I just thought I couldn’t put it into words. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop writing so I will break the five days into the pre and post Taj visit. Monday it was Chennai. Originally a settlement of the British East India Company, Madras is now India’s 4th largest City. We have moved out of Buddhist country into the Hindu culture and architecture. The official language has been changed from English to Hindi. Chennai sits on the thermal equator – enough said. There is a downtown city of Madras that is fairly modern, but most of Madras seems to be an endless string of small villages - suburbs?” We passed street after street with rows of little shopping stalls on our way to Mahabalipuram, about an hour outside of Chennai. It is a beach resort in Temple bay. Where to even start on the myriad of impressions experienced just on the drive to Mahabalipuram. The first thing that hits you is the filth and debris. Everyone seems oblivious to the rubbish – happily walking around or through it as they shop, visit and go about their daily business. Then there is a general lack of grass, everywhere bare dirt – everything has a coating of dust. I noticed these stone fences sprinkled here and there. It looked like a patchwork maze of walled off properties. When people buy property here, the first thing they do is wall it in. They have concrete or stone fences surrounding the property and nothing inside but dirt. Occasionally, they might have a little grain planted, perhaps a goat or two, maybe a tent or a thatched roofed hut - but most have just bare dirt. The guide says they use all their money on the property and walls and have nothing left for a house. Maybe it is for the next generation to build a home. Talk about contrasts and disparity. On our drive to the Resort we drove through a kind of poverty that is hard for me to contemplate. I worked for 15 years with the Texas poor – but this a whole different degree of poverty. Much of the “housing” was tarps over sticks with grime and dirt thickly covering everything. Even if there is a nicer apartment complex, right outside its walls are tents and shanties. You saw families sleeping in the dirt under a tree, or more often, on these cots barely off the ground or straw mats. The mats and cots were often placed right at the edge of the street in front of their stall or fruit cart. I saw a little girl spill her food on the street and scrape it up and eat it off the dirt road - no one around her gave a thought to stopping her. The trash, my lord, the trash. I never saw rubbish like that. Dogs and cows rummage for food, while ankle deep in refuse and garbage. I date back to the days when people threw their trash out the car window, but this is a different intensity. I was mesmerized with the animals in the streets -many and quite a variety. I realize I am in the Hindu culture but it is still strange to see animal wandering in among the shoppers, cars and carts. On the streets you saw cows, bulls, water buffalo, goats, moneys, dogs, pigs, sheep -strangely no cats; I am hoping that wasn’t lunch for the foreigners since the locals are, of course, vegetarians. We saw water buffalo, elephants and camels pulling loaded carts. If I said, “Dang it! That would have been a great picture” once, I said it 234 times. I got so caught up in the sights and sounds I forgot to take pictures. Contrasting with this filth are the beautiful, friendly people wearing some of the most gorgeous saris I have ever seen. We were there on one of their holidays so maybe everyone was in their “Sunday” best. They consider saris sexy saying that “they cover everything and hide nothing”. I was in sensory overload and couldn’t quite process all I was seeing or the conditions these people existed in - and just about then we pulled into our resort. It was surreal! This was like a lush Hawaiian oasis in the middle of a giant landfill. Inside, nothing other than a flower pedal, was allowed to clutter the thick grass. There were pristine beaches and pools with abundant greenery, blossoming flowers and palm tree rustling in the breeze. Outside the walls and armed gate, trash stacked up about knee high against the side fences and you couldn’t see a single blade of grass. I was feeling terribly guilty with such abundance and beauty in the midst of such destitution … until I noticed the huge bathtub. Having not had much bathtub access for over two months I washed away some of the dust and guilt in an hour long bubble bath. I figure if you’re going to be decadent – do it right. Then we got back on an air conditioned bus and move out into the squalor again. I was repeatedly surprised by how happy and friendly the people seemed. I not sure how happy I would be to have foreigners driving though, in their air conditioned bus, snapping pictures of me and mine. Often we were asked to take a picture of their children – and no, they didn’t ask for money afterwards. Stranger yet, at the tourist spots, I had my picture taken many times by locals – twice holding their children which they had handed to me. I am not sure what that was about – but I figured turn about was fair play. Maybe they never saw a woman that tall or maybe my knit top and capris were just too strange not to photograph to share with their neighbors. I will enjoy the friendliness while I can as I suspect we will not be nearly so well liked in the Middle East. I had always heard so much about the begging in India – I didn’t see that much of it, except around the tourist stops. Tourist attractions are the only place where you are overwhelmed by hawkers selling their wares and beggars. They can get pretty aggressive. Our guide said, “No thanks” means “yes” and “no” means maybe – just don’t say anything unless you want to buy something – and that worked pretty well. At one stop I looked at a brass piece but we couldn’t agree on a price. We got on the bus and went to the next site, about a mile away, and guess who met me as I stepped off the bus? I said, “How did you do that?” He said he took a shortcut on his bike and beat us there. The women in our group are shoppers. I developed a technique were I just let them do the haggling, then whoever got it for the best price – I just offer the hawkers that price as the bus was pulling out -it worked two out of three times. We visited a rather impressive temple on the beach, Shores Temples. There used to be seven temples, but only one has survived. This Pagoda is one of the world heritage sites of UNESCO. I thought I was beginning to lose my appreciation for these sites after so many, but this one was quite unique. I was fascinated with the people there as well as those in saris on the beach. Then back to our haven to stick my toe in the Indian Ocean. I explored the area a little, had dinner and packed it in to rest up for Delhi. Off to the Chennai Airport the next morning, now there is an experience. We marched though the airport, suitcases and box lunches in hand. We had been told to eat and drink nothing except what they gave us. I was willing; between the heat, smells and the poverty my appetite was curbed a little this trip. We flew Jet Lite. I didn’t have a window – I don’t mean a window seat – I mean there was no window on my row. We landed in Delhi. The airport is huge and almost deserted for a city of millions. Delhi is a modern capital city in the middle of all this. It has everything right down to modern traffic jams. Their capital city is similar to ours. However, you don’t have to get many miles out of the city for the poverty ridden villages to return. It reminded me of Nairobi – modern to the edge of the city and few miles out, stick houses in small villages. We visited our “temple of the day” – today a Jain temple, Laksmi Narain – a Hindu offshoot, but stricter. There are some different religions here. I know about Buddhist, Hindu, Hare Krishna etc. but Jainism? You can’t wear any leather into their temple – so no shoes, belts, purses whatever. There is another religion Farsi, where their ritual for their dead is to place the body on the “Tower of Silence” for the birds of prey to pick their bones clean. This is becoming a real problem as chemicals have killed off most of the birds of prey residing in these mega cities. I was taken aback by all the swastikas found throughout the Temple. They explained it was an ancient symbol use by many religions long before the Nazis. Now an interesting fact, New Delhi is older than Old Delhi. Don’t ask me why – I guess just to confuse the tourists. Tomorrow - the two day trip back from Agra to Bombay.
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