Incredible !ndia, Part One
Chennai, April 1 — No, that’s not a typo. The side of our tour bus proclaimed ‘Incredible !ndia.’ And that it is. By the way, ‘Madras’ was changed to ‘Chennai’ in 1996 — so those garments lurking in the back of your closet are now known as Chennai shirts, Chennai shorts, and, if you’re lucky, you might even still have a Chennai jacket. We’d been told (in the Viking Bible listing all our excursions over 144 days) that Chennai is the cultural center of southern India, that it’s fascinating, filled with ancient and sacred structures and stately colonial-era buildings. From my seat on the bus... not so much.
One lecturer called Chennai ‘the Detroit of India,’ due to its auto industry. It is also a medical tourism destination, since its medical services are ranked highly. I hope so: one of the ‘solo travelers’ (as we are called) broke her ankle in Chennai (the fifth broken ankle, plus 2 broken legs, all on separate people), and our on-board medical center sent her to a hospital in Chennai; she is due back on the ship tomorrow, in Cochin. Eli Yale, of Yale University fame, was a slave trader in India — and also founded the first hospital in Madras. My first foot on the ground in India was this gateway into the Fort Museum.
We went through three gates, none more technically sophisticated than this one, which boasted more small altars than protective devices, and the two men in front of me had their shorts pockets patted down. The only friendly gesture as we passed through so-called ‘security’ was the very talkative gray cat under the guards’ desk, who meowed at everyone on the way in and again on the way out. Honestly, that was the only time I got off the bus to visit a ‘site.’ The aforementioned Bible states: ‘By many accounts, Chennai was founded as a British city as the fortifications of Fort St. George were built in 1650 on uninhabited land.’ Madras grew up around it. The British occupied the fort until Indian independence in 1947. Today the grounds and buildings house a museum and government offices plus St. Mary’s Church, the oldest (1680) Anglican church east of Suez and the oldest British building in India. Being the afternoon of Easter Sunday, it was closed. Go figure.
The Fort St. George Museum is a shabby collection of fort-type stuff from the Muslim and Raj (1858-1947) eras, plus some mementos of the French East India Company. Since the temperature was around 97 and the humidity felt the same, we stood and gawped at the display of woolen uniforms of both the Indian and British soldiers, with full length jackets and fancy headwear. Swords and coins etc etc in a dark, drab building. The large collection of portraits of British kings, queens, prince and princesses over the years was interesting. Quick, who was Queen Alexandra?
There are many forms of transport here including tuk-tuks (three-wheeled conveyances) and public buses. Boring photo below except for the story: If I’d had my camera out and ready 30 seconds earlier, you would have seen these six men huddled and bent over, pushing the bus across the parking lot. Our bus left before I saw if that bus could move under its own steam. It was not one of our tour buses.
Look carefully: there are four people on this motorcycle. The smallest one might have had trouble breathing.
Being a Sunday, there were many people at the beach. It may not look it, because this beach is huge. Police and soldiers are everywhere in Chennai. I have heard and read that India has the largest standing volunteer army in the world, and many are Sikhs. According to one lecturer, World Wars I and II could not have been won without Indian armies. Those are big employers. So, too, is the Indian railway: with 1.4 million employees, it is the 8th largest employer in the world. India has one of the worst bureaucracies in the world — as in reams and reams of paperwork. A leftover from the Raj, they are ‘fastidious record keepers.’ E.g., the visa applications I filled out last May for Cambodia, China, etc., were one page long. India’s was 6 pages. They wanted to know where my father had died... and both my grandfathers! Because the ‘discovery’ part of India’s history includes ancient Greeks, Romans, Jews, Chinese, and finally Portuguese, Dutch and English, there are numerous churches (besides the aforementioned St. Mary’s) as well as local temples and shrines. The San Thome Basilica, below, is the supposed burial place of Saint Thomas, the apostle, who arrived here in 52 AD and was martyred by spear 20 years later. In 1504 the Portuguese built a church over the tomb. Portugal was responsible for bringing Roman Catholicism to India — also the Inquisition. In 1893, the Brits replaced the original Portuguese church with this neo-Gothic one. It is a pretty church, but I opted out of going inside the basilica or walking barefoot down the 80 steps into the crypt to see what remains of Thome.
Next stop, this Hindu temple. Some 79% of Indians are Hindu. If our guide told us the name, I didn’t understand it. I opted out. Most of the passengers got off the bus and walked a few blocks back to the temple, only to discover that it wouldn’t open for another half hour.
Meanwhile, our bus went several dozen blocks around Mylapore looking for a big enough parking spot, so I lucked out: I shot pictures the whole time.
I found out later, via Google, that the lovely pink building below is the Universal Temple: ‘This temple is dedicated to Sri Ramakrishna, who is a symbol of Universal Religion. Religion has become a bugbear nowadays, because it is often misunderstood. True religion does not create conflict, it does not disunite people; it gives meaning to our life, it gives us a binding, universal brotherhood, a universal human community.’ This temple was not on our tour, I just snapped it from the bus window.
Seems a good time to mention that there are still 3,000 castes in Indian society, and thousands of sub-castes. I’ve been going to Cooking School and our new sous-chef, Jitendra, or Jit for short, is Indian. He leaves the ship at the end in London, May 5, and gets married two days later, in India. The marriage celebration will last 11 days and there will be 1,000 people there. I asked how long he has known his fiancée: they met in August and got engaged in October. Yes, it is an arranged marriage.
The Mylapore section of Chennai was billed a having tree-lined avenues. That gave me a prior mental picture that wasn’t borne out by what we actually saw, but in this heat, any shade from any tree would be welcome to anyone seated under it, or in a tree-shaded apartment.
I watched this man retying his turban.
The Basket Man: Technically, this is not a good photo, but I learned something: Don’t sit on the sunny side of the bus. I had to jettison a dozen photos that were great outside the window, but the reflection of my multi-colored, patterned dress acted a veil over the image. There’s a hint of it over this one — in the subsequent shot, this man had looked up and smiled at me, but I had to toss that picture. (Note his Madras shorts!) At least his load of empty baskets is very lightweight: Porters at markets transport hundreds of bananas, large, heavy bags of potatoes, etc on their heads. The professional cookbook writer/photographer who was our guest lecturer for a couple weeks gave us Indian market shooting tips and said: ‘Always give the porters the right of way!’ Also, take the shot fast — most vendors don’t mind having their photos taken, but they don’t want you blocking someone who might actually buy something from them. They earn little enough without western tourists robbing them of a sale for the sake of a photograph.
Need a hat? A mask? A mutton chop?
So far — after only one of four ports — I think of Incredible !ndia as a place plagued by poverty and garbage, but vibrant with color — and lots and lots of billboards!
Note the face of the well-coifed young man below. He looks western, at least, he doesn't look particularly Indian. A couple of our women guides in other Asian countries have talked about women covering up when they go outside so they won’t ‘tan’ as we would call it. Lighter is better, or so they have been brain-washed to think. This young man is proof of that.
