Tamil Nadu 2006 |
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Week 3Feb 20, 21 & 22, 2006 |
Day at work largely, doing more on first draft of chapter for the German book on Education for Sustainable Development. Before dark I went for a short walk and ended up at a zoo not far from here. Rather depressing, but I find most zoos are. The animals were in very good condition. Various deer and monkeys, jackals and hyenas. Even three large crocodiles. The interesting thing is that they are all natives to India, not exotics from distant lands. The cages are heavy chain link with black steel posts. The hyenas are behind very solid looking steel bars. They are very solid looking animals. As I left a mongoose shot through the undergrowth by the side of the road. A real wild animal
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Hanuman the monkey god on a nearby temple. Not very wild here but he had a reputation as King of the Monkeys. I don't know much about him except that he figures in Chinese Buddhism as well as Hinduism. |
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I couldn't resist a shot of a pelican. It's what my boat is
called, so I have an affinity. As I said, the animals in the zoo were all in
good condition and this large aviary was full of ibises, pelicans, herons
and other water birds, roosting in trees and leading a fairly natural life.
The large mammals are just confined and they make me feel like a voyeur.
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Very quiet day. Spent most of the time reading and some writing. My room was given a very thorough clean by two boys who seemed to take an inordinate time to do very little.
The weather is still very pleasant. Very hot at midday, but just pleasantly warm in the evening. Not a country where you can idle over a drink at a pavement cafe. The pavements are at full blast at night, with music, cars, endless twiddly tunes that it seems all reversing vehicles have to play. And nobody lingers. You do what you are doing at high speed and move on.
Feb 22, Wednesday
I have now got a contact at Anna University, at the Institute of Remote Sensing, who I hope to visit in the next day or so. In the afternoon, I went for a walk to try to see the big Banyan tree again, and again it was closed. I think this may be quite a quest.
After that I had a very surprising and enjoyable encounter. I stopped in a tea shop and shortly after a European lady in Indian dress came in. After a few pleasantries I discovered that she came from Vienna. As I had lived there off and on for 20 years, we suddenly found we had a lot of shared interests. She has been coming to Chennai for the month of February for the last 15 years to study Indian classical dancing. Back in Vienna she performs Indian Temple dances about once a month and has a guru who is based there. I have long ago given up being surprised by the things people do. I feel very ordinary.
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The buses can get quite crowded. The are full of signs
saying "Footplate travel is forbidden" as is travelling on the roof...
Problem is that when the bus is this crowded, you just can't see the signs. |
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This lady was just redrawing a Kollam outside a temple entrance. They wash the pavements outside the temples and many of the shops around sun down, to keep down the dust during the evening. The Kollams are just drawn in trickeled stone dust and so get washed away. She was drawing simply by trickling the dust between her fingers. She drew amazingly quickly. I got my camera out as she started drawing, and she had got this far by the time I took the picture. |
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Water side huts just up the road from where I live. This is
the "Buckingham Canal", presumably a legacy of the English Raj. The water is
shallow, putrid and stagnant. The stink can be indescribable and barely
tolerable. Within a hundred paces you are amongst rich villas with Mercs in
the drive and guards at the gates. A strange country. This is not poverty. In the centre of Chennai you see many bundles of rags against pavement walls. These are the total possessions of families who live on the pavement, rolled up into a pitiful heap while they try to find an income. |