October 14, 2013 – Cherry Red Shoes

Traveling in India. Long train rides, lazy rest days, time killers during long queues, long bus rides…Ok take back the bus rides. They’re too jiggly and bouncy.

Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things
I Read this in Singapore before this trip. It’s set some time back in Kerela, Cochin. It won a big award, and I can see why. The author has a unique writing style. Not so much quirky as artistic in the way words are used to evoke a mood, to get you to feel the book more than read it.
Ok to be honest this book freaked me out big time. No it’s not horror. It’s just too horrifyingly real and raw. Human nature, ugly, despicable. Human nature, love, beautiful.
Still it freaked me out. I had nightmares while reading it. I’m being honest at risk of labelled a woosie. I am! I like happy endings in the books I read. At least!

The book has everything. India, people of India, family, caste, love, childhood, etc. If you have a stronger gut than I do (not difficult) do do digest this book with relish and all the emotions that come with it.

Gregory David Roberts- Shantaram
Wow what a thick book. It is hefty to carry around but it opened my eyes to the thriving black market in India, life in the slums, and behind the scenes re crooks in India. Easy breezy read, gripping at times, very interesting especially if you’ve been to the places he mentioned.
It’s got drama, it’s got love, it’s got war and boy does it have India.
It’s half supposed to be a biography but can’t figure out how much of it is true. No matter, this guy sure knows how to entertain. He’s funny and he’s pretty wise too. I highlighted lots of quotes meaning to share them… and then gave the book away.
P. S. I gave up on the last 100 pages or so. Got a bit long.

P. P. S. The author wrote this book in prison. Prison guards destroyed his full manuscript twice. This is his third draft. Now that is strength.

Aravind Adiga – The White Tiger

Dark dark humour. I didn’t find it funny, but Chris laughed out loud many times. Talked about the realities a young man from a lower caste faces, his perspective, and how he got out of it. It opened my eyes to all the nameless locals I meet, pedalling on the street, skinny, trying to get an extra 50 rs out of me. It made me understand what a damn hard life they lead and reminded me once again how ridiculously fortunate I am. It also showed me how to spot a well-to-do local. Chubby tubby and an attitude to go with it.

Chetan Bhavat – Revolution 2020

Looks and sounds lame, I know. This book is set in Varanasi and is essentially a love story. That’s my conclusion anyway. It’s more than a love story. There is good, bad, fairness, unfairness. There is also the realities of passing one of the most competitive exams in the world, the IIT engineering paper. It’s about corruption (which book about India is devoid of the corruption topic) and money. All in all, it’s about his love for one girl.
This description of his love for the girl took my breath away – (paraphrased) did you love her? No I didn’t love her. Take all the holy men on the banks of Varanasi; all the devotion they put in their prayers and put that altogether. That. Was how much I felt for her. She possessed me.
SOB. *spine shivers
A compulsively readable book. I could not and did not put it down. This never/very rarely happens to me… Ask all my family and friends.

Sarah Macdonald – Holy Cow
Sorry but I think this book shot to fame because the author is in the media industry and so is her husband. It has a great title, but nothing much inside. My opinion anyway. She talks about spirituality, different religions, her research and direct experience. I found it a bit jumbled up and sometimes exaggerated. Not too bad but there are so many local authors who write the casual funny much better.

R.K. Narayan – a tiger for Malgudi

Current read. Halfway through the book and I find that the pace just about picked up. Not bad though. A more serious writing style.

A big tip: BUY YOUR BOOKS IN INDIA. They are so much cheaper! 100-140 rs per brand new book! The print varies of course. Some are cheaper as they are photocopied rather than printed. Still very readable. Shantaram survived both Chris and myself and 1.5 months of being lugged about India. It’s thicker so after a good bargain I bought it for 400 rs (8.50 sgd)

READ BOOKS SET IN INDIA, BY INDIANS. I don’t know how to say this without sounding condescending and hope I don’t, but these Indian authors are geniuses. Especially those who aren’t internationally recognised. Boy can these people write. They write serious, they write light, they write everything. I supplemented my India trip so much more.
I have been incredibly impressed, and I will keep reading.

I shall attempt to de-rot myself via intellectual activities like…writing.

After nearly 3 months in India, Chris and I were thoroughly templed out. We’ve seen countless Jain temples, tibetan monasteries, sexy carving temples, simple local temples, rat temple (stupid Chris), mosques and Buddhist temples.

Lonely Planet guide book 2011 said Tamil Nadu temples will wow even the most temple-weary souls. They are right!

What set these temples apart is not only their unique Dravindian architecture and tall gopurams of brightly coloured sculptures of Gods. These places are very ‘local’. Pilgrims from all over India flock to these temples to give offerings and to pray. There is no foreigner trap, no neatly manicured lawns and Golden framed ticket booth. No western restaurants or typicsl western ‘backpacker’ clothes to sell.
It’s Tamil Nadu, as India as it gets, honk, dust, screech, and so much, so much devotion and worship from its people.

First stop: Chidambaram.
Too bad picture taking isn’t allowed in most of these temples. A Brahmin priest marched up to me and demanded I delete the photo “Now Madam, NOW. Picture of temple only, not of Gods.”
I understand though. The level of devotion we witnessed was incredible.

Entrance to Nataraja temple. These high gateways are called gopurams. Cool eh. Most people worship Shiva, the destroyer. It’s because he destroys that new and good can be created. He’s feared and revered at the same time.
So the story goes that Shiva had a dance off with his wife, Parvati (or one of her incarnations). He kind of cheated by lifting his foot to his face (whaaat type of flexibility is that?) during the dance, and his wife could not copy it as it’s forbidden for women to expose their calves. She got really pissed off by the way, and devotees used to throw butter balls at her to calm her down.

Guardians – big eyed, fangs… 6 feet tall, to scare us baddies away.

There is art everywhere. On the ceiling, on the floor, in the detailed sculptures.

Large complex

It is a big complex with a main temple and mini shrines around, and gopurams north, South, East and west.
Inside the temples are devotees praying, mumbling, totally absorbed in worship.

-They touch the floor to their forehead.
-They smear ash or coloured powder on their foreheads. White ash – to remind/represent death. Coloured powder – women dot red powder to their foreheads. If they do it between their eyebrows, they have not yet married. If they have, they dot it further up, right on the hairline.
-They knock themselves on the head and pull their ears and bend their knees a few times. This represents how a god might be chiding them like how a teacher might reprimand a child. Knocking their head and pulling their ears also wakes them up and shows how serious their heart felt prayers are.
-some women have a yellow sheen on their face and hands. It’s turmeric, not jaundice. Meant for clearing skin thus beautifying themselves. If they have lost their husband, it is a sad sad situation. No more putting turmeric/making themselves pretty.

I get this from temple guides. They ARE worthwhile. I wish I had not been so skeptical and got temple guides when I could.
While temple guides were good, my memory is warped. Please let me know and don’t hate me if I have made mistakes.
P. S. When a temple guide presents himself to you, check 2 things – one, that he gives you I-am-a-good-person vibes. Two, that you can understand his English.
We paid the dude in Tanjavur 300 rs. The dude in Madurai 200 rs. An hour for both. The one in madurai used to be an English teacher. Thank ganesh.

Next up: Tanjavur

Where we stayed! Clean and with cable TV thank goodness.

Entrance.

Upclose.

Within the compound.

Nandi, Shiva’s humongous bull. He’s licking his lips – he’s full and is digesting his food. Happy belly, happy bull.

Chris and humongous bull.

This is the third gateway devotees have to walk through. The first was the main gateway. Huge. The second, temple doorway, less huge. This one, small. To remind of the journey from birth to death – eventually we return back to earth, small, old, wrinkly, and even smaller later, as ash. Hmm. Doesn’t make sense. Can’t quite remember. Well there is some significance there!

Inside the temple there is a queue of devotees, waiting to be blessed by Brahmin priest and to pray to the Shiva lingam. It’s basically a giant penis. Really! Without the outline and detail. It represents creation.
So it went that back in the days when this temple was built, the king wanted something ‘permanent’ in the temple, just in case he lost his Kingdom to another king. He had the shiva lingam constructed first, larger than the doorway that was built around it next, so that future kings will not be able to easily get it out of the door. (just hammer the thing and take it out in pieces right!?)

Fascinating old temple paintings on the ceiling.

Smears on our forehead! Exhausted.

Third temple. And most magnificent: Sri Meenakshi Temple in Madurai.

You have to deposit your cameras and phones at the counter! We didn’t have to pay an entrance fee as we went through this gopuram :

West tower, straight up from Temple street. It will be the first gateway you see if you came from the train station. Other entrances charged foreigners 50 rs.

It was massive! There were 12 gopurams and a labyrinth of temples and worshipping areas. Lots of corners to turn.

We were still navigating our way outside when we turned a corner and Whoa there was A TEMPLE ELEPHANT! Why hello! It was all dolled up in coloured powder and some head ornament. Too bad no camera. One big foot was in chains, and its handler was sitting there collecting donations. You basically step forward, hand your donation to le elephant, it sucks or scoops (if you handed coins) the money from your hand, lifts its giant trunk over your grinning face and thonks you gently on your head, then passes the money to its handler. Any amount will do. This is not a tourist trap.
I WAS SO CHUFFED and so was Chris. We stood there watching others get thonked. Little kids and some women were smiling and a bit scared of the massive animal. Others were coolio.

Inside, we saw male devotees prostrating in front of Shiva… And his lingam. There was an enclosed area where the tip of one sculpture was pure gold. Wow. Gold. Women aren’t allowed to prostrate. They merely kneel and bow till their head touches the floor. Not feminine to prostrate I suppose.

There was another area where people were walking 9 times around an enclosed area. Lots of little lights of ghee dot the ground. Don’t unlike those Ikea tea lights, but in tiny gold cups, filled with ghee.
So it goes that they believe, just like other cultures believe, that when we were born there was a certain alignment of stars. Jupiter, Mars, etc. Sometimes these stars are aligned ‘badly’ and things don’t go too well e.g. Can’t find a job. Walk clockwise 9 times around the enclosure and your planet misalignment will be set right

Every pillar is carved from a single block of stone and if the carver made a mistake and a chip of stone fell off, he will have to start on another block of stone. Must preserve sacredness of temple.

I was most impressed by this temple. Natural light shone through, as did a lovely breeze. It was the biggest complex out of the 3. Having a competent guide answer all your questions while you take a stroll around, admist statues here and there, watching locals do their thing (there are so many things to worship. There are the main areas and other little shrines around)…it was fascinating. Very fascinating.

No pictures inside so more pictures outside: