All this fascinating cultural adjusting and one of the biggest things for me is a rather mundane one…having a car and driver. I started driving pretty much the day I was legally allowed to (with a few thrilling practice runs in my dad’s old Toyota before that) and my first big purchase in life was a little Nissan 200SX. Perhaps it comes from having daughters or being the eldest in the family, I was indirectly tasked with following in my fathers’ car-loving footsteps. More than that even is an independent streak, which is facilitated by, amongst other things, the ability to drive myself wherever I may need (or want) to go. Still, as much as I love to drive, if you ask any of my non-driving friends, they will tell you I am, well…sensitive…about driving other people around to places I am not already going. Not surprisingly then, I feel rather uncomfortable having someone do just that for me. When the driver dropped me off at the train station, I thought perhaps I would feel a bit more myself on the next leg of my journey. As much as I enjoyed the luxuriousness of not worrying about directions or itineraries or gas or parking or (here specifically) successfully making it from point A to point B, it’s definitely not the kind of travel I am used to. Ram, who organized it all for me, said it wasn’t a big deal, a few of my other friends have drivers all the time at home, and I am paying him, but as I said, I am still adjusting culturally…
I was lucky and had only one lady and her remarkably well-behaved son in my little train berth. I had a bed all for myself and as much as I knew it wouldn’t be, I was still a little surprised that it was absolutely nothing like the Darjeeling Limited. (Side note: just so you know, I may continue to reference this movie for weeks to come. Judge accordingly.) No matter, I was tired and slept pretty well, considering I was moving and wearing cargo pants. In the morning I played tiny imaginary swords with the boy and he told me stories in Tamil out of a little book with an Avatar picture on it. His mom let me know where my stop was and I waved goodbye, careful to leave behind the dozens of swords he had given me.
My feet hit the ground in Tanjovare and I had that familiar ten seconds of ‘wait a minute…what the hell am I doing here?’ but as I had learned over the years, I kept moving towards what I thought might be an exit while I recalculated. I hadn’t fully planned what to do (damn…where’s that driver when you need him?) but I decided just to go to the temple. It would have been a safe bet to flag down a rickshaw and ask for the temple in any city I had been to so far. This time there were no touts and when I asked a driver how much he said forty at the same time I said fifty. Hehe. It was my first rickshaw and my only complaint is that I’m too tall and can’t see anything out the doors. Which is also kind of nice in a way, nobody can see me either.
This was an extra old monolithic temple, with a huuuuuuge nandi in the middle and a thousand of them atop the outer wall. I learned later that the nandi (bull) pulls Siva’s chariot and if you whisper prayers into his ear, he will tell them to Siva. Ummmm I knew I loved cows for a reason…They also pull carts filled with sticks and hay and wire and all sorts of other things to this day (at a remarkably slow pace that makes me say ‘beast of burden’ in my head each time I see one) everywhere I've been except the middle of the cities.
I had a bit of a hard time getting another rickshaw back into town (really missing that driver) but eventually a traffic policeman got me one. He thought I wanted to go to some town 85km away, but I assured him just into town would be fine….I intended to do a little shopping. And I mean a little – I just wanted to buy my dad a madras-print lungi that all the men not wearing slacks or long white dhoti had on. I also realized I hadn’t eaten yet (my appetite is not what it should be although the inevitable illness that everyone warned me of had not yet surfaced, so I’m not complaining) and I saw a First Class A/C Pure Veg Hotel across the street and down some. Problem was the across the street part. I had visions of being squashed between a rickshaw, a motorcycle, a cow and six bikes (being a country girl, sometimes I even struggle with crosswalks) but I waited and breathed and waited and breathed and eventually found a break in the traffic. I felt truly accomplished – and I even cut down the waiting time on the way back. Ahhh sweet success. And the restaurant you ask? Well, I had a great dosa, which is the important part. But there was no A/C, I don’t think it qualified as first class and apparently hotel means…cafeteria…I mean restaurant.
The shopping place recommended in my book didn’t sell lungis (they actually looked a little appalled when I asked, like you don’t want to buy embroidered sofa covers? You want to buy a loincloth?) so I decided to try a little test to fill up some time: taking the local bus rather than another rickshaw to the long distance bus station on the outskirts of town. Sort of working my way up to the real thing. I had heard a lot about them – sometimes people hang out the doorway, men sit on one side and women on the other, they are generally crazy. This seemed relatively tame though. My biggest concern was how to pay (that is the difficult part in every new transit system – ticket on the bus ticket off the bus you never know) and a guy just came to me and asked for money. How convenient. Although I sat next to a lady (following the rules) I have to say, sometimes I feel like a boy here. Indian women are so incredibly womanly, with their long elegant sarees and flowers in their braided hair. I was wearing green khakis and a mens button-up shirt and when combined with the fact that I was alone (I saw very few women alone), am fairly unwashed, taller than many of the men and have short hair…well, my femininity is suffering. I guess that is kind of the point though – I am attempting to minimize attention and I am often shocked that people still stare at me even in this rather plain and dirty state. I am quite pale I suppose. I made it to the bus station anyways, and I wandered a bit until I heard someone yelling ‘Madurai’ and I hopped on. Four hours. No A/C. No seat belts. No doors. Here we go.
