Backwaters of Kerala

For photos associated with this post click here.

We're now enjoying the historical port city of Kochin in Kerala after a wonderfully relaxing overnight tropical cruise on the backwaters of Kerala, a system of canals running between rice paddies. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Most people living along the canals make their living working the paddies or fishing. It's a pretty idyllic place and the people relatively well off by India standards, but the tourist industry is taking its toll on the environment and on the rhythm of life there. One comes and goes with mixed feelings. The beauty and tranquility here are breathtaking, but enjoying it means contributing to a whole set of problems. We made one stop, to by prawns for the cook on the ship. He turned them into a magically delicious meal, probably the best dinner we've had so far.

Temples of Tamil Nadu

NOTE: Please see photo albums to the right for photos related to this post.

   I'm writing this from the airport in Chennai where we are changing planes between Madurai, our last stop in Tamil Nadu, and Kochin, in Kerala. Originally we were to have a short layover here, but a couple of weeks ago the airline canceled our flight from Chennai to Kochin, rebooking us on a flight that gave us a six hour layover in Chennai. But no problem, we dodged that long wait in the airport by having our flight from Madurai to Chenni called off at the last minute because when it landed to pick us up the engine gobbled up a peacock. A peacock. The national bird. When I boarded I noticed a guy had crawled up in the engine and was sweeping it up with a hand broom and dust pan. Turned out to be what was left of the peacock. We sat on the plane longer than the flight would have taken, then were marched off again, sent to the terminal, issued new boarding passes, rerouted back through security and onto our plane again, with the same seats. By the time we arrived in Chennai we only had time for a long lunch. So much for the six hour layover, and it appears we'll make our way to Kerala on time. Tomorrow we board two houseboats for a tropical cruise through backwater canals, visiting villages and just hanging out.

   We spent the last few days visiting two of the most important temple towns in Tamil Nadu, Thanjavur and Maduri. These two cities were historically part of the Chola empire, which dominated this part of South India from about the 12^th through the 15^th centuries. During this time period they built massive Hindu temples, hewn from stone with intricately decorated towers reaching five to six stories. These are huge sites, many with large open plazas surrounding the central temple buildings. People come not only to worship but to picnic and lounge in the shade. These are social as well as devotional spaces, and on the days we visited were packed with people. In Thanjuvar we visited the Brihadeeshwarar Temple and the Nayak Place Art Museum. The museum contains some of the most stunning Chola bronze sculptures to be found in the world, indeed, some of the most stunning bronze sculptures period. These bronzes were originally kept in the temples and had been buried during the Muslim invasion from the north. Most laid buried for centuries before being discovered. I've posted some photos from the museum collection in the Photo Albums menu to the right. They are just stunning.

   The temple itself is a sprawling space, acres in size (again, please see the Photo Albums to the right). One enters the walled temple grounds through an arch which opens up into the grounds itself, with the temple set in the center. The central temple is massive, the figures decorating it unpainted (painting the figures on these temples, which illustrate episodes from sacred Hindu texts like the Ramayana, apparently began only in the 19^th century). All of the pillars at the base contain carvings of the gods reminiscent of the figures we saw in the bronze museum. Surrounding the central temple are plazas (paved and planted with grasses) and raised walk ways. Where this temple is designed as an outdoor space, primarily, the Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai, which we visited yesterday, is a massive indoor space. The crowds enter an arched door and move directly into a labryinth of highly decorated walkways lined with souvenier shops and others selling devotional objects. Where the walls are uncolored carved stone, the ceilings are a riot of colors. People flow through these innter walkways of the temples, moving under its giant towers, as they make there way through the various devotional spots where they stop to pray or receive a blessing from priest. The Photo Album menu to the left contains a link to the photos I took both inside and outside this temple.

   The striking thing about these temples is the way they mix devotion and spectacle. The crowds who flow into these temples have come to commune with Shiva or Ganesha or Vishnu, to venerate them and to seek their blessings, so there is no denying the spirituality of these places and the way in which theyt function as devotional sites. Yet there's no denying, too, the carnival atmosphere of the place, its link to social spaces like Coney Island or an arcade-filled boardwalk. Commerce and kitsch abound, and Meenakshi Sundareswarar in particular is a riot of color. In Meenakshi bare-chested priests wearing beads and loin cloths and painted with ash mix with women in colorful sarees, others in wester clothes, and screeching children. Devotional oil lamps and candles burn everywhere and add their colors to the stone carvings smeared with tumeric and decorated with flowers left to honor them. As I noted earlier, the other striking thing about these two temples is that the temple at Thanjuvar is an outside space, while the one at Madurai is an inside space. At Thanjuvar your go into the santuaries under the temple towers, but all of the strolling, socializing, and moving about takes place outside in the sweeping courtyards, while the temple at Madurai is a web of interior spaces that unfolds like a labryinth underneath the temple towers. This one is like a huge indoor mall, while the one at Thanjuvar is an outdoor public space, more like Millenneum Park than, say, the Vatican. You'll see the difference in the two sets of pictures I've posted.

Just Added

Please see links to my photo albums on the menu to the right.

Travel Havoc and a Whacky Christmas

Perhaps every trip has a moment of crisis, a time when the wheels seem to be coming off. We had ours in spades a couple of nights ago when I got a call from our son, Darren, who was traveling to India a few days after us and was to arrive early Christmas morning in Chennai via a stopover in Brussels. He had been grounded at Heathrow due to snow in Brussels and would probably miss his connection to Chennai, a very bad turn of events since we were all to board a train to head south at 8 a.m. It seemed he would miss the train, and I decided to stay back in Chennai to meet him. We would find our own way south to Thanjuvar by ourselves. Our afternoon proceeded, a wonderful walk through the busy markets of the old historic district of Chennai, a place full of food and flower and spices vendors, and streets full of shops selling notebooks. Notebooks by the carload, up and down the street. Later we visited Kapeelashwrar Temple, the biggest Hindu temple in Chennai, then a dance recital, dinner and drinks. By the time Lynn and I got back to our room Darren was still stranded at Heathrow and in the morning the rest of the group departed for Thanjuvar and I soon got a call from Darren. He had arrived in New Delhi but the airline would not issue him a boarding pass for Chennai because the said they could not find a ticket number for him in the system. Someone at American Airlines back at Heathrow had botched something. They insisted he could not board the flight to Chennai, nor could he buy a new ticket because he didn't have enough money on his credit card. No one seemed to care much about his plight, and I was helpless to be able to do anything. Desperate to get him some help I called my friend in Delhi, Tripthi Pillai (a former graduate student at Loyola who is now a professor in South Carolina) and she graciously agreed to drive out to the Delhi airport to bail Darren out. What we would do after that was anyone's guess. She was to call him immediately and I began to think about whether I should proceed on to meet up with our group or fly back to Delhi to meet up with Darren. Then, miraculously, Tripthi called back to say she had called Darren and he was cleared to board his flight to Chennai after all, a tremendous relief. It turned out at the last minute, as people were boarding, the supervisor who earlier had told Darren he couldn't issue him a boarding pass was having trouble retrieving his bag from the plane. Darren looked him in the eye and asked him, really, wouldn't it be easier to just hand him the boarding pass and let him get on the plane instead of persisting in trying to find his bag? The man looked at Darren, let a little smile cross his face, winked at him, and handed him the boarding pass.

   By the time he arrived in Chennai it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and he was elated and ready to finally see India. After an eye-opening drive to the hotel we set out by auto rickshaw for the Kapeelashwrar Temple. It was teeming with late afternoon worshipers, and Carnatic music was being played in two different areas of the temple. In one area a man was playing a very long, narrow reed instrument, pointing it alternately at the ground and toward the sky and seemingly riffing in his own way like a Hindi John Coltrane. He as accompanied by a drummer and another man keeping the beat with pieces of brass attached to his fingers. Across the way under a long canopy structure where people can lounge in the shade, there was an extraordinary young girl singing Carnatic music. She couldn't have been older than 9 or 10 but she sang with great power and grace, accompanied by drums and a violin. Later we somehow found our way to a wonderful South Indian fish restaurant. One just has to have the courage to get in an auto rickshaw and depend on the driver to find where you want to go. We had three kinds of fish prepared three different ways and it was wonderful. That was our Christmas Day.

   Today Darren and I made our way to the temple town of Thanjuvar (first by air, then by car) to hook up with the rest of our group for a visit to the huge, sprawling 11^th century temple complex of Brihadeeswara Temple (big Shiva temple), one of the most significant temple complexes in all of India. Given that it was Sunday the place was teeming with people but we all found it absolutely extraordinary. I will simply let the pictures on my Brihadeeswara Temple Picasa album speak for themselves. I'm going to bed, having successfully reunited with the group and looking forward to a visit to the temple town of Maduri tomorrow. More later about that before we head off to Kerala.

Mahabalipuram

On the Bay of Bengal a couple of hours south of Madras (Chennai) is the World Heritage Site, Mahabalipuram, where we spent most of the day. Mahabalipuram consists of a series of rock carvings, some of which are hollowed-out caves that functioned as Hindu Temples. These carvings were executed under the Pallava dynasty, 6-9 A.D. and represent the beginning of stone temple architecture in South India. Follow this link to see a selection of shots from this spectacular site. Keep in mind that the small temple and elephant above were carved out of huge stones in situ. That's the case with all of the images in the gallery I posted. This is a breathtaking site, with intricately carved representations of stories from ancient Vedic texts. With the wane of Buddhism in India during this period the rulers at Mahabalupuram utilized the skills of stone carvers who formerly worked on Buddhist sites to begin to produce Hindu iconography. The place is simply breathtaking. The bas relief are similiar in a way to frescoe cycles in the churches of Italy. The other shots you will see in the set I posted are of the beautiful Temple Bay Resort where we've been staying, with it's meandering pool and huge stretch to beach that runs up to the Shore Temple.

Delhi

Lynn and I have spent two delightful days in Delhi as members of our group have arrived. Yesterday we toured the amazing UNESCO World Heritage site, Humayan's Tomb, the first great work of Mugal architecture in India and the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Later that day we visited the Red Fort, from which Shah Jahan ruled Delhi, and then we wandered a bit in Old Delhi. Today we went back to Old Delhi under the gracious guidance of Dr. Puneet Bidi, an old friend of Tripthi Pillai's who has become stuck in a travel nightmare and hasn't yet made it here. Highlights included the spice market and just wandering the narrow streets, teeming with commerce and a lively service industry where virtually everything is repaired and recycled. An amazing day and a memorable meal in one of the great kebab restaurants in Old Delhi. I wish I had time to write more but need some sleep to recharge my batteries for tomorrow. Will post some photos from the old city when I get a chance.

Welcome

I'm just getting this blog up and running. Right now you'll find our itinerary in the menu to the right, with links to the major sites we'll be visiting. I'm leaving on 17 December, will be gone about a month, and will be posting pictures, videos, a report on the sites we visit, and my own musings about India -- it's diversity of religions and cultures, the tension between tradition and modernity it embodies, the pull of the city and its effects on village life, the uneven effects of globalization, etc. I hope you'll tag along when you can, and comment if you like.