearing helmets. It is apparently the sixth
highest cause of death.
- a woman has lodged a harassment complaint at the All Women Police Station
against her husband (the son of a former minister) and his mother. She said
that when she married last year she brought a car and gold worth 100 sovereigns
as her dowry and now they were demnding a further Rs 10 lakhs.
- a BJP leader spoke out against the proposed Indo-US deal for genetically
modified seeds to be sold by multinationals. He said that apart from anything
else, the seeds had been developed in totally different climatic conditions.
Pondicherry. Chilling out
I've spent the morning washing clothes and catching up on a LOT of this blog. I just wish I could find the time and place to put up some photos. Still I'm in a very French style cafe, frequented mainly by young backpackers, with the most delicious cappucino (must have another before I leave). My first was at a table shared with a very attractive black woman from New York. She is a commercial lawyer taking a year out to travel, rather hoping that her career wont suffer too much. Initially I thought she might be Indian, given her hairstyle and clothes. When I said this to her, she said that she too ex0pected to merge into the landscape more, but was constantly stared at. And people find it hard to accept that she comes from New York, suggesting that maybe she comes from AFrica or Jamaica.
In the afternoon I walked over a lot of the area of Pondicherry which still has a French feel about it. It is a bit like a run-down version of Montpellier or another city in the Midi: there are signs of gracious walled gardens and grandiose stuccoed fronts, and the street signs look French. One street had a canal running down the centre which would have been very picturesque if hadn't stunk. Many of the mainly middle class homes are occupied by doctors and lawyers. It is a very Catholic area: Mission Street is home to a giant white cathedral, its ornate front reminding me a bit of some of the Afrikaner architecture I saw in South Africa. I passed quite a lot of French Indian ladies walking slowly down the street and noticed that they went into a very grand building beside the Cathedral - a convent perhaps? Yet at the same time it is essentially Indian: the colours are more vivid, the houses more chaotic, often with ornate iron gates with Indian figures intertwined with the metal lacery. The streets were cleaner: I noticed quite a few street cleaners, all women, patiently stooping as they used a bunch of twigs (like a broom without a handle) to sweep.
I then wandered through Government Place, a series of roads through a large, formal ornamental garden - or at least one half was, the other half had been turned into a fairground area, with a catherine wheel and familiar looking stalls, mainly selling things like candy floss. (That was where I also noticed posters advertising inoculation programmes, and an advert for 'Nop scalpel vasectomy'. The formal gardens were in front of Raj Nivas, a magnificent, gleaming white nineteenth century edifice, which is the official residence of the Governor of Pondicherry.
Most of the other tourists in Pondicherry are, predictably, French (though I still don't understand why, given that apart from the French-Indians, nobody here seems to speak French. Elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, there seems to be a proponderance of Germans, some Italians, and only a handful of Brits. Claire (my Kiwi friend) and I have noticed that amongst the independent travellers (as opposed to tour groups) women far outnumber men. We speculated as to why, and wondered if women actually prefer travelling to men.
Claire and I went back to our favourite restaurant, the Rendezvous, for our last meal in Chennai. I indulged in "Sizzling prawns", a heated plateful of Tiger Bay prawns on a base of sizzling lettuce leaves. Delicious.
ps A bit more from my many lost writings.
- I hadnt realised that before the French, Pondicherry had been a stopping place for the Romans! They used it en route to the Far East. Then came the Pallavas, Cholas, Portuguese, French and British (the latter two had a bloody battle in the 18th century, after which the French retained Pondicherry until 1954, when it joined the rest of India).
- Watching women pumping water in the street, where does the water come from? I would like to know more about water supplies, sanitation schemes etc.
- I saw two very different Catholic churches. In one the service was not in Tamil (the language everybody speaks here) but in English (why not French??). The other was in English. Both had loudspeakers blaring out the service to the neighbourhood. Both churches seemed completely full.
We are continuing the next bit of the journey together, hiring a car to tour the Chola temples, as the alternative is lots of bone-rattline local buses. Not an option for me, I suspect, besides taking too many days. I booked a car and driver for two days, for 3,300 rupees (about 40 pounds) and at the hotel offered a lift to two Belgian women in order to help cover the cost.
Although Pondicherry was not quite the laid-back French/Indian experience I had expected and there was a definite lack of obvious things to visit, I could see its charm and can understand why people dally and recover here, particularly if in a comfortable hotel like mine (Claire's was cheaper and less comfortable).
In the afternoon I walked over a lot of the area of Pondicherry which still has a French feel about it. It is a bit like a run-down version of Montpellier or another city in the Midi: there are signs of gracious walled gardens and grandiose stuccoed fronts, and the street signs look French. One street had a canal running down the centre which would have been very picturesque if hadn't stunk. Many of the mainly middle class homes are occupied by doctors and lawyers. It is a very Catholic area: Mission Street is home to a giant white cathedral, its ornate front reminding me a bit of some of the Afrikaner architecture I saw in South Africa. I passed quite a lot of French Indian ladies walking slowly down the street and noticed that they went into a very grand building beside the Cathedral - a convent perhaps? Yet at the same time it is essentially Indian: the colours are more vivid, the houses more chaotic, often with ornate iron gates with Indian figures intertwined with the metal lacery. The streets were cleaner: I noticed quite a few street cleaners, all women, patiently stooping as they used a bunch of twigs (like a broom without a handle) to sweep.
I then wandered through Government Place, a series of roads through a large, formal ornamental garden - or at least one half was, the other half had been turned into a fairground area, with a catherine wheel and familiar looking stalls, mainly selling things like candy floss. (That was where I also noticed posters advertising inoculation programmes, and an advert for 'Nop scalpel vasectomy'. The formal gardens were in front of Raj Nivas, a magnificent, gleaming white nineteenth century edifice, which is the official residence of the Governor of Pondicherry.
Most of the other tourists in Pondicherry are, predictably, French (though I still don't understand why, given that apart from the French-Indians, nobody here seems to speak French. Elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, there seems to be a proponderance of Germans, some Italians, and only a handful of Brits. Claire (my Kiwi friend) and I have noticed that amongst the independent travellers (as opposed to tour groups) women far outnumber men. We speculated as to why, and wondered if women actually prefer travelling to men.
Claire and I went back to our favourite restaurant, the Rendezvous, for our last meal in Chennai. I indulged in "Sizzling prawns", a heated plateful of Tiger Bay prawns on a base of sizzling lettuce leaves. Delicious.
ps A bit more from my many lost writings.
- I hadnt realised that before the French, Pondicherry had been a stopping place for the Romans! They used it en route to the Far East. Then came the Pallavas, Cholas, Portuguese, French and British (the latter two had a bloody battle in the 18th century, after which the French retained Pondicherry until 1954, when it joined the rest of India).
- Watching women pumping water in the street, where does the water come from? I would like to know more about water supplies, sanitation schemes etc.
- I saw two very different Catholic churches. In one the service was not in Tamil (the language everybody speaks here) but in English (why not French??). The other was in English. Both had loudspeakers blaring out the service to the neighbourhood. Both churches seemed completely full.
We are continuing the next bit of the journey together, hiring a car to tour the Chola temples, as the alternative is lots of bone-rattline local buses. Not an option for me, I suspect, besides taking too many days. I booked a car and driver for two days, for 3,300 rupees (about 40 pounds) and at the hotel offered a lift to two Belgian women in order to help cover the cost.
Although Pondicherry was not quite the laid-back French/Indian experience I had expected and there was a definite lack of obvious things to visit, I could see its charm and can understand why people dally and recover here, particularly if in a comfortable hotel like mine (Claire's was cheaper and less comfortable).
Saturday, 13 January 2007
Pondicherry - a French town?
After breakfast I felt strong enough to brave the streets to catch up on some shopping. I have two grotty teeshirts which is not enough. I found that there was a huge clothing bazaar just round the corner from the hotel, endless little material emporiums and tailors. Picking at random, I bought enough cotton (nothing special) from an emporium and went round the corner to find a tailor. I've negotiated that the three blouses will be delivered on Sunday evening. Not easy as the tailors are all busy making clothes for Pongal. The blouses will cost me a total of 770 rupees (about three quid each). My shampoo was quite expensive - 7o rupees (about 80p) but the eyedrops (I have either an allergy or conjunctivitis) were only 34 rupees (about 40p).
I then went down to the sea front to book tickets for our afternoon expedition from the tourist office. Apparently this was once a very French street, but now it lacks sadly in character and the 'shore' is an unappealing rocky beach. Still, it is popular with Indian families. Apparently this is true of all beaches; families travel from afar and fling themselves with abandon into the waves, often with fatal results, since they usually cant swim.
Claire and I met for lunch, in a totally Indian dive, where we had delicious thalis for less than a pound and ate of spotlessly clean tables. The young man opposite us was on a day trip from Chennai and laughed at our inefficient efforts to eat our rice (only three little dishes of sauces - in Chennai there can be dozens) with our fingers. We have learnt that there is always a sink where you can wash your hands before and after the meal, and that of course one eats only with the right hand. Not so easy when you are breaking up a chepati. As we left the restaurant we noticed that several people were eating their rice with the teaspoon provided with the sauces. Shucks!
Then back to the tourist office to wait for our bus tour price only 90 rupees). Apart from a garrulous retired Englishman, a self-appointed tourist consultant from Kerala, most of the fellow passengers were Indian families, and we wre treated throughout the trip to the most extraordinary exotic Bollywood saga. Well I think it was Indian, and the scenery often looked like the hills round Gingee, apparently a popular location for Chennai filmmakers. But every so often we looked up and the hero and heroine appeared to come from another part of Asia. Very weird, but funny.
The tour was bizarre, but then we are in India. The first stop was a boating lake. The others rushed off for a 20 minute boat trip. We passed on this, and contemplated life sitting on a bench beside the water. But we made damned sure we got back to the bus before others to get better seats.
The main destination was the model town of Auroville, a dozen kilometres outside Pondicherry. The story goes back to the early 20th century when a Bengali independence fighter and guru, Aurobindo Ghose sought refuge in Pondicherry. After his death in 1950, his ashram in the city continues to flourish. Indeed the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) is a rich, powerful political and economic force. Reading between the lines of the Rough Guide it is quite a sinister body.
Aurobindo's disciple was a French woman, the "Mother". She was the one who in 1968 began the foundations of the new city of harmony, Auroville. There were apparently 124 countries involved in this initial stage, today there are just over 2000 residents and the aim is for an eventual city of 50000.
The settlement is apparently an experiment in peaceful living - a non-religious movement, though there is a lot of talk of spiritual consciousness and inner peace. There are apparently experiments in ecological housing, eco-friendly agriculture, schools which have no exams and are orientated towards self-discovery rather than teaching, all energy is solar or windpowered - and so on. The philosophy is that you attain inner calm through hard physical work, though one of the small industries which earns them money is apparently a thriving computing business.
According to the Rough Guide, the residents are understandably pretty fed up with the stream of tourists, so we were not too annoyed (though frustrated) that we did not get to see any of their houses or work, and caught only the odd glimpse of a (usually European) resident.
Instead we were taken to Matri Mandir, the dwelling place of "Mother" and the heart of Auroville. There we saw a huge tree, the centre of the settlement, a huge Roman or Greek style amphitheatre, with at centre the post containing earth put there by the original 124 participating countries and as a backcloth a most amazing giant gold space-like globe containing a giant chrystal ball of special significance to the community. This is at present closed for restoration, but I fully expected to see characters in space suits emerging. Visitors were asked to be silent in the auditorium and by Indian standards they were. I did wonder what a predominantly Hindu people (though lots of Catholics in Pondicherry) made of all this, but it is clearly an extremely popular tourist destination. And really, despite our sceptical philosophies, Claire and I were both pretty impressed with the place.
There was a frustrating lack of information about how Auroville actually works, so I studied the Rough Guide and pumped our guide with questions. I'm not quite sure how reliable his answers were, maybe he just wanted me to stop asking questions. The people live in a number of communities within the settlement, just like any town, and get paid 4000 rupees per month (seems quite a lot by local standards, given they dont pay rent) for their work.
Government is by a council. When I asked in what language, the guide replied, in English. When I expressed surprise, given the history of Pondicherry, he agreed, French and Tamil as well. So who knows.
After the Mother's death, Auroville fell out with the SAS,which blocked funds to it until after a law suit. Funding is now restored, but it still perplexes us as to how it survives. But all power to them.
The next stop was another bizarre one, to a huge temple under construction (no photos allowed, dont know why since usually you can photo the exterior of temples). We had to walk along way over pebbly sand (very painful for us softies), past a huge roofed hall which seemed to be decorated with newspaper, rather like papier mache. Weird. The main part of the temple was big but otherwise not impressive. So why were we there? And who pays for new temples like this?
The final stop was the SAS headquarters. We opted out of this and headed to a coffee shop to collapse. Joined by the garrulous man from Kerala.
Then on to an internet place where I totally failed to make a connection to update this blog. So I waited until Claire had finished hers and then we went off to treat ourselves to an Indian-French meal at the Rendezvous, an upmarket restaurant packed with more upmarket tourists in the more French area of town.
As we climbed the steps a couple leaving said to us "well worth it". They were right. I had delicious tiger bay prawns and boiled vegetables, washed down by a Kingfisher beer and finished off with a slightly less brilliant cheesecake. Claire had a fish curry followed by a more successful chocolate mousse. Naughty us, it cost 600 rupees each (7.20 pounds). But we deserved it, we said...
We sat talking for hours. I havent really said much about Claire, but she is tremendously good value. Her degree was in genetics, but as there wasnt much work in this area, she left NZ for her OE (overseas experience) assuming wrongly the same would be true in Britain. So she ended up in Glasgow working for a company which sets up and runs call centres for companies. As she says, she 'blagged' her way into IT jobs, starting by writing databases and progressing rapidly to project management. When her original company was bought up and went downhill, she progressed to similar work in Birmingham but finally left, partly because her sister was getting married back home and she wanted to use the journey to do the travelling bit of the OE, and partly because she really could not stomach the call centre industry any longer.
She is a highly intelligent, very forceful 32-year-old, who probably scares the pants of many of her contemporaries. The sort of person I would have loved to hire in the Edinburgh computing service.
We've teamed up for the next part of the journey too, but I have said that she should only contribute within her planned budget, as her savings have to last till her flight to the UK in April. It would be nice to share the costs equally, but her company is what I am really benefitting from.
Claire then went off to her downmarket guesthouse and I returned to my relative luxury.
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