Tamil Nadu 2006 |
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Week 1 and 2Feb 12 & 13, 2006 |
Sunday is the quietest day, although I am woken before dawn each morning by the muezzin at a nearby mosque trying not only to call the faithful, but also raise the dead by sheer volume.
I had an interesting talk with an American over breakfast, who arrived last night from Tokyo with his Japanese wife (who is an anthropologist, but I haven't yet met her) and six Japanese students. His wife has lived in Tamil Nadu and speaks Tamil as well as English and Japanese. No mean achievement. They are also visiting the Village Knowledge Centres and then a similar project in North Kerala, which I hope to learn more about.
Apart from that I have worked in my room and walked through the back lanes into Adya, my local high street. The cross streets have quite large, well to do houses, whilst the long streets at right angles are full of tiny little house and huts, with chickens, pigs and cows outside. There are pariah dogs everywhere. Presumably they belong to people, I even saw one on a lead. They worry me more than anything else around here because of rabies. They all seem very peaceful and tolerated. There are hand pumps all along the road, with women pumping into large water pots here and there. Small temples and shrines every 50 yards at the most. Nearly every one of the doorways has a white Kolum pattern outside. I believe they can be seen at any time, but as Diwali has recently been celebrated, there are enormous numbers of them.
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An intricate Kolum, probably in chalk. The lines are drawn round patterns of dots with complex symmetry. Celtic knots are drawn in just the same way. |
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This coloured pattern was outside a small but elaborate little temple (by little, only one person at a time could fit in). I think the coloured patterns are called rangoli. |
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A shrine to Siva on the side of the road, next
to a large banyan tree (the Trident is one of Siva's symbols). These trees
are very sacred and even the smallest I have seen has little votive
offerings pushed between the writhing branches and aerial roots. The largest
Banyan in India is in Chennai, so they say, but I haven't been to see it
yet. The wrapped up figure beyond the trident is a rearing cobra, decorated with flowers and oil or butter. |
Spent today at the Foundation, apart from walking through the back streets up to Adya for dinner in the evening. I've met up at last with the lady who runs the GIS lab here and I will be having a morning with her tomorrow. She told me that she qualified at Anna University here in Chennai and that she can arrange for me to visit the department, which is just what I need to do.
One thing I am very aware of here is the presence of fire. You hardly see it in England except in bonfires and in the fireplace. Here it is everywhere and at night you really see it. Endless street side stalls with flaring primuses, oil lamps in front of every shrine and all over the temples, little burning bits of what I think is camphor outside doors and wedged into crevices of banyan trees, and cooking fires on the pavements where people live.
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The largest, finest bullock I have ever seen in
India, tied up just by the bus stop near here. He was looking at me "in a
funny way" and the tether didn't look too strong, so I kept on walking.
Transport has changed noticeably in the six years I have been coming to
India. I have only seen one bullock cart so far and whilst bicycles are
still very common, they are not dominant, it's motorbikes now, and Japanese
ones. I have only seen one Royal Enfield (which are built in Chennai) and
even the dear old Ambassadors (Morris Oxfords) are not ubiquitous. Now it is
Honda, Hyundai, Tata and Ford.
Had dinner in the "Hotel Runs"!! (And very good it is too) It's a cricketing term, not a medical one... India are playing Pakistan at the moment. Don't I just know it. |