Sunday, October 26, 2003
Washing away sins, Crows, Sewers, Sexual Harassment
By the time we finally sighted Rameswaram, I was a little high - we had been in a small, hot, clackety train, running on wonky narrow gauge lines which was now four hours behind schedule. The guard who had, for the first twelve hours of the journey been pleased to speak to me, had got sick of my asking the same, childish 'are we there yet' every half hour or so and the stations we stopped in were too small and decrepit to have people selling food. Nor was the landscape much diversion: it was flat and scrubby with rubbishy looking little towns. Then, suddenly I looked out of the window: we were on an embankment in the sea. Then we were on a bridge. The guard poked his head into our compartment: 'Come and look.'
We went to the door on the other side and there was a fabulous sunset over the Bay of Bengal, we were high over the ocean next to an even more massive road bridge and, to the east, we could see the palm trees and white sands of Rameswaram. I'd assumed that the island was a peninsula as it appears on maps and is pretty small. But no: the train took another 25 minutes to cross it, moving sluggishly through dunes which looked almost Moroccan before reaching the end of the line.
Rameswaram is a justly famous temple town. That is, it has a very nice temple, although, in fairness, this is something dozens of Indian towns can claim. But it also has a unique location and sits on an island which is essentially a gigantic sand dune, at the South East extremity of India.
Despite these sterling credentials, it is not in any way a tourist destination. It is a big Hindu pilgrimage centre, but it doesn't really cater for western tourists of any kind. You know this because there is not a single internet café in town, nobody serves a crappy western breakfast and the rickshaw drivers seem a little confused as to how they should rip you off.
We chose the smartest hotel in town - it cost about #12 per night and was set in its own grounds. It was build in a sweeping curve out of painted concrete and had that mildewed, stained look one associates with communist accommodation the tropics. As it turned out, it was state run and the state of Tamil Nadu has, from time to time, flirted with some pretty heavy socialism.
The manager, in contrast to the charming and diffident chap in Pondy was crackers, all wild hair and sellotaped glasses - a sort of Indian Basil Fawlty. When Jane told him that our phone had rung at 4am, he just replied: 'well, I didn't call you' and went back to chatting to his mate. The restaurant manager was also nuts, but in a slightly more endearing way. He presided over an establishment which looked like it belonged on a 60s university campus and half the menu was permanently unavailable. The four or five dishes that were available, though, were very good.
Then there was the bar. This was a concrete room with a couple of tables and a counter. We went for a drink there and were served beer that tasted like vinegar. Indian beer has the worst quality control problem in the beer world. Kingfisher, which we were drinking, can be very good. But it can also taste like soap and vinegar. No two bottles are the same. I think we upset the barman by not drinking his beer, though he cheered up when we ordered a couple of GnTs that tasted like nailpolish.
Having given up drinking as a bad deal, we retired. Travel books warn that there is little nightlife in India and this is a masterful understatement: apart from a few isolated places, there is almost nothing. And getting drunk is so little fun when the booze is so bad. Before getting into bed, we carefully closed the windows - there are signs everywhere saying 'Beware of crows' and, apparently, these vicious looking birds of which there are thousands really do attack people.
The next day we went to the temple which really is very impressive rising above the town like a big cream wedding cake. The temple is huge and its stylishly pillared corridors stretch over a kilometre. It's also rather better than regular temples in that it's an interactive experience. We were a bit clueless at first, but we soon got the hang of things. Basically there are 22 wells; you hire a man with a bucket and a piece of rope who takes you around and dumps a bucket of water from each (for variety some are saltwater, some fresh) over your head. Each well washes away a different sin.
Once we'd sussed this out, we tagged along with a very nice Indian family for the last seven of their sluicings. We could have done all 22 but really, having seven buckets of water tipped over your head is quite enough, especially if you're not a Hindu. The last well claimed to hold water "equivalent to that of the Ganges." The man there doused Jane four or five times and me only once. I'd like to think that this is because she is a heavy sinner, but I suspect it's because his mate was videoing proceedings and she looks better in a wet T-shirt than I do.
What no guidebook tells you and I take this to be a serious failing is that you should take a change of clothes with you. So soaked and at risk of chafing was I that I had to buy myself a local skirt to walk home in. To be fair, it was pretty comfy, but the looks I got back at the hotel suggested that I chosen a very low class skirt; also the colour ran and it dyed my butt red.
On the way back to the hotel, we checked out the waterfront where around fifty pilgrims were immersing themselves in the sea, some fifty feet from the town's sewage outlet.
Not wishing to dunk ourselves in a sewer, no matter how holy, we took a tuk-tuk 18 kilomters out of town, down the enormous sand-spit that forms the bulk of the island. Soon the buildings give way to pine forests and dunes, a mostly enclosed area of water on one side and a rough ocean beach on the other; everything has that salt sprayed look, a sort of tropical cape cod. Further on the forests end and the spit narrows to about a hundred metres, then, at a little village with a blasted end of the world feel the road ends.
Jane elected to lie on the beach while I decided to walk down the spit to the end. And I walked and walked and walked...every now and then, I stopped to help a woman heft a 25kg bag of shells on to her head...usually in India, when someone tells you something is 4km, its about two, this was eight or maybe even ten. After an hour's walking on soft sand, I saw a passing truck of pilgrims driving over the exposed tidal flats and hitched a lift. We passed a bump in the spit with a few ruined colonial buildings, another village and still the spit went on. Everything now was sea and sky, one of those rather freaky landscapes like salt pans. Eventually we saw another truck and, presently we stopped next to it.
The pilgrims went to build devotional sandcastles on the beach before immersing themselves fully clothed. I was told that swimming was not only inoffensive, but that they'd actually like to see me to do it and so went for a dip in a choppy sea with a vicious current. Beyond me was the surreal landscape of Adam's bridge, the series of reefs, sandbars and water that stretches all the way to Sri Lanka.
When I got back, Jane was in a state of some anxiety. I had been twice as long as I'd said I would be and once alone, she'd been endlessly pestered and, finally, molested: she'd fallen asleep for five minutes on the beach and woken up to find a five year old grabbing her left breast.
By the time we finally sighted Rameswaram, I was a little high - we had been in a small, hot, clackety train, running on wonky narrow gauge lines which was now four hours behind schedule. The guard who had, for the first twelve hours of the journey been pleased to speak to me, had got sick of my asking the same, childish 'are we there yet' every half hour or so and the stations we stopped in were too small and decrepit to have people selling food. Nor was the landscape much diversion: it was flat and scrubby with rubbishy looking little towns. Then, suddenly I looked out of the window: we were on an embankment in the sea. Then we were on a bridge. The guard poked his head into our compartment: 'Come and look.'
We went to the door on the other side and there was a fabulous sunset over the Bay of Bengal, we were high over the ocean next to an even more massive road bridge and, to the east, we could see the palm trees and white sands of Rameswaram. I'd assumed that the island was a peninsula as it appears on maps and is pretty small. But no: the train took another 25 minutes to cross it, moving sluggishly through dunes which looked almost Moroccan before reaching the end of the line.
Rameswaram is a justly famous temple town. That is, it has a very nice temple, although, in fairness, this is something dozens of Indian towns can claim. But it also has a unique location and sits on an island which is essentially a gigantic sand dune, at the South East extremity of India.
Despite these sterling credentials, it is not in any way a tourist destination. It is a big Hindu pilgrimage centre, but it doesn't really cater for western tourists of any kind. You know this because there is not a single internet café in town, nobody serves a crappy western breakfast and the rickshaw drivers seem a little confused as to how they should rip you off.
We chose the smartest hotel in town - it cost about #12 per night and was set in its own grounds. It was build in a sweeping curve out of painted concrete and had that mildewed, stained look one associates with communist accommodation the tropics. As it turned out, it was state run and the state of Tamil Nadu has, from time to time, flirted with some pretty heavy socialism.
The manager, in contrast to the charming and diffident chap in Pondy was crackers, all wild hair and sellotaped glasses - a sort of Indian Basil Fawlty. When Jane told him that our phone had rung at 4am, he just replied: 'well, I didn't call you' and went back to chatting to his mate. The restaurant manager was also nuts, but in a slightly more endearing way. He presided over an establishment which looked like it belonged on a 60s university campus and half the menu was permanently unavailable. The four or five dishes that were available, though, were very good.
Then there was the bar. This was a concrete room with a couple of tables and a counter. We went for a drink there and were served beer that tasted like vinegar. Indian beer has the worst quality control problem in the beer world. Kingfisher, which we were drinking, can be very good. But it can also taste like soap and vinegar. No two bottles are the same. I think we upset the barman by not drinking his beer, though he cheered up when we ordered a couple of GnTs that tasted like nailpolish.
Having given up drinking as a bad deal, we retired. Travel books warn that there is little nightlife in India and this is a masterful understatement: apart from a few isolated places, there is almost nothing. And getting drunk is so little fun when the booze is so bad. Before getting into bed, we carefully closed the windows - there are signs everywhere saying 'Beware of crows' and, apparently, these vicious looking birds of which there are thousands really do attack people.
The next day we went to the temple which really is very impressive rising above the town like a big cream wedding cake. The temple is huge and its stylishly pillared corridors stretch over a kilometre. It's also rather better than regular temples in that it's an interactive experience. We were a bit clueless at first, but we soon got the hang of things. Basically there are 22 wells; you hire a man with a bucket and a piece of rope who takes you around and dumps a bucket of water from each (for variety some are saltwater, some fresh) over your head. Each well washes away a different sin.
Once we'd sussed this out, we tagged along with a very nice Indian family for the last seven of their sluicings. We could have done all 22 but really, having seven buckets of water tipped over your head is quite enough, especially if you're not a Hindu. The last well claimed to hold water "equivalent to that of the Ganges." The man there doused Jane four or five times and me only once. I'd like to think that this is because she is a heavy sinner, but I suspect it's because his mate was videoing proceedings and she looks better in a wet T-shirt than I do.
What no guidebook tells you and I take this to be a serious failing is that you should take a change of clothes with you. So soaked and at risk of chafing was I that I had to buy myself a local skirt to walk home in. To be fair, it was pretty comfy, but the looks I got back at the hotel suggested that I chosen a very low class skirt; also the colour ran and it dyed my butt red.
On the way back to the hotel, we checked out the waterfront where around fifty pilgrims were immersing themselves in the sea, some fifty feet from the town's sewage outlet.
Not wishing to dunk ourselves in a sewer, no matter how holy, we took a tuk-tuk 18 kilomters out of town, down the enormous sand-spit that forms the bulk of the island. Soon the buildings give way to pine forests and dunes, a mostly enclosed area of water on one side and a rough ocean beach on the other; everything has that salt sprayed look, a sort of tropical cape cod. Further on the forests end and the spit narrows to about a hundred metres, then, at a little village with a blasted end of the world feel the road ends.
Jane elected to lie on the beach while I decided to walk down the spit to the end. And I walked and walked and walked...every now and then, I stopped to help a woman heft a 25kg bag of shells on to her head...usually in India, when someone tells you something is 4km, its about two, this was eight or maybe even ten. After an hour's walking on soft sand, I saw a passing truck of pilgrims driving over the exposed tidal flats and hitched a lift. We passed a bump in the spit with a few ruined colonial buildings, another village and still the spit went on. Everything now was sea and sky, one of those rather freaky landscapes like salt pans. Eventually we saw another truck and, presently we stopped next to it.
The pilgrims went to build devotional sandcastles on the beach before immersing themselves fully clothed. I was told that swimming was not only inoffensive, but that they'd actually like to see me to do it and so went for a dip in a choppy sea with a vicious current. Beyond me was the surreal landscape of Adam's bridge, the series of reefs, sandbars and water that stretches all the way to Sri Lanka.
When I got back, Jane was in a state of some anxiety. I had been twice as long as I'd said I would be and once alone, she'd been endlessly pestered and, finally, molested: she'd fallen asleep for five minutes on the beach and woken up to find a five year old grabbing her left breast.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
a tale of two towns
Once I'd had a couple of hits of espresso and got the caffeine monkey off my back, I took stock of Pondicherry. Apart from the excellent espresso, first impressions were disappointing: it looked like a typical chaotic Indian town: averagely horrendous traffic, shop signs jostling for your attention and the smell of sewage duking it out with smell of garbage. But this is because we were in the old Indian half. The town is bisected by a covered canal (now, charmingly a sewer) and is completely schizophrenic. The old 'white area', between the canal and the sea, retains much of its French colonial feel and, with its low, thick walled buildings has echoes of Hanoi.
But this is not all. Pondy has parks, garbage is kept under control and begging and homelessness is, if not non-existent, relatively absent...almost unbelievably some of the town is a conservation area and, with funds from France and the local ashram (more of which later) has been gentrified. Now, you might point out that this scrubbed up ex-colony is hardly the real India - a sort of subcontinent lite. And you'd be right. But this is no bad thing, for while Indian cities are vibrant, lively places, unless you have a bling hotel to retire to, they are pretty hard work. In Pondy, by contrast, you can walk for at minutes at a time without being offered unwanted goods and services.
hotel, sweet
Then there was our hotel. A sympathetically renovated colonial building with massive walls and French shutters, it is probably the nicest establishment I have ever stayed at. I think it cost around #25 a night - about a third of the rather indifferent Taj in Chennai -and it had the kind of rooms that send interiors magazine editors into paroxysms of joy. Every room was individual and had been designed beautifully. The staff, especially the urbane, dapper manager, were charming; the coffee was great; and the bathrooms were casually massive. I'd really struggle to find a bad word to say about it. We did have a demonstration outside every day -government employees protesting about pay, the manager explained - but this being Pondy, it was impeccably well behaved and involved 30 well dressed men sitting down in the street.
Pondy itself doesn't have a huge number of must see attractions, although the formal gardens laid out by French are pleasant and on one side there is a stand up a bar selling Scotch by the cup from a whole in the wall. The results of this are visible in the gardens where, at any given time, half a dozen people (many of them pretty respectable looking) are sleeping off the effects of hard liquor in 35 degree weather. Over on the seaward side of town there is stylish, brilliant white esplanade which feels a bit like a tropical Biarritz.
To the north are a number of beaches, the best of which is predictably reached via a village rubbish dump (to enjoy India, you must learn to love rubbish), although the beach itself is clean and the sea warm. With few facilities and fewer visitors, it is a pretty hassle free place, although we were plagued by a man who was quite convinced that a rotting starfish was the perfect souvenir of our stay.
word to the Mother
After a couple of day's successful vegging, we decided to check out Pondy's other great claim to fame: the Ashram. This itself is not too exciting: a nicely designed building with a table of flowers, full of Indians and a few spiritually inclined westerners meditating. The Ashram's bigwigs - Sri Aurobindo and The Mother - now both deceased, believed that humanity is on a path to higher consciousness which will result in a new species. Having spent the evening before watching George Bush speaking on TV, I was unconvinced of the veracity of the Mother's assertions, although I will allow that the gift shop has some of the best mystic kitsch I have ever seen.
Far more interesting is the nearby Ashram paper factory where you get to see ultra-high quality paper being handmade from rags rather than trees. It's a complex process and the plant itself is worked by men stripped to the waist stirring huge vats of smashed up rags which will eventually become swish notepads. Rag paper, unlike its tree-based counterpart lasts centuries (wood paper is the bane of the modern bibliophile) and it was unexpectedly interesting to be there at the moment of its creation.
greased up in a man nappy
The following day, our schedule allowed for an Ayuverdic massage. Jane is a great devotee of these: I am not so sure, but I had a sore shoulder, so I figured what the frick and, at my allotted time, presented myself to Rashavid, the male masseur at the Relaxe Spa. He bade me strip off my strides and growlers and put on a curious kind of man nappy. Then he lay me face down on a teak bench and greased me up fulsomely. It was a fine massage and Rashavid's capable fingers skillfully worked my back and all but cured my aching shoulder Afterwards came a steaming - in a sort of glazed iron lung - all of which left me feeling rejuvenated and almost understanding why chicks dig health farms so much. The only thing that I found disconcerting was that, such was the oiliness of the experience, my Johnson kept slipping out of my man-nappy.
With Jane still being pummeled and greased, I rounded off my male pampering routine with a haircut and a shave, a snip (haha) at 60p. The latter was particularly impressive as it was expertly executed by a boy who wasn't old enough to shave himself. I guess this means that I support child labour, although I feel rather more honest about doing it directly, rather than indirectly, by wearing a pair Nikes.
meet the cult
After passing the brutal mid-day sun in an excellent local restaurant, we headed north to Auroville. This town is a real curiousity: founded by the Ashram and inspired by the thoughts of The Mother, it says it is not religious, not a cult and is an 'international township' 'dedicated to socially useful projects.' Viz: alternative technology, consciousness raising, self sufficiency, etc. If all this sounds a bit like some 60s hangover, it's because it is: Auroville was founded in 1968. I had met one of the inhabitants, a 20 year old called Camark on the beach a few days earlier and he seemed like a nice chap, pretty normal, though our ricksahw driver told us that Auroville was 'very, very strange, sir.'
Still, it is hard not to be impressed by the scale of the place and the fact that it is still going. It covers around 22sq km of Tamil Nadu, just outside Pondy and boasts 1700 inhabitants. It is funded by, among others, the EU and the UNESCO; it is the subject of several acts of the Indian Parliament and enjoys a weird sort of quasi-autonomy within India.
Pitching up at the visitor center, this all seems a bit hippie, a bit idealistic and a little strange, but not that weird. Then you visit the focal point of the town itself, a huge slighty flattened geodesic globe called the Matrimindar. You walk down a long, winding path through beautifully manicured, fragrant gardens, silence is compulsory and the cult-like strangeness is accentuated by the volunteers who silently motion you to pass them on one side or the other. If you meet their gaze or smile at them they show no sign of emotion, totally impassive.
The Matrimindar sits on a geometric base finished with red stone. It must be at least 60 or 70 metres high and is covered with metallic gold discs rather like the exterior of the Birmingham Selfridges. It looks exactly like the future was supposed to back in the late 60s; designed by a Frenchman, it belongs to the same school of architecture as the BT tower and Brasilia. Few things could look more incongrous in the middle of a beautiful Tamil garden, hard by a huge banyan tree.
After removing your shoes, you are allowed to enter via a spaceship-like ramp which then winds up, spiraling to the chamber in the centre. Inside the Matrimandir is still a bit of a construction site, although when it is finished, it will be quite impressive in a kind of Epcot meets Hari Krishna kind of way. The Indians, spiritually aware people that they are, love visiting Auroville and 98% of visitors are Indian, with the remainder largely French and a few pointlessly arrogant Americans. It is a treat to be in such a crowded place in India and have almost total silence.
After a slow procession you get to the top of the curved ramp, where you are afforded a glimpse of the inner chamber. Circular in shape this is pleasantly cool and there is a slight haziness to the air. Twelve pillars (finished, apparentlty, in gleaming white space age 'plastic') surround a central dias on which sits...the world's largest hippie crystal, a glassy sphere some 70cm in diameter. You get to gawp at it for all of ten seconds. And that's it. You walk out silently, put your shoes on and go back to Pondy. Was I disappointed? Hell no. The whole experience was as weird and opaque as I could have possibly hoped for.
Once I'd had a couple of hits of espresso and got the caffeine monkey off my back, I took stock of Pondicherry. Apart from the excellent espresso, first impressions were disappointing: it looked like a typical chaotic Indian town: averagely horrendous traffic, shop signs jostling for your attention and the smell of sewage duking it out with smell of garbage. But this is because we were in the old Indian half. The town is bisected by a covered canal (now, charmingly a sewer) and is completely schizophrenic. The old 'white area', between the canal and the sea, retains much of its French colonial feel and, with its low, thick walled buildings has echoes of Hanoi.
But this is not all. Pondy has parks, garbage is kept under control and begging and homelessness is, if not non-existent, relatively absent...almost unbelievably some of the town is a conservation area and, with funds from France and the local ashram (more of which later) has been gentrified. Now, you might point out that this scrubbed up ex-colony is hardly the real India - a sort of subcontinent lite. And you'd be right. But this is no bad thing, for while Indian cities are vibrant, lively places, unless you have a bling hotel to retire to, they are pretty hard work. In Pondy, by contrast, you can walk for at minutes at a time without being offered unwanted goods and services.
hotel, sweet
Then there was our hotel. A sympathetically renovated colonial building with massive walls and French shutters, it is probably the nicest establishment I have ever stayed at. I think it cost around #25 a night - about a third of the rather indifferent Taj in Chennai -and it had the kind of rooms that send interiors magazine editors into paroxysms of joy. Every room was individual and had been designed beautifully. The staff, especially the urbane, dapper manager, were charming; the coffee was great; and the bathrooms were casually massive. I'd really struggle to find a bad word to say about it. We did have a demonstration outside every day -government employees protesting about pay, the manager explained - but this being Pondy, it was impeccably well behaved and involved 30 well dressed men sitting down in the street.
Pondy itself doesn't have a huge number of must see attractions, although the formal gardens laid out by French are pleasant and on one side there is a stand up a bar selling Scotch by the cup from a whole in the wall. The results of this are visible in the gardens where, at any given time, half a dozen people (many of them pretty respectable looking) are sleeping off the effects of hard liquor in 35 degree weather. Over on the seaward side of town there is stylish, brilliant white esplanade which feels a bit like a tropical Biarritz.
To the north are a number of beaches, the best of which is predictably reached via a village rubbish dump (to enjoy India, you must learn to love rubbish), although the beach itself is clean and the sea warm. With few facilities and fewer visitors, it is a pretty hassle free place, although we were plagued by a man who was quite convinced that a rotting starfish was the perfect souvenir of our stay.
word to the Mother
After a couple of day's successful vegging, we decided to check out Pondy's other great claim to fame: the Ashram. This itself is not too exciting: a nicely designed building with a table of flowers, full of Indians and a few spiritually inclined westerners meditating. The Ashram's bigwigs - Sri Aurobindo and The Mother - now both deceased, believed that humanity is on a path to higher consciousness which will result in a new species. Having spent the evening before watching George Bush speaking on TV, I was unconvinced of the veracity of the Mother's assertions, although I will allow that the gift shop has some of the best mystic kitsch I have ever seen.
Far more interesting is the nearby Ashram paper factory where you get to see ultra-high quality paper being handmade from rags rather than trees. It's a complex process and the plant itself is worked by men stripped to the waist stirring huge vats of smashed up rags which will eventually become swish notepads. Rag paper, unlike its tree-based counterpart lasts centuries (wood paper is the bane of the modern bibliophile) and it was unexpectedly interesting to be there at the moment of its creation.
greased up in a man nappy
The following day, our schedule allowed for an Ayuverdic massage. Jane is a great devotee of these: I am not so sure, but I had a sore shoulder, so I figured what the frick and, at my allotted time, presented myself to Rashavid, the male masseur at the Relaxe Spa. He bade me strip off my strides and growlers and put on a curious kind of man nappy. Then he lay me face down on a teak bench and greased me up fulsomely. It was a fine massage and Rashavid's capable fingers skillfully worked my back and all but cured my aching shoulder Afterwards came a steaming - in a sort of glazed iron lung - all of which left me feeling rejuvenated and almost understanding why chicks dig health farms so much. The only thing that I found disconcerting was that, such was the oiliness of the experience, my Johnson kept slipping out of my man-nappy.
With Jane still being pummeled and greased, I rounded off my male pampering routine with a haircut and a shave, a snip (haha) at 60p. The latter was particularly impressive as it was expertly executed by a boy who wasn't old enough to shave himself. I guess this means that I support child labour, although I feel rather more honest about doing it directly, rather than indirectly, by wearing a pair Nikes.
meet the cult
After passing the brutal mid-day sun in an excellent local restaurant, we headed north to Auroville. This town is a real curiousity: founded by the Ashram and inspired by the thoughts of The Mother, it says it is not religious, not a cult and is an 'international township' 'dedicated to socially useful projects.' Viz: alternative technology, consciousness raising, self sufficiency, etc. If all this sounds a bit like some 60s hangover, it's because it is: Auroville was founded in 1968. I had met one of the inhabitants, a 20 year old called Camark on the beach a few days earlier and he seemed like a nice chap, pretty normal, though our ricksahw driver told us that Auroville was 'very, very strange, sir.'
Still, it is hard not to be impressed by the scale of the place and the fact that it is still going. It covers around 22sq km of Tamil Nadu, just outside Pondy and boasts 1700 inhabitants. It is funded by, among others, the EU and the UNESCO; it is the subject of several acts of the Indian Parliament and enjoys a weird sort of quasi-autonomy within India.
Pitching up at the visitor center, this all seems a bit hippie, a bit idealistic and a little strange, but not that weird. Then you visit the focal point of the town itself, a huge slighty flattened geodesic globe called the Matrimindar. You walk down a long, winding path through beautifully manicured, fragrant gardens, silence is compulsory and the cult-like strangeness is accentuated by the volunteers who silently motion you to pass them on one side or the other. If you meet their gaze or smile at them they show no sign of emotion, totally impassive.
The Matrimindar sits on a geometric base finished with red stone. It must be at least 60 or 70 metres high and is covered with metallic gold discs rather like the exterior of the Birmingham Selfridges. It looks exactly like the future was supposed to back in the late 60s; designed by a Frenchman, it belongs to the same school of architecture as the BT tower and Brasilia. Few things could look more incongrous in the middle of a beautiful Tamil garden, hard by a huge banyan tree.
After removing your shoes, you are allowed to enter via a spaceship-like ramp which then winds up, spiraling to the chamber in the centre. Inside the Matrimandir is still a bit of a construction site, although when it is finished, it will be quite impressive in a kind of Epcot meets Hari Krishna kind of way. The Indians, spiritually aware people that they are, love visiting Auroville and 98% of visitors are Indian, with the remainder largely French and a few pointlessly arrogant Americans. It is a treat to be in such a crowded place in India and have almost total silence.
After a slow procession you get to the top of the curved ramp, where you are afforded a glimpse of the inner chamber. Circular in shape this is pleasantly cool and there is a slight haziness to the air. Twelve pillars (finished, apparentlty, in gleaming white space age 'plastic') surround a central dias on which sits...the world's largest hippie crystal, a glassy sphere some 70cm in diameter. You get to gawp at it for all of ten seconds. And that's it. You walk out silently, put your shoes on and go back to Pondy. Was I disappointed? Hell no. The whole experience was as weird and opaque as I could have possibly hoped for.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Lard Air
I was sitting in my seat on my Emirates flight admiring the decor - a sort of Arabian nights meets Barrat curtains "vibe" - and loudly congratulating myself on picking the only seat on the entire flight with a vacancy next to it. Alas, my smugness was to be short-lived: a man whose fatness would cause comment even in this day and age toddled down the aisle and eased himself weightily into the seat next to me.
This put me in a difficult position (both figuratively and literally). He was quite a pleasant fellow but he was also invading my personal space. And while I didn't doubt he was a top chap in his own way and fully entitled to scarf as many cakes as he wanted, I had paid my #500 for a whole airline seat, not 80% of one. Every 30 seconds or so another polyp of plump, warm man blubber insinuated itself into my seat - and, other than trying to make it obvious that you are uncomfortable, there really is now polite way of asking someone to get their stray rolls out of your space. As I say, a tough one (which wholly compromised my enjoyment of Charlies Angels II and Terminator 3) but given current obesity trends, a problem which is likely to increase. Upon my return I shall be taking this matter up with the CAA and suggesting that passengers are forced to declare their girth before they buy a ticket. Anything more than hefty and it's two seats or businesses only.
Dubai It
Fortunately my supersized chum left us after our lay over in Dubai. As I have only seen the inside of Dubai aiport, I cannot really say much about the country, except that the whole place seems to be a sort of Tenerife for people with more money but not much more taste. The fact that they are building a palm-shaped island out in the Gulf, much of which has been bought up by footballers would support this theory. The airport itself is a sort of blingin' shopping mall and may as well have signs all over the place that say 'THIS MAY BE THE ONLY CHANCE YOU GET TO BUY STUFF AT SUCH FAVOURABLE RATES. CONSUME, CONSUME, CONSUME NOW!!!' Beloved of Americans and the kind of people who buy oversized SUVs, it is quite awful in a clean and acceptable way. I was lucky to get out having consumed only six falafel and a fair of sunglasses; though prising Jane away from the Rolex boutique was quite an effort.
Holiday India
Chennai (Madras) airport, by contrast, is the antithesis of bling. It has a sort of tropical communist feel and the lights kept going off. Curiously, it also had piles of feedback forms everywhere 'How would you rate your Chennai Airport experience?' Alas, they didn't have a box for 'primitive.' Once we'd cleared customs (about 4am), we headed over to Le Merridien, a largely unremarkable airport hotel, very JG Ballard, notable only for its excessive use of carpets in a locale which is always humid and around 30C. It was as soulless and indifferently plush an airport hotel as you could have wished for. It could have been anywhere;it could have been in Dubai.
The following morning, we tried to get a taxi. But this wasn't going to happen. Chennai currently has a massive lack of these, so we took at tuk tuk 12 km into town, allowing us to experience the aroma of an Indian city first hand. I pictured myself as a wine critic: 'Ooh - I'm getting hints of sewage...no, it's rotting garbage...and petrol fumes and burning rubbish.' Actually, while few Indian cities are nice, Chennai is pretty good compared to the uberdump that is Delhi and the megalopolis of Mumbai. Mainly because, weighing in at a mere 6 million people, it's kind of small, a big town really.
We were staying at the Taj something or other - the best hotel in Chennai and somewhere the Queen had kipped. Its identikit international hotel feel was mitigated somewhat by a vaguely historic building and a very nice swimming pool whose water had a curious weight about it - like swimming in heavy water, duetrium oxide. We had been upgraded to a suite the size of several London flats (all for about #80 a night) and just sort of hung around for a day, recovering from the flight, with me nursing crush marks from the man who 'shared' my seat.
Despite its undoubted status as Chennai's premier lodgings, it came as something of a relief to leave the Taj. I find excessive luxury rather stifling -and this was about as bad as it gets. You cannot turn around without having someone offer you something you don't want. Moreover, as I discovered at the bar, you may not take your drink the two metres from the bar to the table: 'Sir, please, I will call the boy.'
Taken for a taxi ride
But for all this excessive swank, we still couldn't get a cab anywhere in the city. While we looked for one, we visited Fort George, a large and OK colonial relic, now stuffed with government buildings and Marina beach, the second largest beach in the world; Miami is number one. This is actually nicer than youÕd think and the water looked clean enough to swim in. But I had already seen the river flowing through the city and that was enough to convince me that a dip within 10km of Chennai would be a short cut to all sorts of unusual and exciting diseases.
By this stage we had wholly given up on cabs and elected to get a three wheeler 50km south to the beach and temple town of Mallapparum. This was where we met ŌBabuÕ (which, I think means friend), the big fat bastard. As many people know, to come to India and not get swizzed at least once is not playing the game. So Babu charged us three times the going rate for our trip. Then he tried to get us to pay all the tolls, then, extra for petrol, before, finally, trying to convince us that there was a $10 per person fee to enter the town. In a sense, I had to admire Babu's perseverance: here we were telling him it a) wasnÕt true and b) wasn't on and c) he could piss off and he just kept going. Eventually we decided that the only way to combat his unrelenting huckster was to say 'We donÕt understand.' to his every request. Eventually, I think, he did and dropped us off in the centre of town, then sulked when no tip appeared. We thanked him very little.
Mallappaprum is a small town with a grubby main street, a spectacular 7th century shore temple and some rather stylish rock temples. It also has one of the world's largest stone idol chipping industries and we scored a Ganeesh for the bathroom. Down by the shore temple and there's a pleasant beach; signs warn you not to swim, citing the number of drownings per year, but these are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Modesty means that most Indians enter the water with their clothes on and - very few actually know how to swim, which makes it rather easier to drown.
rich food, poor food
In Mallappapuram, we also fully discovered the delight that is south Indian food. We had eaten in the hotels in Chennai, food which was OK, but unspectacular. We had eaten in a middle class restaurant, which was pretty good, although we were the centre of attention as honkies in Chennai are few and far between. But in Mallappuram we realised that, within certain limits, the less you pay the better the food is. Pay a lot and you will get something blandish with an internationalized taste; pay a little and you will get something like the fabulous dhosas I have fallen in love with, which come with no fewer than eight condiments and cost about 30p. Of course, there are limits to this rule: pay too little and you will spend a week on the can necking immodium.
Although Mallapapurum is pleasant, it's a bit of a one day town. Plus they were digging up the sewers, which, well, you can imagineÉso we took a real taxi down to Pondicherry. Evidence of BabuÕs duplicity, it cost half as much to go twice the distance. The southern Indian landscape outside towns is a restful one: hazy post monsoon greens, fields and surprisingly, even the odd forest. ItÕs dotted with villages still largely constructed with natural materials and goats and pigs scurry about everywhere. I can't quite account for the presence of the latter for although they do eat garbage (of which India has a superabundance) theyÕre no good unless you want to eat them. And there arenÕt many folk who do in these parts.
caffiend
I was immensely relived to get to Pondy. Over the past three days I had been experiencing all sorts of problems. My body ached, I had trouble getting up in the morning and I had started more or less involuntarily (a la my own Private Idaho) falling asleep in the afternoon. Jane, I think, was finding this combination of lethargy and narcolepsy rather irksome; for myself I thought it was the heat or jet lag, although it seemed to be getting worse, not better. Then, just after IÕd dozed off mid-sentence, Jane woke me and said, 'Darling when was the last time you had a cup of coffee?'
'Err, I replied, about three days ago.' Indian coffee is pretty awful. Luckily Pondy is a former French colony and, as such, espresso is available everywhere. I had one cup and, within about five minutes was my witty, animated self again - worse, that evening, I even slept better. Now some would say that this is rather worrying and I would be inclined to agree, so I will try and reduce my coffee intake. But it's also given me a valuable, if rather neutered and middle class insight into the shocking world of drug addiction. I will never make fun of a crack 'ho or smack head again.
I was sitting in my seat on my Emirates flight admiring the decor - a sort of Arabian nights meets Barrat curtains "vibe" - and loudly congratulating myself on picking the only seat on the entire flight with a vacancy next to it. Alas, my smugness was to be short-lived: a man whose fatness would cause comment even in this day and age toddled down the aisle and eased himself weightily into the seat next to me.
This put me in a difficult position (both figuratively and literally). He was quite a pleasant fellow but he was also invading my personal space. And while I didn't doubt he was a top chap in his own way and fully entitled to scarf as many cakes as he wanted, I had paid my #500 for a whole airline seat, not 80% of one. Every 30 seconds or so another polyp of plump, warm man blubber insinuated itself into my seat - and, other than trying to make it obvious that you are uncomfortable, there really is now polite way of asking someone to get their stray rolls out of your space. As I say, a tough one (which wholly compromised my enjoyment of Charlies Angels II and Terminator 3) but given current obesity trends, a problem which is likely to increase. Upon my return I shall be taking this matter up with the CAA and suggesting that passengers are forced to declare their girth before they buy a ticket. Anything more than hefty and it's two seats or businesses only.
Dubai It
Fortunately my supersized chum left us after our lay over in Dubai. As I have only seen the inside of Dubai aiport, I cannot really say much about the country, except that the whole place seems to be a sort of Tenerife for people with more money but not much more taste. The fact that they are building a palm-shaped island out in the Gulf, much of which has been bought up by footballers would support this theory. The airport itself is a sort of blingin' shopping mall and may as well have signs all over the place that say 'THIS MAY BE THE ONLY CHANCE YOU GET TO BUY STUFF AT SUCH FAVOURABLE RATES. CONSUME, CONSUME, CONSUME NOW!!!' Beloved of Americans and the kind of people who buy oversized SUVs, it is quite awful in a clean and acceptable way. I was lucky to get out having consumed only six falafel and a fair of sunglasses; though prising Jane away from the Rolex boutique was quite an effort.
Holiday India
Chennai (Madras) airport, by contrast, is the antithesis of bling. It has a sort of tropical communist feel and the lights kept going off. Curiously, it also had piles of feedback forms everywhere 'How would you rate your Chennai Airport experience?' Alas, they didn't have a box for 'primitive.' Once we'd cleared customs (about 4am), we headed over to Le Merridien, a largely unremarkable airport hotel, very JG Ballard, notable only for its excessive use of carpets in a locale which is always humid and around 30C. It was as soulless and indifferently plush an airport hotel as you could have wished for. It could have been anywhere;it could have been in Dubai.
The following morning, we tried to get a taxi. But this wasn't going to happen. Chennai currently has a massive lack of these, so we took at tuk tuk 12 km into town, allowing us to experience the aroma of an Indian city first hand. I pictured myself as a wine critic: 'Ooh - I'm getting hints of sewage...no, it's rotting garbage...and petrol fumes and burning rubbish.' Actually, while few Indian cities are nice, Chennai is pretty good compared to the uberdump that is Delhi and the megalopolis of Mumbai. Mainly because, weighing in at a mere 6 million people, it's kind of small, a big town really.
We were staying at the Taj something or other - the best hotel in Chennai and somewhere the Queen had kipped. Its identikit international hotel feel was mitigated somewhat by a vaguely historic building and a very nice swimming pool whose water had a curious weight about it - like swimming in heavy water, duetrium oxide. We had been upgraded to a suite the size of several London flats (all for about #80 a night) and just sort of hung around for a day, recovering from the flight, with me nursing crush marks from the man who 'shared' my seat.
Despite its undoubted status as Chennai's premier lodgings, it came as something of a relief to leave the Taj. I find excessive luxury rather stifling -and this was about as bad as it gets. You cannot turn around without having someone offer you something you don't want. Moreover, as I discovered at the bar, you may not take your drink the two metres from the bar to the table: 'Sir, please, I will call the boy.'
Taken for a taxi ride
But for all this excessive swank, we still couldn't get a cab anywhere in the city. While we looked for one, we visited Fort George, a large and OK colonial relic, now stuffed with government buildings and Marina beach, the second largest beach in the world; Miami is number one. This is actually nicer than youÕd think and the water looked clean enough to swim in. But I had already seen the river flowing through the city and that was enough to convince me that a dip within 10km of Chennai would be a short cut to all sorts of unusual and exciting diseases.
By this stage we had wholly given up on cabs and elected to get a three wheeler 50km south to the beach and temple town of Mallapparum. This was where we met ŌBabuÕ (which, I think means friend), the big fat bastard. As many people know, to come to India and not get swizzed at least once is not playing the game. So Babu charged us three times the going rate for our trip. Then he tried to get us to pay all the tolls, then, extra for petrol, before, finally, trying to convince us that there was a $10 per person fee to enter the town. In a sense, I had to admire Babu's perseverance: here we were telling him it a) wasnÕt true and b) wasn't on and c) he could piss off and he just kept going. Eventually we decided that the only way to combat his unrelenting huckster was to say 'We donÕt understand.' to his every request. Eventually, I think, he did and dropped us off in the centre of town, then sulked when no tip appeared. We thanked him very little.
Mallappaprum is a small town with a grubby main street, a spectacular 7th century shore temple and some rather stylish rock temples. It also has one of the world's largest stone idol chipping industries and we scored a Ganeesh for the bathroom. Down by the shore temple and there's a pleasant beach; signs warn you not to swim, citing the number of drownings per year, but these are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Modesty means that most Indians enter the water with their clothes on and - very few actually know how to swim, which makes it rather easier to drown.
rich food, poor food
In Mallappapuram, we also fully discovered the delight that is south Indian food. We had eaten in the hotels in Chennai, food which was OK, but unspectacular. We had eaten in a middle class restaurant, which was pretty good, although we were the centre of attention as honkies in Chennai are few and far between. But in Mallappuram we realised that, within certain limits, the less you pay the better the food is. Pay a lot and you will get something blandish with an internationalized taste; pay a little and you will get something like the fabulous dhosas I have fallen in love with, which come with no fewer than eight condiments and cost about 30p. Of course, there are limits to this rule: pay too little and you will spend a week on the can necking immodium.
Although Mallapapurum is pleasant, it's a bit of a one day town. Plus they were digging up the sewers, which, well, you can imagineÉso we took a real taxi down to Pondicherry. Evidence of BabuÕs duplicity, it cost half as much to go twice the distance. The southern Indian landscape outside towns is a restful one: hazy post monsoon greens, fields and surprisingly, even the odd forest. ItÕs dotted with villages still largely constructed with natural materials and goats and pigs scurry about everywhere. I can't quite account for the presence of the latter for although they do eat garbage (of which India has a superabundance) theyÕre no good unless you want to eat them. And there arenÕt many folk who do in these parts.
caffiend
I was immensely relived to get to Pondy. Over the past three days I had been experiencing all sorts of problems. My body ached, I had trouble getting up in the morning and I had started more or less involuntarily (a la my own Private Idaho) falling asleep in the afternoon. Jane, I think, was finding this combination of lethargy and narcolepsy rather irksome; for myself I thought it was the heat or jet lag, although it seemed to be getting worse, not better. Then, just after IÕd dozed off mid-sentence, Jane woke me and said, 'Darling when was the last time you had a cup of coffee?'
'Err, I replied, about three days ago.' Indian coffee is pretty awful. Luckily Pondy is a former French colony and, as such, espresso is available everywhere. I had one cup and, within about five minutes was my witty, animated self again - worse, that evening, I even slept better. Now some would say that this is rather worrying and I would be inclined to agree, so I will try and reduce my coffee intake. But it's also given me a valuable, if rather neutered and middle class insight into the shocking world of drug addiction. I will never make fun of a crack 'ho or smack head again.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Hello. I'm off to India for a month on the 10th so nothing here yet. Why don't you click on the above image to visit the delicious spiderboy gallery?
