Into Tamil Nadu
I said goodbye to Romana as we got off the boat at Kollam after our trip through the Backwater canals from Allepy. We couldn’t afford the luxury houseboat option, but we shrewdly negotiated the only seats on the bow – perfect theatre.
Weighing up time left on my Indian Visa, I thought I could get a little beach action and catch a Kathakali performance in Varkala. The cliff is dominated by competing signs for tourist services and stalls but the sandy beach below rolls in nice surf. I caught the Kathakali show at a quaint little theatre set up. The performance of traditional Keralan storytelling was but a slice of a full show for our tourist attention spans. (Real Kathakali runs the night.) The Demoness servant of a king goes to the abode of the Devas to capture maidens for the King. Great plot, bold makeup, and a spontaneous performance to the rhythm of the background musicians.
I met some Swedish girls and some English lads over a few drinks and grilled Barracuda at a cliff edge bar with views to Madagascar. Next morning Asa, Theresa and I rose early to see a ritual on the beach where the waves carry out the prayers for the deceased. In the corner of the grounds of the nearby temple was an odd and disturbing twisted Snake Tree, hung, or rather strung, with warped plastic dolls – offerings for fertility.
Deformities, the loss of limbs and the sorry looking poor aren’t uncommon sights throughout India. Occasionally, still, an unlucky soul makes my eyes pop out – in this case, a begging leper with pussing boils from head to toe. I gave up some change and boarded my train, leaving Kerala state for Tamil Nadu. Dazed as you are on night trains, I woke up at 5:00am in Maderai and sucked back some Chai in the company of a French Canadian girl and German guy. We blasted through Maderai in a morning, visiting its impressive temple and laughing off touts, and then on to Trichy, a less intense temple city.
Buses I can work out, trains I have problems with. No E.T.A on the ticket, no platform numbers, no numbers on the inside of the carriages, poorly signposted stations. I had a problem – I overshot my connecting stop for Pondicherry and ended up in Chennai, a miss of about 100km. I backpedaled.
I hadn’t been to France until I came to Pondicherry. My inspiration for coming here was the French architecture and a little book ‘The Life of Pi’. Read it. I enjoyed some promenading along the coast and boulevards, and playing Caroms with kids on the street corners (whilst always looking out for Richard Parker). The Sri Aribindo Ashram, where I visited and thinked some thoughts, can be credited for a lot of community initiatives in Pondicherry. A few blocks back, in Indian streets again, I had a run in with my ‘Christian’ guesthouse owner, shifty and scrooging. I left for Mamallapuram.
The face of Mamallapuram is a tourist façade, frequented by the package tourist. Out on the front on the beach locals were rebuilding boats, walls and buildings, totaled by the Tsunami. Their pockets have been hit hard too; everyone is more desperate for a nibble of tourist rupees. The attraction of the area is the ancient ruins and caves, dating from the 6th Century, particularly a large bass relief, ‘Arjuna’s Penance’. I met a blind Indian gent, Saswot Souvraj, whose N.G.O. is helping with the Tsunami effort. I wrote and edited a little copy for him. Sadly, everyone is on the Tsunami bandwagon. Kids and beggars, who you sense weren’t directly affected, plead ‘Tsunami!’ with their hands out. On my bus up to Chennai I evidenced the fields of tents that affected families have been living under for 6 weeks now.
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