Home away from home

I wandered through a small parade, an all-women police department, a steady stream of uniformed children on their way to school and the usual din of rickshaws, motorbikes and farm animals to the bus stand a kilometer or so outside of town. I had misjudged the distance and the heat, but it was good to stretch my legs after so much time in the car over the past few days. I stopped and bought a banana and a bottle of water for the trip (that I will be careful not to drink until we are close to the destination – I have developed an untested but well-founded fear of having to go to the bathroom while on a bus – I just cannot image what I would do in such a case. What do you do? Think about it….) and sat down for a minute before querying the stationmaster about the bus to Triv. Triv, as in Thiruvananthapuram. The bus left within moments and drove back along the whole path I had just walked...ooh the joys of not knowing where you are.

I called Jay’s father Peethambaran when I changed buses a few hours later, so he knew when to expect me. I was both excited and nervous to stay in an Indian house, not knowing what to expect and being somewhat fatigued from travel, language and food on the road. Jay and I studied together in St Gallen; in three words I suppose i would call him a well-read conversationalist. We had debated many things over beers and incomplete powerpoints, including the attraction (or lack thereof) of travel, the merit (or lack thereof) of religion and our successes (or lack thereof) in entrepreneurship. I looked forward to meeting his family but could not picture what they might be like.  Well, picturing another’s family is something like guessing what a river looks like upstream, so I really didn’t try too hard. But after being away from home for so long, anything resembling a home-cooked meal sounded amazing and you can imagine how I was feeling about a bed that was not rented to strangers and cockroaches on a regular basis.

Jay’s father and brother-in-law Hari picked me up from the bus stand and brought me back to their house, which was located right in the heart of town but was somehow quiet and calm. Jay’s sister (Reshmi) and nephew (Dev) and mom (who everyone calls Amma) greeted me at the door and were all instantly welcoming. We started talking and I realized I would be comfortable here for as long as I needed to rest before my next trip, which was a huge relief. I had planned to leave the next morning but in the back of my head knew I needed a bit more time to recover (go go go can only go go for so long) if Jay’s family would let me. They more than just let me, they encouraged me to stay.  And supplied ample meals of delicious homemade food, friendly visits from cousins and aunts and grandparents (all bearing delicious homemade sweets), trips to the local beaches, palaces, gardens and temples, hours to myself and their internet connection, and long conversations about the important parts of life. They helped me improved my eating-with-hand technique, told me that Jay was quiet a kid (yes, the conversationalist...), a young cousin taught me some letters in Malayalam, aunts showed me hand-painted and hand-embroidered sarees, I watched a video of a granddaugher’s wedding, and heard stories and explanations of all different aspects of South Indian culture and cuisine. I really was able to get a sense for not just how things are, but why they are that way.  It was a totally different experience from watching life passing by while riding through on a bus or looking out the hotel window. And I was reminded that everywhere you go, even in a country so different on the street level once you step inside the house you are at home. Many unspoken traditions and formalities that we have in my family (and in most families I know) are explicitly prescribed, which makes everything seem to make so much more sense. Here family are neighbors, at home my neighbors are family. We all eat our meals together and drink tea and coffee day and night. Kids are naturally prone to be either incredibly dedicated to school or incredibly dedicated to playing. We hope to marry before we get old and to find a job that pays more than the last. Parents live for the children and children try to advance the family. In all of this I began to realize what a traditional household I had been brought up in – sure my parents are truly freethinking and would probably be shocked that I just called them traditional – but the values are the same even if they have never been spoken aloud. There is perhaps less tenacity and faith in my world, perhaps more environment and individual, and I'm sure a thousand other differences, but they just didn't seem to matter that much. Actually, I can't even think of any...

The end of the earth (part 2)

I hadn’t thought about it during the planning phase. To be totally honest, I hadn’t thought about much during (what you could hardly call) my planning phase. I had some half-baked ideas of being in roughly delineated concepts of ‘the north’ or ‘the south’ and going to Sri Lanka. That was about it. I also have a friend named Ram who is from this south and, unbeknownst to me until this time, a master travel planner. Being native to the area, he also knew much better than I how difficult it would be on my own without an itinerary (and as you know, a driver). In prodding me to make decisions, buy plane tickets and generally get my butt in gear, he created a spreadsheet of cities to visit in Tamil Nadu, how to get there and what to see upon arrival - he literally arranged everything you have read about so far. What caught my eye immediately in this brilliant little xls was the end of India. Of course, the end of India! Why hadn’t I thought of that? The end of South America was my very favorite place during my last odyssey, and it makes sense to see the end of another great piece of land. So I have made it a little over half way to the bottom with my trusty driver, staying at Circuit Houses in Madurai and Courtallam. These are where government employees stay when visiting on official business and not only are they comfortable, quiet and safe, but they cost about between one and four dollars a night. Yes. One dollar. How is that possible? I will never know. Talk about consumer surplus…I enjoyed each of them one hundred percent of that dollar and all the way up to probably ten or twenty dollars.  Every afternoon from one to four Subramaniam, my driver (named after one of Siva’s sons), would stop by a hotel (aka restaurant) and get a packed lunch for me. I would go back to my little circuit house to attempt to eat what I always declared was enough for 4 (I even asked for a ladies version, he said in Tamil Nadu this is how the women eat and put his arms out where a big belly would be). I would try feebly to avoid and always give in to a nap, and eventually wake up to do some planning for later in the trip. There was no Internet except 2G on my phone (thank the heavens for it, I can only be so disconnected…) and that has made this a very analogue experience. Something about all of these ancient places and activities is also sort of hyperanalogue; it is probably good for my all too digitally focused brain. 

If you plucked out each truck, car, rickshaw and motor bike (yaay no more horns) then turned all of the Internet and computer shops into, hmm I’ll say scribe and printing shops, and tore down all of the billboards…it could probably pass for the 1500’s here. I just made up that year, but look. I mean listen. They speak Tamil, one of the oldest known languages. Everyone wears traditional dress (the men all have collared shirts on though, so in that first sentence, let’s add in ‘strip all of the men of their collared shirts.’ Oo fun). We have already talked about the temples and you can see the signs of worship on most people’s foreheads in white, yellow and red dots, lines and smudges. As you walk, whether in the city or a small village, you can buy vegetables, twine, lumber, cloth, spices, metal cookware - all of the basic things that you need to live. That humans have needed to live since they first started to live. I have literally spent sleepless days (I’m not one for sleepless nights) wondering how the same creatures who play on dozens of little computational devices all day could have ever existed with the simple lifestyles of days past. Well, I seem to have found proof that it is possible. Now I need to figure out how the people I see haggling for small paper packages of turmeric tied up with string are also building the operating system I am typing on at the moment, but one step at a time…

Ram’s spreadsheet (via Subramaniam's driving) has brought me to a number of temples (although, somehow the first is still my favorite, despite others boasting a thousand columns in a single room, monolithic 25 ton nandis or tributes to women with five husbands), palaces and various tanks, caves, and a personal favorite, the Courtrallam waterfalls. The tiny village was not in my book, and there isn’t a spot for me to fill in on that little map over there, but it was a beautiful hill station with long waterfalls filled with bathers and a Circuit House filled with breeze. And cool pastel colored walls. It was my last stop before I made it to the end.

Kanyakumari was not only the end of India, but also the end of Tamil Nadu in my spreadsheet and Subramaniam's point of departure, so the end of my driver. Before he left, he tried to take me to a nice, government run hotel (as in place to stay, not restaurant) but I didn’t want to pay for A/C (it seemed unreasonable to pay $27 for a night after I was so spoiled the past few days). He took me instead to a private hotel and negotiated a tariff of $10 a night (see photo below). It didn’t look great, but had this amazing view, and my first of the end, so I was a little overcome with the spectacle. There it was, outside a dingy hotel room, on a balcony littered with cigarettes, soap and condom boxes: the end of a (sub)continent. And it had two little islands even. The view swept me away and I agreed to stay. I dropped my bag, said goodbye to Subra (even in my head I couldn’t say his whole name, so I nicknamed him that but didn’t tell him, shhh) and ran off to the ferry.

Within two minutes of leaving the hotel and my caretaker /driver a family adopted me. They didn’t speak English but were trying sneak a picture of me with their camera phone, and I offered my camera as an acceptance of their picture taking in return for mine. I really don’t know how else to handle these moments. When it is a group of men I usually look right at them then cover my face so their picture looks stupid, but since it was a family I was a little more ok with it. Apparently, other people noticed and I had to take pictures with three other groups. One of them spoke English and they took me with them to the temple after we visited the little islands. At first they like having me around, later I think they felt somehow responsible for me and therefore refused to leave me by myself, so to relieve them after the tours and a time at the beach eating fresh coconut, I just went back to my hotel. I dragged the plastic chairs outside and waited for the sunset. I was a little scared of the room and also hoped they would light up the islands after dark. I was very, very right on both accounts. The lights were better than I could have imagined – and during the day it was so surreal I could already see a giant blue Siva with half a dozen arms lounging on the rocks where the three oceans met, waving worshipers without coconuts and roses back to the shore. With the green and orange lights, the nighttime scene filled in the colors so my imagination was left to wander about the corners of my room. It was worse than I expected – if it was the US, I would have been pretty terrified for my safety in a room this dirty. Something similar might be found at a truck stop or possibly in a ghetto. Here I had no worries about people bothering me. But I was wrapped up head to toe in my sleeping bag liner (thank god I splurged and bought the x-long one), lungi draped over the bed (sorry dad, it was an emergency) as protection from the unknown and unwashed, sandal in hand as weapon, lights and TV on as deterrent - trying to escape the plethora of cockroaches. As my mom said afterwards, I'm pretty good with bugs, but this was more than I was prepared to handle. But I made it. And nothing even happened! Those nasty cockroaches didn’t carry me (or the Swiss chocolate I brought for my friends) away. And by sleeping inside a piece of silk like a little worm I even avoided mosquito bites. But I will never, ever stray from a plan of Ram’s in Tamil Nadu again. And I think it is time for new caretakers. 

To the south, Mr Driver

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.