South India Tour January 26, 2014 - February 17, 2014

India Trash Talk

Thu, 20 Feb 2014 19:41:53 +0530

Along the byways of our great adventure in South India, I have been struck again and again by the significant issue of garbage and trash throughout India. Part of the problem is ingrained cultural traditions. In a country where labor is very cheap and stratified, in the past there were always very poor people bent over with their straw brooms sweeping garbage out of the corners and courtyards of homes, in front of stores and on streets. Whatever was swept out was picked up and used by the most needy -- food scraps could be eaten or used to feed animals, paper and cardboard re-used for shantys, glass bottles and cans used for gasoline and oil. It was the perfect recycling system where a need was great for everything by somebody. Public and private in-home trash receptacles were almost non-existent. But that was before plastic.

Below: Along a quiet street in the Chettinad Region

I remember living with my Indian family and wondering where to throw a banana peel or a scrap of paper and I was told to just throw it on the ground in the corner of the room. The cleaning woman would take care of it. It is hard to change learned behavior. So people raised in the last generation or three still throw everything on the ground -- including a large number of plastic water bottles and plastic bags. But now with some greater degree of prosperity there is nobody going around picking unwanted trash up. And the garbage piles are growing and everywhere - every open plot of land, every unoccupied roadside strip, every public place. The areas in front and around people’s homes are clean and well-maintained but every inch that is not being overseen by someone personally is seen by others as an acceptable trash bin.

Above: Along a quiet generally clean village near Tanjore. And below, near a temple in Tamil Nadu.

There is some positive movement. In rural Kerala, I passed by a recycling center of sorts -- with newspapers neatly bundled together as I understand there is some money to be made in newspaper recycling so it is being done. And the rest of unwanted trash left nearby to decay (and how many years will it take a plastic bottle to biodegrade?). Below: the Kerala recycling center -- and next to the recycling center the piled up trash along side the rice paddies.

One or two regions claim themselves to be plastic-free zones and don’t give out plastic bags with purchases. A new department store in Bangalore charges 5 rupees for a plastic store bag. But the bottles are still everywhere in growing piles.

Despite the sign, even in the Nilgiris, next to the washing area in a tribal village in the middle of the Mudamalai Game Preserve, the pathway is strewn with trash although the communal courtyard was swept immaculately clean.

I don’t see any easy solution in sight. It would require significant education and change in the public awareness and infrastructure as well as use of public and private garbage cans and more government supported disposal. I doubt I will see much change in my lifetime.

With this post, I leave this blog behind, try to recover from jet lag and look forward to my next adventure somewhere around the world. Hope you will join me!

Dancing Out of Bangalore

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:20:20 +0530

What can compare with the deep penetrating beauty of the music and form of bharata natyam, South Indian traditional dance? Attending the dance performance of my Indian “sister”, her two daughters and 7 year old granddaughter in celebration of Gayathri’s 60th birthday was, for me, the culmination and high point of this 3 week tour.

It encapsulated in some sense our whole experience touring South India: the devotion expressed by the many people we have encountered in the Hindu temples is reflected and condensed into the intense facial and bodily gestures of the dancers enacting the great stories of their religion. The beauty of the poses that make up bharata natyam we have seen sculpted into great sandstone, granite and soapstone pillars, columns and towering structures along the way. And the colors of the dancer’s costumes parallel the brilliant hues we have found in the painted houses, advertisements, clothing, jewelry and truck decorations on our journey. The carefully created Carnatic vocal and instrumental music we hear on the stage stands in sharp contrast to the cacophony of urban India - the beeping horns, blaring music, and hawkers cries we are faced with on the streets -- but does relate more closely to the rural landscapes we have encountered, ascending and descending, blanketing our senses with the dust of the earth and rhythmic sounds of ploughing, planting rice, and washing clothes on the stones by the riverbanks. It is total immersion into an old traditional culture for the brief period the dance resonates within us, where we can throw aside all differences in class, caste, wealth and nationality and revel in pure beauty and the expression of the human spirit.

We visit the dancers at home later in the afternoon, decompress into the less rarified air of the modern world, and leave for the airport for our return home.

Namaste -- I bow to the spirit within you, India.

Hoysala Highlights

Sat, 15 Feb 2014 07:45:01 +0530

It is a very urban landscape we are passing through as we enter Bangalore - 4 lane road (with 6 vehicles across), motorcycles, auto rickshaws, small cars, big buses and a few trucks. Large old trees overhead as this seems originally an upscale residential area, now filled with traffic. In the intersection, a number of very large billboards, 2 or 3 on top of each other, tower above the buildings advertising banks, jewelry, new apartments and homes being constructed while strings of green, orange and white flyers for the Congress political party adorn the power poles. Most of the cars are new and amazingly unscathed. We decided this is probably because people get scraped and dented cars fixed right away as it is a mark of prestige to keep a pristine car - and the cost of car repair is most likely low. We have seen only one bad vehicle accident on the road -- a large government bus in a rural area was off the road with its front smashed in and people milling around, an improvement from the numerous head-on collisions I have seen in the past.

Earlier in the day, we visited our last two Hindu temples, and the most beautiful of them all, Belur and Halebib. It was puja time when we were in the finely decorated temple in Belur and we were able to watch once again the morning ritual of the priests in the inner sanctum washing the form of Vishnu with many gallons of milk and then decorating it with bright orange powder and numerous garlands of flowers. Men and women reverently sat in front while we stood, less reverently with cameras in hand, in the back. Circumnambulating these two temples is a lesson in Indian culture, history and tradition. The overwhelming number of finely detailed carvings in the soapstone blocks that comprise the structure depict life 800 years ago. Europeans were still in the dark ages in 1200, although church construction required art and ingenuity, while the Hoysala kings here were raising large domes with elephants and developing an intricate sculptural style.

With our excellent driver, Sulthnan, in front of the great Nandi at the Halebib Temple

I went into a large department store tonight, the first I have been into in India, where a sale was going on and a large crowds of customers, almost exclusively the under 40 set, were scooping up jeans, shirts, shoes, underwear. There is definitely money happening in this town. At 8:30 pm, when the store was to close and a long line was at the downstairs counter, the workers shut down their windows leaving customers scrambling to find a way to pay. Workers unions may not be strong here but these probably low-paid employees were not intending to work overtime.

After our North Indian tandoor dinner, we walked back to the hotel, discussing the strategy and then negotiating our way across a very busy intersection as a group - we all let out a “hurrah” when we made it. There are actually traffic lights but you can not trust that they will be followed. The ersatz sidewalk here, as many places along our journey, was made up of rectangular slabs of concrete that were thrown down without a proper foundation and therefore occasionally one would rock from side to side when stepping on it, in addition to dodging the wires, poles in the middle of the way, blobs of who-knows-what and dirt -- making it a hazardous walk in the dark. In addition, the electricity goes off periodically, only for a few minutes, but enough to make the world an exciting and dangerous place. I love it.

A special dance concert tomorrow and then our departure.

Maharajas and Monks

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 05:41:44 +0530

Yesterday we soaked in the opulence of the Kings of Mysore, staying at a renovated royal guest house and walking around the grandiose palace of the Maharajas of Mysore. Today we are invited as special guests to visit a Tibetan monastery and we find ourselves among red and ochre robed Tibetan monks who have had hard lives and yet laugh with the easy pleasure of children. I ponder the difference.

Pampered and indulged from birth, ordering nine Rolls Royces at a time, the second richest royalty of India, these Mysore kings lived the life of the large ego. And yet the last two, from 1902 to abdication upon creation of the Indian Union in 1947, are revered by the people for their good hearts, kind deeds and generous civic projects. The 4000 monks of the Sera Je Monastery who fled Tibet or are descendants of those who left Tibet in 1959 upon the invasion of the Chinese, own nothing. Living the life of the spirit, studying Buddhist philosophy and praying for the good of mankind, they inhabit a religious world created over the last 50 years on a large plot of undeveloped land given to the Tibetan refugees by the State of Karnataka. They strive to lead a life of non-ego. And the monks create both objective good, through education and support of young novices, and more subjective benefits, through kindness, compassion and prayer. Two ways of interacting with the world - from the material to the spiritual and from the spiritual to the material. Both doing good as seen from different vantage points.

Mysore is a wonderful combination of history - the pious Hindu kings with an overlay of British colonialism -- quieter and cleaner than elsewhere in South India. The great temple and Nandi bull on Chamundi hill dominating the religious life while the old British-style buildings in the center of town are still part of the city’s secular world.

In Mysore, we spent a memorable time at the local “folklore museum”. We entered a yellow crumbling palace and were directed into a pitch-black dark room. Jack had a flashlight and managed to find a light switch that turned on an ancient blinking fluorescent light in the glow of which we saw primitive wooden sculptures. The next room was the same -- and the one after that. Turning on lights as we could, we found many rooms containing a collection of rustic village sculptures, each of these rooms attached to succession of once beautiful central hall with carved balconies now inhabited by pigeons and their droppings. On the second floor, a little lighter with some windows, we see dusty, crumbing collections of woven baskets, hand tools and stone implements. A guard rushes around after us telling us “no photos, no photos”, asking if we have cameras. It is unclear why any one could possibly care when there is obviously no attempt at preserving the large and impressive collection.

When we exit we discover we were by mistake in the Archeology Museum and the Folklore Museum is next door, in another disintegrating barely-labeled building. But this collection of marionettes and puppets was beautifully displayed and lit and showcased the exquisite leather shadow puppets of rural india which appear a very close relation to those of Java and Bali.

Our evening walking tour in Mysore included the Devaraja Market -- the oldest continuous market in South India and one of the largest -- a long row of banana sellers, many rows of vegetable sellers, perfume and incense stalls, kitchen and plasticware, then nearby another row of sweet scented flower sellers, displaying twined ropes of white and rose and orange flowers imbuing the atmosphere with the odor of jasmine and perfume. So many different kinds of eggplant, so many varieties of bananas, piles of potatoes and mounds of red chillies.

Led by our guide, our food stops introduce us to new tastes of the South ... including open faced samosas, special Mysore dosais and spiced puffed rice sold by local street food stall sellers and eaten standing up. We walk back to our hotel in the dark, closely watching our feet to avoid the large cracks and hidden open holes in the barely existent pavement. We cross the street with some hesitation and a lot of care as traffic stops for no one here. We let out a sigh of relief when we safely reach the other side and our lovely historic hotel.

Leaving the world of Mysore behind, we drive westward and enter the land of the Tibetan settlements in the dry lands to the West. Under brightly painted colored arches, beyond the strings of prayer flags, we hunt and find the Sera Je Monastery and nearby the Sera Je Secondary School for boys ages 6-18. Here there are many monasteries representing the many sects and sub sects of Tibetan Buddhism, fairly new brightly painted buildings, growing like mushrooms from the ground, in haphazard arrangement.

I have a personal connection with the principal of the Secondary School who warmly welcomes all of us along with his dean of students and former director, honors us with traditional white Tibetan scarves and we sit and talk about the 3-story school (the students are on vacation) and then are taken to visit the nearby Institute of Advanced Buddhist Studies. This monastery community is in the middle of an annual 10 day retreat of prayer and study. We enter the very large main prayer hall which is an awe inspiring sight, filled from wall to wall with red robed monks sitting in long lines on slightly raised platforms on the floor. As we look and listen to the deep thrumming chanting, the monks are fed their first meal of the day, in their bowls, on the floor, with kitchen helpers walking down the aisles serving good-smelling food from large pots. Although most Tibetans are traditionally not vegetarian due to the nature of their native environment, here in South India with ample availability of vegetables and rice, this monastery does not eat meat. The altar in the front has large vivid floor to ceiling paintings of the great Tibetan dieties, intricate displays made of butter and flour and great golden statues. Colored hangings drape from the high ceilings and there is a smell of incense in the air. It is a soul-filling experience. Like much of this journey.

We move on to Hassan for our final days.

Up and Down the Nilgiri Hills

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 07:14:43 +0530

The roads to the old British hill stations in India are often a paralyzing experience for the uninitiated -- one-lane pot-holed roads with cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles traveling in both directions, fast, and always trying to pass and overtake each other. And our road to Coonoor was no exception -- but with the overlay of intense 21st century commerce. An extensive number of large buses, fully laden trucks and a continuous stream of car traffic -- at dusk and then dark -- when we faced blinding bright headlights and a sheer drop-off with a flimsy protective railing. Luckily, we have an excellent driver. Up and up, through forests, passing few lights, and then finally, after a 1.5 hour climb upwards, we turn a corner and find a full-scale bustling Indian town. No remnants of the old quiet times left, we drive through a bright bazaar filled with small shops lit up and eager for business. Men in woolen stocking caps and scarves in the cool evening air at 5200 feet above sea level.

Our hotel is a converted British major’s and then tea plantation owners’ summer bungalow. Charming with its period furniture from Victorian to 1930’s Indian modern, large marble bathrooms, fire places, wooden floors and air of kind neglect.

Jack and I take a walk in the early morning right after dawn up into the hills surrounded by the tea plantations. It is easy to understand why people might want to leave the hot plains behind for the cool clear air although some of the chaos of the big city bazaars has been carried into the local streets in the commercial areas. An old Indian friend from Chennai who now lives in Coonoor with 13 purebred dogs meets us at breakfast and explains why he believes most Indians will not let dogs in their homes - they eat whatever carrion and excrement they find on the streets. When I ask when brought him here from his native Chennai he says, “People smile here”.

The toy train from Coonoor to Ooty, one of the few narrow-gauged train systems left in India, with the original British-era cars but no longer driven by steam but by diesel. The seats fit 4 people across, from one side of the train to the other, although in the unreserved seat cars there are perhaps 8 people across crowded into the small space. Up past tea plantations, hillsides covered with new development, old train stations and old train equipment.

Ooty, shortened from a much longer Tamil name, was at one time the heart of the British world of South India in the summer time. Some remnants remain, old buildings with gingerbread trim, now overrun with messy stalls and ill-maintained stores but making an attempt to keep up its appearance -- many signs to refrain from littering and dispose of plastic properly and no plastic bags allowed although plastic bottles are still dominant in the landscape. The botanical garden founded in 1824 was the British attempt to recreate something of home or at least the greenery outside this Indian world with plantings and trees from around the world. Billl is especially interested and finds California cypress and U.S. oak trees more prevalent than the local flora he was hoping to learn more about. But it is a large area of beautiful planting and beloved by Ooty’s visitors. Below, in the garden and some Victorian era buildings, now the main post office and the tourist office.

From the green of the tea plantation world we descent to the brown scrubby world of the largest tiger reserve in India. Peaceful and wonderful food at our jungle huts -- we manage to see a little wildlife on our 5 am safari by small jeep over rough roads -- some sambar and spotted deer, wild pigs, one large bison, rabbits, langur monkeys, many peacocks and peahens and a few wild elephants hidden in the foliage. Nearby are elephant camps where the large pachyderms are easily found as well as a tribal village we visit, one of the 3 tribes allowed to remain on the government-owned and run game park. But even in the heart of the game park, where tourists are not allowed to drive or walk, there is the occasional plastic bottle or food wrapper. An epidemic of great proportion.

The air is cool but tinted by considerable smoke from controlled burning along the roads. In the middle of the night we all report hearing the trumpet of an elephant and then several gunshots and learn in the morning that the elephants came too close to the border of the park and were diverted by the forest rangers. We relax in this breezy mountain air before heading back down to the big city world once again. Such a world of contrasts.