Meeting Hari and Harriet
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2004
1
19
25
Trip End
Jan 17, 2005
Madurai,
India
Saturday, January 1, 2005
The sales manager at our hotel moonlighted as a guide and being a Brahamin priest also (and highly educated and well spoken), we splashed out on his services for the morning. He took us first to the Tirumalai Nayak Palace built in 1636, with not much to see. Then to see a huge tank (basically a massive sunken pool) where pilgrims and previously rulers come to do puja (cleanse themselves). Next we went to the Gandhi Memorial Museum which was extremely interesting, charting the history of British rule and India's struggle for Independence from 1757 to 1947
Shiva and Parvathi at Sri Meenakshi temple
. It was quite heartbreaking to see what the British had done to the country and to learn about how Gandhi mobilised this passive people to claim India back. What is apparently Gandhi's loincloth from the day he was assassinated is housed here. Finally we visited the 1560 Nayak built Sri Meenakshi temple. Shakah told us so much about the rituals and stories behind the construction of this temple, plus of course the stories of Shiva, Parvati and Ganesh that there is too much to recount here. The temple is enourmous, with 12 highly decorated gopurams up to 50 metres high. We watched pilgrims visiting all the different shrines inside, prostrating themselves, putting oil on the statues and even throwing balls of ghee (clarified butter) at the large statues of Shiva and Parvathi! It was all very bizare. The temple was heaving with people as being the first day of the year, they had all come to get a special blessing from the priests and gods - imagine a space as big as a football stadium (with lots of corridors and halls) packed to the rafters with people, all walking in different direction!We checked out of the hotel and left in our Tata Indica car (duly named Harriet) in the safe hands of our driver Hari! Hari is the sweetest guy you'll ever meet. Over 4 days, we attempted various conversations with him, although his English was not so great (in Kerala and other states he has to speak English as they don't speak Tamil there, how they understand him I'm not sure!)
Whispering secrets to Nandi
. He's 27, married 9 months to his 20 year old niece (he called her his sisters' daughter and didn't seem to think it strange - a mariage arranged by his parents). Like most Indians, he has never traveled abroad, he lives with his parents and is very curious about how much we are spending on things (we are after all a bottomless pit of money in the West!). He rarely sees his wife as he's driving most days - sleeps in his car 5 nights out of 7 (it's not actually his car) and drives really carefully, a rarity in India. It took 4 hours to get up to Kumili/Thekkadi near the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary and we went directly to Chrissy's Hotel and Cafe (a few rooms with plans for expansion) owned by Chrissy, an English woman married to Adel a lovely Egyptian guy. They didn't have room, so they put us in a homestay next door which was very basic (hard beds, no linen, cold shower and that's it). We had a nice western meal for dinner, listening to Van Morrison - far away from all Indian influences! Hari went off into town to find something he would consider edible!!
