Subject: Beach Bumming
We're now in Mamallapuram, a small beach town in the
state of Tamil Nadu on India's east coast. The pace
here is slow (and that includes Internet connections),
the weather is warm but not overwhelmingly hot, the
ocean is deliciously cool and stunningly turquoise,
and it's the middle of February. As we start our tour
of the south, deep in the tropics, I've begun by
adjusting my wardrobe. I've now got a couple of
lungis, the blue-and-green plaid sarongs the locals
wear, but of course when us palefaces put them on we
tend to look more Scottish than Tamil.
To get here, we had to go first from Bombay to Madras
by train (or from Mumbai to Chennai, as they're now
officially known), which takes 26 hours or so. After
careful consideration, we decided to go first class in
a 2-tier AC car, and it's amazing how much you can
improve services by paying six times as much for them.
Obviously one advantage is air conditioning, but
there's more than that. On the AC cars, they actually
give you your own bedding and hot meals. And with two
tiers instead of three, you have a third fewer people.
But the biggest difference between the first-class AC
cars and the second-class cars is that on the latter,
anyone with an unreserved ticket can squat anywhere
within the car. So technically there's nothing wrong
with standing right over people with actual seats, or
sitting under their feet. Only in first class are you
given rights not only to your seat, but to the
surrounding air space.
The downside of the AC cars is that they isolate you.
You peer through yellow-tinted windows that don't
open, and you feel a million miles away from the
commotion outside at stations, or from the passing
banana groves and palm trees. At times I would walk to
the end of the car and lean out the door to get a feel
for the outside air -- progressively hotter and denser
-- and the new surroundings -- men in lungis and
dhotis (lungis tucked under like diapers), darker
faces, curlier hair.
India's south is a different world from its north,
with a very different history. The story of the north
is one of recurrent land invasions from north and
west: the ancient Aryans who brought Brahmanic
Hinduism and the caste system, Alexander the Great,
the Muslim invaders of the 11th and 12th centuries,
the Mughals, and at last the British (though they
marched in from Bengal in the east). These jostling
population waves and their attendant conflicts are
still central to north Indian politics, as Dalits
(untouchables) struggle for recognition in an
Aryan-dominated society, Muslims and even Sikhs face
increasing hostility from Hindu fundamentalism, and
the government struggles to mold the British-style
bureaucracy into something more useful for Indians.
The south by contrast has seen far less conquest. The
Aryans never conquered the south but didn't colonize it, and the languages here
are Dravidian, not Indo-European. The Muslim invaders
never got down here either; what Muslims there are
arrived as traders from Arabia. The Dutch, French and
Portuguese carved out small half-moon-shaped colonies
along the coasts, but these were really trading posts
more than conquests, and they fit with a long
tradition of giving land to traders from outside --
even the Jews of Cochin once had their own small
kingdom. The south's links with the outside world are
extensive, and they have largely to do with trade: the
Arabians, the Indonesians and Southeast Asians, the
Chinese, even the Greeks sent ships to both coasts of
the Indian peninsula. Only the British ever seriously
colonized the south, and then for far less time and
with far less vigor than in the north.
Ultimately the south's deepest conflict is probably
with the north, rather than with some outside power.
The vast populations who speak Dravidian languages are
fiercely opposed to the creeping process of making
Hindi the national language. And because Brahmins are
an ethnic group that came from the north, there are
relatively few in the south, and their religious
status is less respected; instead there are more
indigenous devotional cults to various deities and
gurus. The south even has its own version of the great
Indian epic the Ramayana. Originally written by
Valmiki, a sage who lived in what is now southern
Nepal, it tells the story of King Rama, who reigned in
the north. Rama's wife Sita is kidnapped by the evil
demon Ravana and taken back to his kingdom in Lanka
(today's Sri Lanka); eventually Rama defeats Ravana,
with the help of Hanuman the Monkey God. (Readers of
The Iliad can note the similarities.) In Valmiki's
telling, Ravana is simply evil as an archetype, like
Darth Vader. But there is a Tamil retelling in which
Ravana becomes a sort of antihero, a sympathetic and
popular character. Like the expansion of Islam, the
Aryan invasion is a dynamic process that continues to
this day, as does resistance against it.
*
There is a shore temple in Mamallapuram, and some
lovely carved rocks, but mostly we've been enjoying
the mellow beach town aspect of the place. Over the
weekend there's been some kind of Hindu festival,
which drew colorful crowds to the beach, and we joined
in the bustle and hubbub on Saturday night as the full
moon lit up the incoming tide. Now and then we'd see a
group of men in dhotis, their faces painted up with
tikka, carrying some cloth-and-flower-covered god on a
palanquin. They take them down to the ocean to bathe.
And in a large freshwater tank along the road to
Mamallapuram's famous shore temple, we saw great big
floats decorated in flowers and flashing lights.
But mostly we've just been enjoying the slowness, the
warmth, the gorgeous beach. It can be hard when you're
traveling to adjust to the different pace of each town
you go to, from the madness of Varanasi to the exotic
industriousness of Rajasthan to the thrum of Bombay,
and now into this tropical langor. But a couple of
days seems to have done the trick, and I'm adjusting
well to beach bumming.
Today we leave Mamallapuram and head for Pondicherry,
a former French colony further down the coast. I'll
tell you how that is when I find out.
Happy February from a man in a cotton skirt,
=====
Subject: Life Among the Tamil Nadudes The coastal town of Pondicherry is not actually in
Tamil Nadu; rather it forms the bulk of the Union
Territory of Pondicherry, the rest of which consists
of small bits as far away as Orissa to the north and
Kerala on the opposite coast. It's as if the state of
Rhode Island included Santa Barbara and a small chunk
of Maine. What these pockets have in common is that as France's colonial territory
in India -- once the largest holdings of any European power -- declined, these were the bits that remained French until independence.
Pondy, as it's known, is still very much in India, but
there are numerous reminders of its colonial past:
street signs referring to "Rue" this or that, the
tricolor flying over the French consulate, the
red-tiled pastel buildings, the restaurants offering
French cuisine, the old Catholic churches. But there
is something to the whole vibe of the place, a bit
less tangible, that also feels different. It's a small
town, but with a kind of bustle and even a degree of
hipness, which is surprising. The Indian aesthetics
have been mixed with a French flair for creating
dramatic spaces, so that instead of mere shops, you
find yourself delighting in boutiques.
Other than its Frenchness, Pondicherry is best known
for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, which was founded in
1926 by the guru Sri Aurobindo and his "spiritual
collaborator," a Frenchwoman who became known as The
Mother. Under her guidance, the ashram grew into a
major cultural presence, running schools, hotels,
businesses and charities, and it remains both
prominent and popular among the people of Pondicherry.
(Their philosophy, as far as I was able to gather, involves something about a universal Self from
which we are separated by the incongruities of matter,
but which we can come to know through a process of
mental evolution.)
The Mother is a
highly respected figure in Pondicherry and in India
more generally. Which is why her birthday is
considered a holiday, on which devotees file through
the Ashram and receive *darshan* -- a moment in which
you and a god make eye contact -- by viewing her
personal belongings. Which is why great numbers of
worshippers arrive in town in the days leading up to
her birthday. Which is why, 2003 being her birth's
125th anniversary, the president of India (a largely
ceremonial post) was making his first-ever visit to
the Union Territory of Pondichery. Which is why, when
we arrived in the late afternoon knowing nothing about
any of this, we couldn't find a hotel room.
The places run by the ashram were hopelessly booked
out, and so were a couple of other hotels we tried.
Sweaty and exhausted after wandering about with our
backpacks in the tropical sun, we finally climbed into
a rickshaw and offered the driver 50 rupees ($1) if he
could find us a hotel room. It took him a couple of
tries, and we were almost ready to despair, but at
last he found us a reasonable place, where for 350
rupees we could stay in a concrete bunker, but a
spacious one with a television.
Pondicherry looked infinitely more appealing the next
day, after we'd showered and had a good sleep. There
was decent food to eat for light meals, and some very
nice French restaurants for dinner, and we enjoyed
ourselves mostly by shopping in the stylish boutiques.
After a couple of days, we'd seen what Pondicherry had
to offer, and we decided to get out of town before the
day of the darshan proper.
*
From Pondy we took a local bus that wound along tiny
roads through villages of thatched buildings and past
palm-fringed fields and banana groves, eventually
crawling into our next destination, Chidambaram, which
is known for its sizeable temple. This was back in
Tamil Nadu, and there was something grim about the
place. It had all the grubbiness and discomfort of an
industrial city, but was too small to offer much of
anything in return. The best restaurants in town
aren't actually good. And unfortunately, neither was
the temple.
Transport in Tamil Nadu can be quite a hassle because
it's mostly done on local buses, which are great
crowded rattling heaps -- fine for three or four
hours, but we weren't keen on sitting on one for the
eight or ten it would take to get to Madurai. So
instead we gave up on Tamil Nadu and decided to go to
Cochin as soon as possible.
Of course, from Chidambaram you can't get to Cochin.
We decided to make our way to the nearest attraction
with a rail hub, and that was Thanjavur (Tanjore).
With a population of nearly 400,000, it was the
biggest Tamil city we'd spent any time in, and it felt
far more vibrant than the villages. And unlike
Chidambaram, Thanjavur has a phenomenal temple. The
gates are great towering wedges encrusted with
sculpture, and the central courtyard is full of
interesting, elaborately carved shrines. Dominating
the scene is the enormous tower of the main shrine,
inside of which is a Shiva lingam (phallus) that's
something like 4 meters across.
The temple is also notable in that the local maharaja,
under Gandhi's influence, opened it to all people,
even Harijans (untouchables), a category in which we
casteless foreigners are included. So anyone who wants to is free
to wander the grounds, and plenty of locals took
advantage of its spacious, tree-shaded grass fields as
a place to while away the afternoon.
In fact, the temple was so good and so interesting
that we almost considered changing plans and staying
in Tamil Nadu. Almost. But then Cochin was beckoning
us, famous Cochin, capital of the Indian spice trade,
home to Jews and Muslims, still carrying the marks of
the passing Chinese and Portuguese and Dutch. It was
time to leave Tamil Nadu behind.
Next time, Cochin: Most Charming Place on Earth?
-Josh
=====
[beach bumming]
[life among the tamil nadudes]
Date: Mon Feb 17, 2003
Josh
"Nothing in the country is ever quite what you expect, and the only thing to
expect is the unexpected which comes in many forms and will always want to sit
next to you." - Lonely Planet India
Date: Wed Feb 26, 2003
"Nothing in the country is ever quite what you expect, and the only thing to
expect is the unexpected which comes in many forms and will always want to sit
next to you." - Lonely Planet India
