So, let’s start with infrastructure. Peirce & Leslie is fabulous–exceedingly professional, attentive to every detail and willing, amiably, to turn on a dime to accomplish whatever we want to do. Like all good infrastructure, it’s virtually invisible, but makes an enormous difference in the travel experience. You may (or may not) pay a bit more, but, if you do, it’s worth every rupee.
We were blessed with excellent guides throughout. As any traveler knows, the quality of a guide has a dramatic impact on your experience. We were particularly fortunate to have Jay with us for ten days.
Spending most of the trip with Steve and Karen was a treat. They are easy, curious, smart and fun. Traveling with others is tricky, at best. Great friends do not necessarily make great travel companions. We count Steve and Karen in both categories, and only hope that they count us that way, as well.
The trip itself was terrific. Carol and I play a game at the end of each trip, separately listing our favorite moments of the trip. As usual, there was a strong correlation between our choices. With slight differences in order between us, the top ten were virtually identical. Carol did rank her blessing from a temple elephant putting his trunk on her head highly, and I certainly can’t disagree with that assessment. I only wish I’d been so blessed.
Mine were the caves (especially Ajanta), the Dabbawallas ( lunch deliverers in Mumbai), lunch with Sabita and family in Chennai, the dance recital in Chennai, putting the god to sleep ceremony at Minakshi temple, visiting Deborah the ceramicist in Pondicherry, dinner with Anil and his wife and friends in Mumbai, elephant bathing and procession in Cochin, the Dhobi Ghat (open air laundry) in Mumbai and the houseboat ride with Ashok in the backwaters of Kerala. The list was made en route to Mumbai, or I probably would have included the visit to the slums on that list. Other things that both Carol and I loved were the ox cart ride in Chettinad, the terra cotta horses, the movie and the wedding we crashed.
Striking, but not surprising about the list is that, with the exception of the caves, none of the top items is a temple, palace, fort or museum (to be fair, Carol ranked the bronze dancing Shivas we saw in a museum highly). Not that those all weren’t interesting and worthwhile, but it’s the personal and real life experiences that make a trip. I should add to the last sentence “for us.”
One of my favorite moments in the trip was when our guide, Jay, talked about taking Indian tourists to Europe and how what mattered most for them was singing and watching movies on a bus that was traveling on a highway at high speed, bringing home small souvenir/gifts to subtly show their status as travelers and, incidentally, seeing a place or two. He described this without being judgmental. What interested these people was having an experience different from their everyday lives and, in that sense, they were attracted by the same thing we are. I can also readily imagine sophisticated American travelers who are blown away by the architecture, history and museums. But not us. (Though I have to admit that we were blown away by the architecture, history and museums in Egypt. On that trip, though, we lacked the kind of personal connections and touches that we had on this trip.)
I’m always struck on a trip like this by what a privileged life we live. And, also, by what a sheltered and provincial one. Ours is a young and isolated country. What do we know of rulers from a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago? And how can we understand what it means to be invaded and ruled by different empires over the centuries? Are the countries we’ve invaded (or, excuse me, liberated or supported) in the last fifty years feeling what prior generations in India felt during the periods we heard about on this trip? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some of that kind of history, at least if you didn’t have to live through it? Or, have we achieved some of the “benefits” of invasion and colonization (how’s that for a concept?) through immigration and, if so, what do our current immigration policies portend for the future?
At times, I’ve poked a bit of fun at the religious stories or names we heard about. That’s just my approach to life; I don’t mean to belittle the beliefs of others. Religions and their appeal have real interest for me. To be honest, I love the Hindu stories and gods, and their many characteristics, incarnations and consorts, though I confuse them constantly. What right-thinking, sane person would not love to worship an elephant god who brings good luck? And how can one not respect a religion whose adherents not only wash themselves before entering the temple to worship their gods, but also scrub down the elephants who carry those gods?
Finally, I have to mention the world’s greatest travel companion, my wife. Sharing these trips with her increases the joy of traveling exponentially.
And, speaking of companions, thanks for following, and for your many encouraging comments. It’s been fun to have you along. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the trip, perhaps even learned something along the way, and that you’ll decide to join us again, when we go to Ghana in September. For you, no visa or inoculations required.
We’d booked dinner at the seafood restaurant at the hotel last night. Lovely rooftop setting overlooking the water, but when we determined that there were only full, 3-course dinners, we elected to move into History, where we’d eaten the night before. Rejected our first table in favor of one away from the live music, which was more pleasant/less dissonant than last night’s offering. Excellent, spicy duck dish.
Room service decided that we should have eggs Benedict for breakfast, rather than what we’d ordered the night before. After checking out, we are driven the hour and a quarter to the Cochin airport, escorted by a Peirce & Leslie agent, then handed off to another P&L agent at the airport who escorts us in, checks our bags, gets our boarding passes and points us in the direction of the security checkpoint. This is the type of personal service we have gotten throughout and, while one could most-likely make do with less, it’s undeniably nice, and greatly reduces the anxiety associated with air travel.
On the other end, we’re met by our P&L representative, Suresh, and the driver we’d had earlier in Mumbai, Mohammed (who, embarrassingly, we do not recognize). The message that we wanted a tour of the slums had not made its way to Suresh (who, we later found out, had been up all night working last night). He made a call and said, no problem, we will visit the slums, but we should not get out of the car, because it was Mohammed’s birthday (not our driver) and there were big crowds and celebrations. The celebrations would start late in the day, but we encountered some early parades, flags and loud music. Mohammed-the-driver will celebrate, too, and though he gets a call from his 8-year old son, who wants to know when he’ll be home to take him to the festivities, we never have a sense that Mohammed is rushing or anxious to drop us off.
Instead of going to the slums near the airport, Suresh said he’d take us to the larger slum, where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed. En route, Suresh explained that 40% of the people in Mumbai (or 8 million people) lived in slums. People came from villages to the city, expecting to realize their dreams, but soon discovered the reality. Some 60-65% of those living in slums were Muslims, but the percentage was about 75% in the slum we were going to.
When we got to the slums, we did get out of the car and walked around for almost an hour, getting a surprising education along the way. There is industry in the slums, people making pottery, leather goods, candies. These are sold in shops just outside the slums for a fraction of the price they bring in other stores. People in the slums were very friendly, many wanting their pictures taken or to say hello and shake hands. In general, people looked clean and healthy, and happy. (I admit that I have no basis for saying the latter, but it was definitely my impression from looking at people and from the brief interactions that we had.) For people living there, Suresh says, the area is quite safe. So, while I’m not ready to move in quite yet, I emerged with quite a different impression than the one I had going in. We owe our good friend. Leslie Paul, a debt of gratitude for the education we got, because it was her persistence that convinced us that we needed to make the visit.
Across the street is an open lot, where boys are playing cricket. Looming over the lot is a large apartment block built by the government.
Suresh says that people will live there a short time, sell them at a profit and move back to the slums; not what the government had in mind. We walk past leather shops. Carol looks at belts, but does not buy. I go into the next store and wind up buying a pair of leather shoes, for $30. Suresh is a little delayed getting back to the bus because he, too, has bought a pair. When Carol and I admire them, he says I can get a pair like it, and walks me back to the store. Unfortunately, though, they had only one in that size, which he had bought. Despite my protestations, he insists that I take the pair he’s bought, since he can easily go back any time. So, I wind up with two pairs of leather shoes for sixty bucks. Such a deal.
We go from the slums to our decidedly upscale hotel, the Leela Kempinski, very near the international terminal of the airport that we need to get to at three in the morning. At the hotel, I manage to get my iPad, which just stopped working at the Cochin airport, to start again, with the help of the hotel IT guy. Carol and I go down for a good dinner at the hotel, and plan to retire very early in order to get up for the 2:15 AM room service breakfast that we just ordered.
I’ll try to wind up this blog with some reflections From the plane tomorrow.
We were told that we could not visit the Jewish Synagogue today, because it was Shabbat. On further inquiry yesterday, though, Jay found that there was a service that we could attend. After breakfast we drove, then walked, to the synagogue, where we were told services would start at 8:45. We walked past many interesting shops, some of which were been swept out and prepared for opening. We waited outside the synagogue, while the guard opened the door, but made it clear that we were not welcome to enter until a congregant arrived. The once-thriving Jewish community that numbered over 100,000 has dwindled to less than a minyan, almost all of them elderly.
More than an hour late, we were surprised to see a tall, thin man, dressed in black, with a hat and a long beard stride down the street, with a few others. Turns out that he is a member of Chabad from Israel who, with his wife, have lived in Cochin for more than two years, seeking to keep the Jewish community alive. We walked into the synagogue, the women sitting in an area in back, separate from the main synagogue. Eleven hundred handmade tiles decorate the floor, lamps and chandeliers from Europe hang from the ceiling, and wooden benches line the sides of the room. A wooden and brass circular structure is in the center and serves as the bimah.
We chat briefly with the rabbi, who asks our Hebrew names, which I know, but Steve does not. He asks how long we can stay and seems disappointed, but not surprised or dismissive, when we tell him only a short time. There are eleven men in the service, which I think is an unusual crowd for the synagogue. Several are young Israelis and one an older gentlemen, born in Rumania, but now living in Baltimore, who travels the world in his spice trade business. Certainly there could be no more appropriate place to pray than Cochin for one in that trade. He is friendly and chatty. He and his wife moved last night to a small hotel near the synagogue so that he could walk to services this morning.
The services are “led” first by one young man and then by the rabbi. “Led” consists of davening, sometimes inaudibly and sometimes chanting in the structure in the center. I can pick up and join in on only a few prayers. There is something sad and lovely about praying in this more than four century-old synagogue, knowing that Jews around the world are all participating in the same type of worship.
Of course, Jews were not the only foreigners to influence this area. Kerala, and especially Cochin, was one of the main ports on the spice route. The history of Kerala reflects the significant influences these spice traders left behind. Christianity first came to India through Kerala, and the Islamic influence in the state can be seen when traveling north. Even after they left, the cultural influence is still seen in the architecture of Cochin.
We stay at the synagogue for less than an hour, make a contribution on the way out and then wander back to our bus past interesting stores that we do not have any real time to explore.
We walk with Jay and the Sugarmans along the area that Carol and I walked yesterday morning, and Jay explains what is going on. We stop to watch some very quick auctions of freshly caught fish that will be taken to hotels and shops, and sold today.
We continue walking through the narrow roads of the area that is today referred to as the Heritage Zone, seeing various architectural styles reflecting the many cultures that lived here. Dutch houses stand next to spacious porticoed British plantation style homes. Further down, we go through the Church of St Francis, built by the Portuguese.
We return to the hotel and have lunch with the Sugarmans, who are about to check out of the hotel, as they are moving to a new city in Kerala tonight.
We take the bus to the Mattancherri Palace, which was commissioned by the Portuguese for the Raja of Kochi in exchange for trading rights, and remodeled extensively by the Dutch. The palace is two stories high and is built in the traditional Kerala style known as “nalukattu” (four buildings around a central courtyard). Made of wood and richly carved, the palace exhibits memorabilia from the Raja of Kochi’s collection, but it is best known for its outstanding murals painted on the walls. Fast fading, you can still see some of these excellent 16th century paintings illustrating episodes from the great Indian epic – The Ramayana. This is an interesting place, but we don’t really have enough time to digest it.
Kochi’s ancient Shiva Temple is popularly known as Ernakulathappan (catchy, huh?). The annual festival in the deity’s honor, Ernakulathappan Uthsavom, is today and includes a procession with caparisoned elephants, special pujas, classical dances, concerts and firework displays. Because of our timing, we are able only to catch the bathing and decorating of the elephants, but that is quite fun to see, and, at least we had a taste of the festival (albeit a small taste) last night. Too bad that we can’t see the full-blown festival, but you can’t catch everything.
We say goodbye to Karen and Steven. In a touching show I’d affection, Karen gives Carol and me six Sodukos (or however you spell the damn things) to frustrate us on our trip home. It’s been as marvelous to be with the Sugarmans as we’d anticipated, and we had very high expectations.
We ride back to the hotel and say goodbye to Jay, who has been a wonderful guide. He is knowledgable on an incredible range of topics, and could not have been more flexible in accommodating all of our whims and changes of plans. Most recently, he facilitated, with Shonali and her amazing group at Peirce & Leslie, getting an earlier flight to Mumbai tomorrow, arranging for us to see some of the slums there and changing the arrival time for us at the hotel in Mumbai.
Carol is at an hour-long cooking class that she had signed up for yesterday, but missed because of our late return to the hotel. We missed an hour-long cruise we’d booked at the hotel for 5:30, but we knew that was extremely iffy.
Breakfast outside on the water is very pleasant (and slow). Carol and I walk into town by the sea to watch fisherman raise and lower the large, counter-weighted Chinese fishing nets, hung on spider-like wooden arms, to pull in the the fish and sell them in stalls. A sign on a restaurant says, “You buy it, we cook it.”
Driving to Alleppy, we pass some elephants, decorated for participation in one of the temple festivals going on. We are to visit one of the festivals tomorrow.
After more than an hour, we arrive at Alleppy, where we board our houseboat to begin our tour of the famous Kerala backwaters, a leisurely journey through the Kuttanadu area of the backwaters. This is one of the few areas where farming is done below sea level, fields having been reclaimed from what once was a lake. We travel through the labyrinthine maze of canals and waters ways passing rice paddy fields, banana and coconut plantations, small villages and boats commuting between villages and ferrying children to school and farmers to the markets. We see coracles, small, round, bamboo boats from which a small family fishes and later uses the boat as shelter to sleep on the shore.
Our houseboat has two bedrooms and baths, a comfortable, shaded deck area and a kitchen from which an excellent lunch is prepared for us. We are joined by Ashok Koshy, a charming fellow who has lived in England, travelled in the US and has a home in the backwaters. Ashok is a professional photographer and an avid flutist. As he and a colleague have collaborated on a book of photos and poems, he, Carol and I have a lot in common to talk about. Our four and a half hours on the boat are delightful and a very relaxing change of pace.
In the bus, Jay regales us with very amusing stories about large groups of Indians who he takes to Europe, who want nothing more than to sing and watch movies as their tour bus travels at high speeds on uncrowded highways. Anything they may see outside is incidental to the trip, the main thrust of which takes place on the bus. They will travel only in a group and are uneasy about venturing anywhere without his say-so. This is an interesting and astounding difference from the travel we do.
While Jay extolls the virtues of Kerala, he is also frank to admit the problems. One of the primary issues is a high alcoholism rate, which creates many attendant problems, including some periodic mass family suicides to avoid the debt collectors they cannot pay. The government has now made all liquor sales come from government-owned stores, and we see lines of men outside these stores, waiting to buy liquor.
On our way back to the hotel, we pass a procession of musicians and three elephants making their way to a temple for a festival, guided by mahouts, the elephant trainers who live with them. The elephants stop at homes along the way for offerings to the god, and we are offered bananas by a smiling 10-year old girl at one of the houses.
After returning to the hotel, we have an excellent dinner at History restaurant, on the second floor of Brunton Boatyard.
Today is a travel day. We spend the morning at the hotel, relaxing, as running back into town (half hour drive each way) to see more of the markets does not seem worth it. As there are no direct flights, to get to Cochin from Madurai, we need to fly first to Chennai, which is in the wrong direction. There we have over three hours in the airport, before connecting to Cochin. If we had another day or two, we would have driven the ten hours from Madurai to Cochin, crossing the mountains, seeing tea plantations and, perhaps, even stopping at a game preserve. That would have been nice.
I have not commented on the begging, which is a disturbing element of travel in India. It occurs primarily around temple areas in the South. As advised, we do not respond to beggars, but they are a reminder of the gaps between haves and have-nots, in India and around the world.
Though I’ve alluded to the traffic, I probably have not given an adequate sense of the chaos and harrowing nature of travel by road. There is a constant din of honking, so much so that I asked Jay whether it’s possible to buy a car that honks automatically every four seconds, to save the driver the effort. This honking affects one as a pedestrian, as well, causing you, at first, to jump each time you hear it, walking along the street, or crossing over. After a while, though, you become inured to and ignore it, and learn that the trick to crossing the street is to appear oblivious to the traffic bearing down on you.
Contrasting elements of every day life are the incredible color of Indian life and the garbage, strewn everywhere, and especially along the roads. The predominance of plastic refuse is a ready reminder of the vexatious nature of that substance. So far as one can tell, Indians are oblivious to the trash. Jay says it is a matter of education.
Read The Hindu newspaper at breakfast, which gives one a good sense of what’s going on. The virulent attacks by one political party against another demonstrates that we’re not alone in that regard, and a small article, buried in the middle of the paper, about Romnay’s decisive win over Gingrich in Florida is a reminder that the US is not the center of the universe to the rest of the world. An interesting side note is an article about the movie The Help, and a reflection on its implications for Indian domestic workers.
Spend part of our free time during travel discussing with Jay the myriad differences between North and South India. History: the North was invaded and controlled by Aryans. Language: North language is Hindi, having common ties to languages of Europe, while South is Dravidian. Food: a different, larger kind of rice in South, North has corn and wheat in meals. Infrastructure: much better in South. Education: better in South. Weather: South has weather that’s the sane, year-around, with either one or two predictable monsoon seasons; weather in North has extremes of heat and cold. Religion: South 85% Hindu, North more than 20% Muslim and was about 50% prior to partition and creation of Pakistan. Darker skinned people In South. South economically better off than North.
Travel is okay, but long, especially since I’m not feeling at the top of my game. Arriving in Kerala and driving an hour and a quarter to our hotel in Cochin, one notices immediate differences. Billboards are for much more upscale products and are virtually entirely in English. We pass huge Toyota and other car dealerships, and large shopping malls. Roads are much better with no traffic coming right at us and no honking. Of course, that’s not to say that we don’t pass three heavily-decorated elephants being used for a temple festival. Communist party flags line the road because of a big conference to be held in the area. Communists have been democratically elected from time to time.
We reach the Brunton Boatyard, a relatively new hotel (ten or so years), with a very gracious, old feel to it. We have large suites, looking out on the water; extremely comfortable. Service at the restaurant is slow, and, as I’m not feeling that great, I eat only about half of my roast beef (people in Kerala eat beef) sandwich, before going up to the room.
We’re dropped by a van a few blocks from our main point of interest today. We walk past houses, swept clean each morning and decorated with rice powder designs that will be eaten by ants by the end of the day.
As we walk, Jay tells us the legend surrounding the origins of Madurai, which involves a story about a couple who has a young girl with three breasts. They are upset about the fact that she’s a girl, and about her deformity. Oh, hell, i can’t remember all the twists and turns, but she kills a demon, marries Shiva, gets back down to two breasts and turns out to be a beautiful fish-eyed goddess (apparently, women with fish eyes are real knock outs), one of the incarnation of Parvathi. As the story goes, Shiva then looks down and drops of nectar fall from his locks, resulting in the city being named Madurai or “The City of Nectar”. So, have you got it?
Ancient Madurai was a center of Tamil culture, famous for its writers and poets, and the history goes back to the 6th century BC when it traded with Greece and Rome. It’s one of the longest continually-occupied cities in the world. The Nayaka Kings laid out the old own in the pattern of a lotus with narrow streets surrounding the Minakshi Temple, which is a temple complex of thirteen buildings constructed over a period of several centuries. Minakshi is the “fish eyed goddess” who is also the consort of Shiva. Shiva has a temple dedicated to him in the complex. Since Minakshi is the presiding goddess, the daily ceremonies are first performed at her shrine and then at the shrine of Shiva. This is a living temple and each shrine has priests performing rituals in front of them, and it’s really the varied life around the temple that is interesting. I’ll try to convey some sense of it through a bunch of photos.
First, there are the impressive towers of the temple
We see a group of men moving a heavy sedan platform on which a statue of Parvathi will be carried around.
There are myriad shops surrounding the temple complex, some selling offerings for pilgrims to bring to the gods. Housed in the remains of a 16th century ruin nestled amongst the decorated pillars and carvings are a remarkable collection of stalls selling everything from silk scarves to pink plastic (Carol bargains for four barrettes for the girls, getting four for $2.40, and causing the rest of us to wait ten minutes to talk the seller down from the outrageous $3 price he’d proposed.)
A group of men and women are clearing cement from an area in the center that will eventually be filled with water, passing heavy containers of cement from one to the next.
People pray.
Priests sit at the shrines, or have tea together after prayers.
Children join their parents and adoring grandparents, some of them brought to be blessed by the gods.
A newly-wed bride is fitted with toe rings.
Shrines are decorated with flowers.
We explore the markets surrounding the temple, passing streets selling an extraordinary variety of items. But there is order in the chaos. The area is a like a huge open air department store, each street dedicated to one particular item – stationery, flowers and fruits, vessels, items used in worship etc. There is even one lane dedicated to bananas – South India boasts over 50 varieties. We are joined by locals, shopping in typically colorful dress.
The highlight of the walk is a stop at a tea shop, where we have delicious “meter” coffees, mixed by the proprietor by pouring them from a height of a meter. Starbucks is due to come to India soon, and we’re guessing that the coffee, which we paid fourteen cents a cup for, will probably go for about $3.50.
We drive a short distance and stop for an excellent lunch at a small hotel restaurant, the return to our hotel for rest, relaxation, blogging, etc., before the evening activities.
Picked up at 6:00, we head for a movie theater. Since we’ve heard so much about the movie-craziness of Tamilnadu, we decide to give it a try, and, as we’re our own bosses, there’s no problem in doing that. Jay has gone ahead to purchase tickets in the VIP area (cost $1.20), which is air conditioned. The movie is Slave Girl, made in 1968, starring MGR, former leader of Tamil, and co-starring the current leader as his leading lady.
The film (and it IS a film, complete with a projector that stops at random times, is a VERY corny, dated story of good versus evil, with lots of sword fights, rescues, flashbacks and singing. We make it until intermission, about an hour and a half.
We head for a hotel for a snack/dinner, which does the trick, and then head to the Minakshi temple for the nightly symbolic putting to bed of Shiva and “Fisheyes”. This involves a procession, with priests carrying an ark-like, small silver house with a black stone (Shiva linga) representing Shiva inside. There is music, fire, prayers, waving of fans, blowing of conch and sprinkling of water. The concept is not unlike the putting to sleep of Mother Ganges each night that we witnessed in Varanasi on our first trip to India, and it’s well worth seeing. We go barefoot, as we have in all living Hindu temples that we’ve entered.
Driving home at 10:30, Madurai is still very-much open for business (though not as bustling as it was on our way to the temple at 8:45), as Jay says it will remain well into the wee hours of the morning, unlike any other Indian city. We return to the hotel and forego a drink in favor of retiring.
Today is a slower-paced schedule, which is a welcome change. And we don’t have to go into any damn Hindu temples. I’m kidding, of course, as the temples have been great. But a day off from Lord Shiva feels welcome to this Jewish guy.
We have stayed at some terrific hotels, and this one, set in a magnificent old mansion, is elegant and distinctive, with rooms on two floors around an open atrium.
We travel around Chettinad by ox-drawn cart, a leisurely and great way to do it (except when you come face to face with oncoming motorized traffic). It’s a sign of the times that towards the end of our ride the old ox-cart driver receives a call on his cell phone.
The Chettinad region at one time represented the wealth of Tamil Nadu. The many villages were once the homes of fabulously wealthy merchant families known as the Chettiars. Today it is an area of mostly deserted magnificent mansions. Just one of the Chettiar houses used 300 tons of satinwood and Burma teak in its construction. One of the specialties of these houses is the woodcarving especially on the doors.
We stopped to visit one of the run-down, occupied mansions and saw the inside and some of its inhabitants.
With recent interest by tourists, some of the old mansions are being bought and refurbished, used either as hotels or homes. As they now stand, real estate parlance would call them “handy man specials.”
We forsook our oxen for the minibus, and drove to a place where beautiful tiles are being made out of cement. We saw the whole process, which involves putting a piece of glass into a metal frame, pouring paint on the glass, using forms to create a design, sprinkling on dry cement, pouring wet cement into the frame and smoothing it out, drying it for a day, submerging it in water for two days to strengthen the cement and, finally, allowing it all to dry for five days and removing the glass. We’ve seen demonstrations of many crafts and arts around the world, but this one was a first for two reasons: we actually understood it and nobody tried to sell us anything afterwards. The end product is quite wonderful.
After the demonstration, we walked around a nearby vegetable market.
From there, we drove to another hotel, housed in a large mansion, for an excellent traditional South Indian Tali lunch, composed of many different dishes spread on a banana leaf and eaten with your hands. The owner of the home chatted amiably with us. This hotel was also lovely, but not quite as nice as the one we stayed in.
We set out for Madurai, stopping at a town to walk through an antique market, where Karen and Steve bought a brass knocker for their front door. Along the road today we have seen large numbers of pilgrims who are walking to a temple some 200 kilometers away. The walk will take them five days, and they will make an offering when they arrive. Jay tells us that a very large pilgrimage in Kerala, an area we will visit later, attracted 20,000,000 people over a month and a half period, and raised over 180,000,000 rupees in contributions.
We drive on through Madurai, the second largest Tamil city at 1.4 million people, and on to The Gateway Hotel, situated on a mountain top, high above Madurai. We have a lovely view, with a large terrace that overlooks the city.
We relax in room, then walk up to the restaurant for a pretty good dinner with pretty lousy service.
After breakfast, we’re shuttled from our hotel to our minibus for an 8:30 start. As usual, there’s a lot to see and talk about, goats being herded, flightless ducks eating the remnants of rice stalks, which they’ll help to fertilize with their droppings, Jay brings topics alive by using articles from today’s newspaper. Local boys have been injured in bull turning, grasping bulls by the horns and turning them, a rather dangerous sport. Supplementing his discussion yesterday of free color TVs for poor people, Jay points to a photo of a leader from a nearby state presenting a free mixer/blender to a poor person in fulfillment of a campaign promise. He also shows us an article about a chair in Indian studies having been created at the University of Chicago in the name of a Hindu Indian Swami who had lectured there 150 years ago, and been one of India’s first cultural ambassadors.
Jay also elaborated on the obsession of Tamil people (not all Indians) with movies. Poor people will sell blood to get money to buy movie tickets, every house has pictures of movie stars, MGR, leader of Tamil, and a huge movie star had the largest ever funeral, more people attended than for Ghandi, lines formed for miles to donate kidney to him, and their were many suicides on his death. His successor in office is one of his former first ladies in films. People will do anything to see a movie, Getting in line at 6AM to get a ticket for a 10 PM show. Movies are the number one source of entertainment, feeding the dreams everyone at lower levels has for happy lives.
We drive on to Thanjavur, the capitol of the Great Chola Empire, which ruled from the tenth through the twelfth centuries, and extended over all of South India, and as far as Sri Lanka and even Bali. The Chola kings who were great patrons of the arts built most of the 93 temples at Thanjavur, of which the Brihadisvara Temple is the showpiece. While they lavished their wealth on the temples, they also encouraged the belief in the divine right of kings, and the practice of donating a part of one’s wealth to the temple for spiritual gain.
The Brihadisvara Temple, also known as the “Big Temple”, was built between 985 and 1012 AD and is a World Heritage monument. It is a magnificent structure with a 14- story high vimana, a towered sanctuary that houses the main deity. Built mainly of granite, the temple has superb inscriptions and sculptures of Shiva, his consort Durga and Vishnu.
After leaving Birhadisvara, we drive to a former palace that now houses an excellent museum which has an exceptional collection of bronzes, many of them of a dancing Lord Shiva, surrounded by a ring of fire.
After a very good lunch at a nearby hotel restaurant, we drive approximately three hours to Kanadukathan in the Chettinad region, stopping at an Ayyanar temple located in a forest. This temple is a mix of craft, myths and rituals and have local deities which are considered to be village guardians. In Hinduism, symbolism plays an important role, and to ensure that the deity can reach them speedily in times of need, devotees bring terra cotta horses as offerings. Walking up the forest path to the shrine, we pass thousands of these horses, produced over hundreds of years for an annual festival, many of which are in an advanced state of disrepair. Behind the main shrine is the poignant sight of hundreds of terra cotta dolls, brought as offerings by women who are unable to have children.
We arrive at Hotel Visalam, a marvelous old Chettiar mansion that has been refurbished and retains much of its original teak woodwork from Myanmar as well as its former furnishings. The Chettiars were highly successful business men who achieved wealth through money lending. We’re given a tour of the beautiful house and grounds, then shown to our large, high-ceiling, marble-floored suite.
After a swim in the large pool, which is large enough for me to do laps, we clean up, and blog. Carol and I meet Jay in the lobby. At our request, he’s brought a map of South India and shows us the route we’ve taken thus far and identifies for us the territories ruled by various rulers over the centuries.
We meet Steve and Karen for dinner on the second floor balcony on yet another perfect evening of weather, then retire.
After breakfast at the hotel, we set out for the capital of the Chola Empire, Chidambaram, one of Tamil Nadu’s most important holy towns. We are traveling comfortably in a minibus, which has a capacity of ten. With Ravi, our driver, and Jay, our guide, we are only six. Ravi has done an excellent job of driving. He’s friendly, but doesn’t say much. I’m gaining confidence that we’ll probably survive the constant threat of oncoming traffic on our side of the road, though I have asked Jay for the Hindu word for death.
We pass a wedding hall, and Jay asks if we’d like to go in. Of course, we would. Outside the hall is a big poster with pictures of the bride and groom, as well as smaller pictures, below them, of men who have contributed to the cost of the poster.
We’ve seen these posters elsewhere, and sometimes they contain a picture of a movie star, as well. (Tamil Nadu people are crazy for movies. Jay says that people will watch a movie fifteen or more times. We’ve seen people sitting parked in cars and vans, watching movies.)
We are welcomed into the wedding hall, where the wedding ceremony is just ending, and the bride and groom are receiving guests up on a stage. Gifts lay piled up on the floor beneath the stage to help the couple start their new lives together. Weddings are huge events in India, with families saving for twenty years to pay the cost. A modest wedding may have 1,000-1,500 guests. Everyone wears their finest dress–a new sari is a must–and gold and jewels abound. A photographer and videographer are recording the event on the stage, and Jay encourages me to go up to photograph with them. The crowd parts to allow me to do this.
Guests at the wedding insist that Steve, Karen, Carol and I go up on the stage to greet the bride and groom, which we do. We’re invited to have breakfast several times, but Jay explains to disappointed would-be hosts that we’ve just eaten and must leave. Before we go, we pose for photographs with the bride and groom. On our way out, we’re given gift bags from the wedding, which include a cocoanut and other goodies. As we drive away from the wedding, we pass many guests, women with flowers in their hair, jewels and fine saris, riding on back of motor bikes. In the car, Jay tells us that DVDs will be made of the festivities and sent to wedding guests, and that we will be the stars of the DVD.
We leave Ponchiderry, which was granted independence from the French in 1956. Goa achieved its independence from Portugal even later, in 1963. Both are now separate union territories governed by India, but not states. They do elect representatives to the government.
Arriving in Chidambara, we head to the Nataraja Templ, which is dedicated to Shiva in his form as Lord of the Cosmic Dance. Shiva was the patron god of the Chola kings. The temple area covers sixty acres, dwarfing the temple we saw in Chennai.
Jay had told us that it was the goal of every dancer to dance at the temple of “The Dancing Shiva” and we witness several young girls fulfilling their dream. Because of the dance recital we attended in Chennai, we’re able to appreciate the dancing much more than we otherwise would have.
The temple is run by dikshithar priests who have beards and hair tied with a knot in back. They are Brahmins and wear a string around their body as a sign of their status. At this temple, any married dikshithar can serve as priest for any god, so they rotate around to different shrines, but serve the gods 24/7, 365 days a year. The temple is a hubbub of activity, people old and young, priests, families, beggars. Bells clang, and people crowd to see the priests inside the shrines waving oil lamps in circles.
We leave the dancing Shiva and drive a short distance, stopping at a restaurant for lunch. Steve, Karen and Carol all have local, Tamil food on a metal tray, with rice, all of which they eat with their hands. I opt for Chinese–hot and sour soup and Chinese vegetables with rice, all of which is surprisingly good.
After lunch, we drive through the heart of Tamil Nadu, just missing buses, trucks and motor bikes, passing through small towns with markets, seeing damage from the recent cyclone, tractors loaded high with sugar cane, trucks stacked with hay, oxen ploughing rice fields, moving stores of materials carried on bicycles. We talk with Jay about everything from trees we see to snakes, rats and mongoose in rice fields to corruption in government and 20-year delays in court cases to the Tamil Nadu political party’s pledge to give poor families a color TV, if elected. This pledge has been honored, with millions of color TVs given to everyone with electricity. The populace favored this over the opposition party’s pledge of rice for one rupee (two cents) a kilo. Who needs rice when you can watch your favorite movies in color?
We stop at Darasuram to see the Airavatesvara Temple, the third of the great Chola temples after Thanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram. Originally called the Rajarajesvaram temple when it was built in 1146, it was renamed Airavatesvara Temple after Indra’s white elephant, who followers of Shiva claim, worshipped Shiva at this temple. Built mainly of granite, the temple has pillars with beautifully carved Apsara and friezes of lively dancing figures and musicians. Each of the pillars within the temple illustrates mythological stories showing the penance of Parvati, Shiva’s consort. Though the temple was largely destroyed, it has been carefully reconstructed as an archeological site, not a living temple, allowing us to photograph shrines that we could not take pictures of in a temple that was being used. The temple is definitely worth seeing, but not nearly as interesting as living temples.
We continue on towards our hotel, Hotel Mantra Veppathur. Because the hotel cannot be reached in our vehicle, we stop by the side of the road and are ferried in on a large golf-cart type vehicle. We check into a very nice two bedroom villa with a large, tiled common area, which we share with Steve and Karen.
Steve and Karen scout out the pool and spa, making massage reservations for themselves at 6:30, and for Carol and me at 9:00. Steve, Karen and I have the large, lovely pool to ourselves. They go for massages, we hang out at he room, then go for a fair dinner at the hotel’s vegetarian restaurant, are joined at our table later by the Sugarmans, leave them for our (excellent) massages, then reconnect briefly in our villa, before retiring.
Breakfast at the hotel, and then on the road again, heading south for Pondicherry, which was ruled by the French until Indian independence. Along the way, we see a man on a moped, virtually hidden by the pots he is carrying for sale, and bullocks with colorful horns, painted for the harvest festival. We talk with Jay, peppering him with questions that occur to us from time to time to try to learn more about the history and culture of this region. As we enter Ponchiderry, we see policemen, still sporting bright red caps that were worn by the French.
Pondicherry is best known for Auroville, “The City of Dawn” which was established in 1968 to continue the teachings and beliefs of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo who lived and worked here. Built as a utopian paradise by his disciple, Mirra Alfassa, also known as Mother, it was planned so that people could live and work here irrespective of religion, caste or nationality. More than 2000 people from some fifty countries occupy the area, the land donated and supervised by by India and the project recognized by UNESCO. We walk about a kilometer to the most striking feature, the Matrimandir, a large, golden sphere, composed of some 4000, gold-colored disks, which houses a white marble chamber (which we are not able to enter) that is a meditation center. Inside the chamber a crystal which reflects the sun’s rays serves as a focal point to aid meditation.
From Auroville, we drive to our hotel Le Dupliex, a charming French house that has been converted to a lovely hotel. Because Steve taught a student whose family owns the hotel, they are upgraded to a very large suite. Our room, though, is more than adequate. We lunch in the breezy, open courtyard of the hotel, then relax for awhile before setting out for a walk through the former French Quarter with its elegant colonial mansions, tree-lined boulevards, bars and cafes, which provide a sense of the history of the town.
We stop and give an elephant minder a few rupees, so that the elephant will bless Carol by touching her on the head with his trunk. We walk around and stop in a rather upscale shop in which we buy some very nice scarves.
We stop at an ashram, the former home of Sri Aurobindo, whose philosophy inspired Auroville. We walk through, silently and without photographing, as required. People file by the tomb of the philosopher, some bowing or praying to give homage to him, touching their heads to the flower petals that form an intricate design on the tomb. Many people sit in the room, meditating. We continue walking, past the bed used by Mother and the chair in which Sri Aurobindo used to sit. It really is quite moving, perhaps more so than our visit to Auroville.
From the ashram, we walk by the sea. Large crowds of families stroll along the walk and beach, dressed in their fine clothing on this Saturday evening. We discuss differences with Jay in our cultures, how nobody would dress up in the US to walk by the beach, and how this serves as the major source of entertainment for Indians, other than going to movies. Eating out is not common as it is in the States, and, in fact, is thought by many to signal a problem in the family. Only the rich would think of going to the theater, or a concert or dance, except for periodic festivals at temple.
We return to the hotel, where Karen is waiting, having gone ahead in anticipation of receiving a call from a friend of a friend, who is a ceramicist living in Pondicherry. Karen tried, a number of times to reach her by email from the States and had tried to call before, all unsuccessfully. A last try this afternoon, managed to connect with Deborah Smith, who said she’d call later. Karen told us that Deborah was coming by in 15 minutes and wanted us to drive her by her house for a quick look.
Our experience with Deborah is a testament to the virtue of (Karen’s) persistence. A Stanford graduate, she studied pottery in Japan, before moving to join Sri Aurobindo. Her now husband, Ray Meeker, a talented ceramicist and architect, joined her in Pondicherry, where they’ve lived, worked and taught for more than forty years. Their house, in the French Quarter is absolutely stunning, modern, high ceilings, large rooms and an open atrium. The house would have been more than worth the visit, but the collection of pottery they had displayed, almost all of which was done by former students, some of whom are now nationally-known potters was just fantastic. Carol and I, and the Sugarmans, we’re blown away by it, and Deborah was most gracious in spending an hour or so showing and talking to us about the collection. This was a truly unexpected delight.
After, we had an excellent and very reasonably-priced dinner in a restaurant called Le Club, recommended by both Deborah and Fodor’s, half a block away from Deborah’s house, then walked the five blocks back to our hotel to retire.
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