My God, My India

I apologize for the lower-than-usual quality of these photos - with no editing software to rotate the vertical ones or clean up the lighting, contrasts and colors, they're not as good as they could be. Oh well.

I believe I last left off in Udupi, birthplace of the mighty masala dosa and location of a famous Krishna temple. We enjoyed a car festival on our second-to-last night there; it wasn't so much a car festival as a car-pushing at the behest of a heavy donator. People were taking blessings (bringing the smoke to their foreheads through cupped hands) from used fireworks and from people with fire, but I have to admit I didn't feel much in the way of spiritual purity.

The next day, however, was a different story. After a simple-but-delicious breakfast of masala dosa (what else?) we headed for Mangalore. We were dumped into a pile of fish; I tumbled off the bus and found myself face-to-face with a fishwife and ankle-deep in the water dripping off her wares.

Our first stop was the Manjunatha temple; a temple northeast of the city built in the Keralan style; after circumambulating (walking around the shrines before approaching directly) we sat next to one of the temple's benefactors and chatted for awhile as the noontime mahapuja (grand prayer ceremony) got underway. This temple does a fire puja twice a day, meaning lots of priests with lots of torches accompanied by drumming and cymballing. It was very, um, cymballic of a country so intent on its faith.

Manjunatha Temple is home to the Trilokshetra, one of the finest bronzes in India. It is a three-faced deity (a seated Shiva I believe) and considered the finest outside Tamil Nadu (they are quite proud of this; they have a little sign in several languages announcing it). I couldn't take a photo but I was awed at the nuanced beauty of the piece, which was so detailed that it seemed to be embroidered rather than cast.

Our next stop after the Milagres Church (nice, but not overwhelmingly impressive) was St. Aloysius College Chapel, which reminded me that great works of devotional art are not limited to India and Greater China:

St. Aloysius Chapel is covered on the inside - and I do mean covered - with frescoes. Fairly new frescoes, but fine nonetheless. I could nitpick that a few of the people depicted look a little stiff, but hey. The painted columns could be the envy of marble, and the friezes illustrating the life of Jesus were beautifully matched in color, tone and composition. The colors - mauve, rose, teak, cinnabar, cerulean, sunburst, all the colors you only see in catalogues - were magnificently matched and almost hummed, as though they were in tune somehow, in a fine aesthetic harmony.

It was the closest I've ever come in a Christian religious space to having a spiritual moment, and I am avowedly non-spiritual.

We left Mangalore the next day for Kannur, a small town in northern Kerala. There are really only two things to do there (besides visit a weaving cooperative) - go to the beach and see Theyyam. We stayed at Costa Malabari (very nice - it's a small hotel in a 120-year old traditional house) and first, went to the beach:

...a lovely semi-private and peaceful cove. The sand wasn't as white and the water not as blue as in the Philippines or Indonesia, but it was still quite lovely. The next morning, we rose at 4am and sleepily piled off in a rickshaw to head 20 miles out to see Theyyam:

Theyyam is a north Keralan temple ''dance" - not so much a dance as a form of devotion. Related in form to Kathakali (next post), devotees wear large, unnatural costumes and terrifying makeup and allow themselves to become possessed by the gods of the temple. It's similar in a way to the dangki tradition of Taiwan, except they don't hurt themselves. They just dance a lot, issue proclamations and sayings from the gods, and generally run about. We saw two dancers, one in a very tall mask and one in a wide skirt, in which flaming torches were set, as well as a flaming headdress. Sorry that the picture is not so good, but it was hard to take photos in the pre-dawn darkness and I felt a flash would be intrusive.

The torch-bearer would run up to the audience - separated by gender - who would joyfully take blessings from the smoke. It's the only time I really feel I can use the word worshipful and mean it. I didn't expect this and Brendan and I were the only foreigners there, so of course he had to run up to me first (the gods apparrently like me) - which was utterly terrifying.

The women around me thought it was hilarious, of course.

After Kannur, we headed up into the hills to the Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary. We stayed at Varnam Homestay (highly recommended - I can't speak highly enough of them). Not knowing the distance involved, we hired a Jeep to take us from Mananthavady, the town where the bus let us off. It should have been Rs. 200 - we paid 600 (about $12 US; not a big deal). Turns out the proprietor of the homestay is a police officer who lodged a complaint about the Jeep driver...sweet, sweet revenge.

The next day, we took a Jeep safari through Tholpetty, seeing Hanuman monkeys (langurs), a wild bison and not one but three wild elephants:

Varnam is also near a tribal area, dotted with villages and paddies. You can usually tell tribal women because unlike the other local Hindus, they cover their hair, and unlike the local Muslims, they use kerchiefs, not shawls or hijab.

It was lovely, being welcomed in villages that aren't reliant on the tourist trade or saturated with souvenir shops, and to just get out and meet some friendly people. As monkeys played in the bamboo at the edge of the clearing, we watched the village children run home across the dry rice paddies - almost all of them stopped to us to first gape, then chat. At least one of them had a cell phone; let this be a lesson to American parents who think it's spoiling to give such devices to children.

Our meals at Varnam were excellent, served by candlelight and flashlight as the power went out every night at 8pm sharp for exactly 30 minutes. Amidst the dim glow we enjoyed savory chicken curry, daal of various flavors, some traditional Keralan foods from the mountains including freshwater fish and a delicious green vegetable with potato, cooked with lots of fenugreek leaf and mustard seed, and "magic balls" - rice flour balls filled with spiced coconut gratings and jaggery - raw sugar. Laying in the hammock or relaxing in the traditional-style house, I felt quiet, so at peace as to be sleepy while Beena (mistress of the house) led the cows in or Don (their son) raked the drying coffee .

A lover of coffee since I was about 3 years old, it was utter bliss to fall asleep rocking in the hammock listening to those coffee beans roll back and forth under the noontime sky with a gentle scritch-scratch.

Our next stop was Calicut; unfortunately most of my photos from this stop are vertical so I'll have to post them later. We had only a half day in Calicut and spent it shopping (approximately 110% of the city's income comes from the UAE and overseas Indians working there, so shopping options are plentiful) and visiting ancient wooden Moppila mosques - the mosques built 700-1100 years ago before the Portuguese came through and defaced them all. Fortunately most are still around and still active today.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Gulf influences, they are rather orthodox mosques so I, as a woman, was not allowed to enter. Brendan, bless his progressive heart, wouldn't go in without me. When invited by some students he said "Sorry - either we both go or neither of us do." (For the record I would have let him enter if he'd really wanted to).

The next morning we bundled into a train bound for Cochin - the stuff of spice and dreams.

A few photos of Cochin before my next post:

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Windows and Mirrors II

(Please read the post below to preserve the order of these two sections)

On the train to Bangalore, from which we transferred to a Mangalore-bound bus, we shared a compartment with several friendly people. Before boarding we picked up dinner; curd rice (rice and plain yoghurt with spices) for Brendan, and Lemon Rice (hard to explain, kind of like a non-greasy biriyani) for me.

After we finished eating as the train chortled away, we were greeted by a deep, fermented smell. One of our kind cabin-mates had uncontrollable belching gas and did not look one jot happy about it. Every few minutes, from the depths of his kidneys, he released a rumbling, Richter-scale burp that soaked the air with a dark, intestinal stench. I set my will against my gorge and smiled silently as my stomach pickled itself.

Waiting for our bus to Mangalore, from Bangalore - confusing, I know - was quite the adventure. Trying to get a clear answer in India is like playing an extended game of "Who's On First?"

"Is this where we catch the bus to Mangalore?"
"Yes."
"So the bus to Mangalore will come here?"
"No."
"No?"
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"You catch the bus to Mangalore here?"
"There."
"Oh. You catch it there?"
"Yes."
"Yes - so the bus to Mangalore comes in there."
"No."
"Then where does it come in?"
"Here."
"OK, then we wait here for the bus to Mangalore?"
"No, you are waiting there and bus is coming."
"Coming there?"
"No, coming here, going there."
"Going where?"
"To Mangalore."
"I know. But where do we get on?"
"Here. Or there only."
"Wait, is it here or there?"
"Yes."

(The bus ended up pulling in "here" but stopping "there" after picking up some passengers. I think.)

When we finally arrived in Mangalore, and then Udupi, 24 hours later (yes, you read that right, 24 hours to get across one Indian state). We took KSRTC - the state transit company - which meant that our breaks were all at government-run rest areas.

And let me tell you, the food at these places is fan-freaking-tastic. I had the best vadai of my life at a tiny whitewashed building quite literally in the middle of nowhere; in all directions was a rock-strewn plain. Later on we stopped at a small restaurant at the foot of the Western Ghats, near the Coorg area where cardamom, cocoa and coffee are grown. We weren't hungry but had the most delicious cardamom-spiced deep roastted coffee; easily rivalling Sumatra as some of the best coffee I've ever tasted.

Hampi and Mangalore are mirror images of each other. They have only the red dust in common; otherwise one is at the edge of the great Deccan plateau, the other is a port renowned for spice and coffee exports since the Middle Ages. One is a backpacker town strewn with scantily-clad white women and grungy white men; the other has been influenced by Arab, mostly Yemeni, traders for centuries, has few foreigners and many women wear burkhas. Hampi is full of rickshaw mafia trying to suck you dry like so many vampire bats - Udupi and Mangalore are honest and friendly places. One has crumbling ruins set around a newly developed town; the other is full of crumbling Portuguese-style buildings.

Both Hampi and Udupi are saturated with Iberian and Arab influences:






But Udupi, the smaller of the two and arguably the more pleasant place to stay, is also famed as the birthplace of the humble, yet delicious, dosa:

A far cry from the sad and soggy banana pancakes of Hampi.

(This is, by the way, why so many South Indian restaurants abroad are named "Udupi Palace" or the like.)

I am sorry that I had to include my worst photo here, but the others need to be rotated and this cybercafe computer won't allow that.

Udupi is also the site of a famous Krishna temple, which is awash with foreigners becoming enlightened. It's not Hare Krishna but shares many of the same values and is well-known in the West. The temple is, however, lovely and the people here are lovely. It has three temple chariots ("cars"), all in traditional Karnatakan style. We were lucky enough to see one of them pulled around 'Car Street' - a service performed for devotees who donate a certain amount to that end. Photos of that later; they can't be posted now.

We noticed a lot of similarities, however, with Taiwanese god processionals. Similar sorts of music and dancing, fireworks, large costumed deities dancing, a large chariot/palanquin being pulled along. It makes you wonder if the devotional festivals of India and China have a common root (Buddhism is too young, methinks, and the Buddhist temples of Taiwan don't do this as much as the Daoist ones), but diverged as they split. China's would have died out in the Cultural Revolution, but lived on in Taiwan. Makes you think.

Advertising in India is usually painted on buildings, not just along billboards. At times it is quite photogenic.

...more later!