Sherrill and I visited more than 60 countries and most of the United States during our 52 year marriage. This is number 68 of a series about our lives and travels, true stories of two people discovering the world, each other, and themselves through five decades of traveling together. If you scroll down, you'll come to earlier posts in this series. To start at the beginning of our marriage and travels look at the Archives list in the sidebar and start with May, 2017. Older posts are a previous series.
One of the pleasures of exploring India is the feeling of existing simultaneously in several different worlds. There Sherrill and I were, after another marathon journey (including six hours in a transit hotel in the Singapore airport), still on California time, in the coastal city of Chennai (formerly Madras) on the Bay of Bengal near the tip of the Indian subcontinent, surrounded by Victorian-era buildings from the days of the Raj, about to explore some of the most ancient and dramatic sites in India. Once again, since I couldn't sleep, I went for an early morning walk the day after we arrived.
One of the pleasures of exploring India is the feeling of existing simultaneously in several different worlds. There Sherrill and I were, after another marathon journey (including six hours in a transit hotel in the Singapore airport), still on California time, in the coastal city of Chennai (formerly Madras) on the Bay of Bengal near the tip of the Indian subcontinent, surrounded by Victorian-era buildings from the days of the Raj, about to explore some of the most ancient and dramatic sites in India. Once again, since I couldn't sleep, I went for an early morning walk the day after we arrived.
Great Temple. Tanjore Even at 6:30 a.m. the air burned my eyes—one reason probably the ancient buses ferrying people to work. Mount Road, one of Chennai's grand old streets, still was lined with buildings from the Raj. My favorite was the brick and stone "Higginbothams Printers and Publishers, Booksellers and Stationers" from 1844, although "Khan's Cricket Academy" was a strong contender. Since the sidewalks were crumbling and sometimes disappeared and the traffic was getting heavier, I had to watch both my feet and the pavement, dodging three-wheeled tuk-tuks and smoking buses, as well as growing numbers of beggars and vendors, including men furiously squeezing sugarcane juice into dirty glasses. The only non-Indians I saw were three freckled young missionaries in gingham dresses and kerchiefs.
Religion, power, and business had been stirred together into a lumpy curry during India's long history. Our exploration started with Fort St. George, built by the East India Company in 1653, and the accompanying British Anglican church, then moved on to the first Catholic cathedral in India: dueling European churches in a Hindu land? Then we plunged into the colorful chaos of a seventeenth century Hindu temple, where we watched a Brahmin priest with his sacred string across his bare chest reciting prayers, followed by a non-Brahmin repeating them in the local language of Tamil—a recent development.
Religion, power, and business had been stirred together into a lumpy curry during India's long history. Our exploration started with Fort St. George, built by the East India Company in 1653, and the accompanying British Anglican church, then moved on to the first Catholic cathedral in India: dueling European churches in a Hindu land? Then we plunged into the colorful chaos of a seventeenth century Hindu temple, where we watched a Brahmin priest with his sacred string across his bare chest reciting prayers, followed by a non-Brahmin repeating them in the local language of Tamil—a recent development.
Sliding further back in time, on another day we hiked among giant seventh century rock carvings and temples, including the world's largest bas relief, a dramatic picture of how the god Shiva sent the Ganges river down to earth. However, judging from the way people drove, I was starting to believe that the combustion engine had become India's supreme god. On our way to the French colonial town of Pondicherry, we passed a gasoline tanker lying on its side by the road, leaking gas. Each trip became a terrifying pilgrimage that we prayed to survive, but we looked forward to those adventures. We never knew what we might discover along the way. A group of women dressed in red that we saw hiking along the side of the road belonged to a cobra-worshipping cult. They built miniature temples around the termite mounds (the mounds could grow to three or four feet high) that cobras had moved into to escape the heat, and left milk and fruit for the cobras.
 Sherrill and Bruce, arriving at Tanjore |  Local musicians and dancers at Pongal Festival celebration in village above Tanjore |  |
A visit to the sprawling Chidambaram temple south of Chennai introduced us to the dramatic Puja ceremony of washing the sacred crystal lingam. Crowds of worshippers weeping with emotion pushed through the huge building to get as close as possible when the priests poured milk, ash, and water over the lingam while they chanted prayers. The lingam represented the generative power of the god Shiva. (In north India, Vishnu was the more popular god, but there in the south people preferred Shiva, destroyer, creator, preserver of the universe.) At the climactic moment, the priests waved fire in front of and behind the lingam, illuminating a sacred ruby within the crystal and causing many of the faithful to sway and moan and slap their faces in ecstasy.
Sherrill took my hand and together we maneuvered our way out. The smoke and incense were making her sick. Neither of us was comfortable among people working themselves up into such a frenzy, probably because we didn't understand where it might lead.
Sherrill took my hand and together we maneuvered our way out. The smoke and incense were making her sick. Neither of us was comfortable among people working themselves up into such a frenzy, probably because we didn't understand where it might lead.
Villagers with rice powder medallions in front of houses for Pongal Festival Our friend Hala and our guide had arranged for us to participate in the annual Pongal Festival in a remote village in the hills outside Tanjore—another unique religious experience. Young men and women played drums and danced up and down the village's meandering dirt streets. Sometimes, the festivities had to move aside for buffalo carts or local buses. Village women had used colored powders to create lavish floral designs on the ground in front of their houses.
The word "pongal," we learned, means "boiling over." We watched some pongal rice being cooked its special pot. When it boiled over, people looked to see which direction it spilled over—it would foretell their future.
After several hours in the village, we left on one of the crowded local buses, riding it to Tanjore. The bus stopped for gas opposite a big tent next to an old Catholic church. A Christian revival meeting seemed to be going on—although the area was Hindu. (In fact, I'd actually heard a Moslem call to prayer at 5 a.m. In India, now, religions seemed to weave around each other, not competing as much as co-existing—although we knew, of course, about the religious violence after Partition.)
The word "pongal," we learned, means "boiling over." We watched some pongal rice being cooked its special pot. When it boiled over, people looked to see which direction it spilled over—it would foretell their future.
After several hours in the village, we left on one of the crowded local buses, riding it to Tanjore. The bus stopped for gas opposite a big tent next to an old Catholic church. A Christian revival meeting seemed to be going on—although the area was Hindu. (In fact, I'd actually heard a Moslem call to prayer at 5 a.m. In India, now, religions seemed to weave around each other, not competing as much as co-existing—although we knew, of course, about the religious violence after Partition.)
An ancient outdoor shrine at which local people worshipped animals, trees, and the sun revealed still another way in which people in India related to life and death and the world around them. A long dirt path lined with clay horses and elephants led to a sacred tamarind tree. The figures were simple, some unpainted clay, some broken, others intact and brightly painted, often with grotesquely grinning mouths, as if they were laughing at us as we walked past. Near the tamarind tree was an open area where, we were told, goats and cocks sometimes were sacrificed. In India, people could accept a religion such as Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity and incorporate it into ancient beliefs that had been passed down for millennia. They saw nothing contradictory, for example, if they hung bags containing the placentas of cows from the branch of a banyan tree as an offering for those ancient gods.
 Ayyanar cult priest at Dravidian animist shrine |  Bruce and terracotta figures at animist shrine |
"This is more like it," Sherrill said when we stopped at a village in which master bronze workers had been producing exquisite bronze figures for a thousand years, using the traditional lost wax method. They worked squatting on the dirt floor, making molds, casting the bronze, and refining and polishing the statuettes. In the little adjoining shop we found a beautiful statuette of Saraswati, the patron goddess of education, which we bought for our daughter, along with a gracefully stylized figure of a deer for ourselves—art and religion united.
Dravidian priest on pilgrimage We braved (barefoot, of course) the enormous crowds at the evening Hindu ceremony in the seventeenth century Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. The immense size of the temple brought to mind Cologne cathedral or Notre Dame, but the granite columns inside had been carved into monstrous grotesque creatures. Pilgrims from around India prostrated themselves in front of shrines and scattered colored powders on statues, but it was the shrine dedicated to Shiva where the crowd swelled until there was hardly room to move. Suddenly, excitedly, people moved back just enough to allow bearers to carry Shiva on his silver palanquin across the temple to the shrine of Parvati, his wife. Then, as priests blew horns, waved feathery fans, and chanted, they surged forward again in a frenzy as Shiva joined his consort. All we could do was try to avoid being crushed.
No other town we'd seen in India was like the former French city of Pondicherry: straight streets lined with trees and elegant colonial buildings, and a long boulevard stretching beside the Bay of Bengal. However, when we stopped at a statue of Gandhi overlooking the bay, several gypsy women and their children and trained monkeys suddenly appeared. One of the gypsies sent her monkey to climb on a woman with us. The monkey nearly had its tiny hand in one of the woman's pockets when she screamed. The gypsy reined in the monkey and pretended to scold it.
While we were in Pondicherry, we saw the first of several posters urging parents to value female children, part of a campaign to stop the killing of girl babies.
"Too little, too late," Sherrill commented.
"Better than nothing," I said.
"Better than nothing? Yes."
While we were in Pondicherry, we saw the first of several posters urging parents to value female children, part of a campaign to stop the killing of girl babies.
"Too little, too late," Sherrill commented.
"Better than nothing," I said.
"Better than nothing? Yes."
M. G. Ramachan, Tamil movie star & politician In the town of Madurai, we went to the opening night screening of a Tamil movie, managing to get seats despite the crowds of fans. We had never seen a movie in which the musical numbers were full of beatings, murders, and other violence. The young males in the audience loved it all, of course.
We also saw a bigger than life-size statue of one of India's biggest movie stars who retired to become a successful politician and then started free lunches in the schools throughout the state of Tamil Nadu—which prompted the farmers and other poor parents to send their children to school for the free food, which eventually increased the literacy level in the state to 80 percent.
We also saw a bigger than life-size statue of one of India's biggest movie stars who retired to become a successful politician and then started free lunches in the schools throughout the state of Tamil Nadu—which prompted the farmers and other poor parents to send their children to school for the free food, which eventually increased the literacy level in the state to 80 percent.
The movie screening was an exciting conclusion to our time in Tamil Nadu. The next day, we continued south into the more rural state of Kerala, where we stayed for a while on the edge of a tiger and game preserve. On the way, we saw farmers washing their cattle and then decorating them with colored powders and wreathes and horn decorations as part of the Pongal celebrations—and to show their gratitude to the sacred cattle.
Sacred cows and termite mound with Cobra "temple" We didn't see a tiger in the preserve, but we did spend several hours with a naturalist, spotting Indian bison, large deer, a native otter, wild boars (big and hairy and ugly), and many birds, some posing like feather-adorned mannequins on dead trees in a lake. Kerala also was famous for growing spices. Sherrill and several others drove off on a "spice safari," riding jeeps into the higher hills to explore different spice plantations, including one that grew "the best pepper in the world."
"You would've hated the narrow cliff road, sweetie," Sherrill told me when she got back that evening, "but you missed some wonderful smells!"
"You would've hated the narrow cliff road, sweetie," Sherrill told me when she got back that evening, "but you missed some wonderful smells!"
The road we took over the mountains to the Arabian Sea the next day wasn't much better, winding precariously among hillside tea plantations. Flashes of color darted like wild birds through the green tea plants as children with backpacks ran to school through the tea hills and women in saris cut the leaves and stuffed them into bags. When we hit the coast, we landed in a world of lagoons, inland canals, and lakes, the "backwater" area where the second largest lake in India fed into a web of manmade canals.
Backwater canal ferry pulled by rope, Kerala, South India Crossing the lake by boat, we reached the complex of cottages where we stayed for a while, a quiet paradise surrounded by water, the perfect starting point for further explorations. As we boated along the canals during the next days, we sometimes passed through half-hidden villages. Often, rice fields stretched into the distance from one or both sides of a canal—bordered by levees, since the fields were lower than the canal. In one village, we saw a woman making rope out of coconut husk fibers, then we moved through hundreds of ducks being herded by a man in a boat, an absurd yet beautiful sight as they quacked their complaints. One of the villages we passed was where Arundhati Roy, author of the 1997 Booker Prize novel The God of Small Things was raised.
Sherrill & Bruce, South India, 2008 When we left this backwater paradise, we continued on to the 600 year-old city of Kochi (Cochin)—a colorful mélange of Portuguese, Dutch, French, British, Chinese, and Jewish history, starting with when it was founded by Vasco da Gama. As I write this in 2018, weeks of fierce rains have buried large parts of the historic city under mud (Kochi is built on several islands, as well as the mainland), but the city is digging out. Some of its islands are artificial, so this kind of disaster may recur as climate change continues.
To be continued....
If you find these posts interesting, why not explore the rest of my website, too? Just click on the buttons at the top of the page and discover where they take you—including a bio, information about my four novels, along with excerpts from them, and several complete short stories.
Please pass the posts on to anybody else you think might enjoy them.
To be continued....
If you find these posts interesting, why not explore the rest of my website, too? Just click on the buttons at the top of the page and discover where they take you—including a bio, information about my four novels, along with excerpts from them, and several complete short stories.
Please pass the posts on to anybody else you think might enjoy them.
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