Up the East Coast, part I: Kerala to Rameshwaram
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
1
197
354
Trip End
Ongoing
Trivandrum, Madras, and Rameshwaram,
India
Monday, June 4, 2007
Looking out the window of the train, I watched the countryside roll by, sometimes allowing it to go by in a blur, sometimes focusing on a field or tree or cloud. We rounded the southernmost corner of India, passing a landscape of denuded hills and palm plantations in the orange light of a partly cloudy sunset. These were the same rocky hills and plantations I had seen the day before on the flight from Sri Lanka back to Kerala, lending a different viewpoint to the landscape.
After the plane arrived in Trivandrum, I gave my backpack to the railway station cloak room, took my bag receipt, and walked Trivandrum's streets in the hot sun, stopping to eat a roti and vegetable dish. Roti and vegetables are prepared in Sri Lanka and South India with flair, as the chef takes his chopping knives to the grill with drum-like precision, letting the entire hotel (the local word for restaurant--you can't sleep in a South Indian "hotel") know that someone else was eating roti (a.k.a. parotta).
Aside from the hotels and roti, Kerala boasts a well-published high literacy rate for both males and females and other social statistics that put it on par with developed countries but for only 1% of the cost of living. You could say this was because the people of Kerala actively worked to improve their lives through its elected communist governments, its voluntary land redistribution, its literacy and health programs, but there are many more reasons.
Perhaps one of the reasons is that the little mom-and-pop stores that sell groceries and such are named "Zero Margin Store." If these stores spread around the world, even Wal-mart could not compete with the prices, unless it was to disappoint its shareholders. Charge your customers only as much as is needed to repay all your expenses plus enough to live a good life--perhaps the future of commerce in this crowded world.
At the same time, Kerala is full ("there's no more room," said one woman), and men go to the Persian Gulf countries to work, as Kerala's communist government, despite the social standards, doesn't stimulate enough job opportunities.
The train left Kerala and arrived in Madurai, Tamil Nadu at night. This is the land of the Tamil people (yes, the same Tamil that live in Sri Lanka).
In the morning, I walked to the Madurai Temple, entering under a large gopura spire covered with hundreds of deities, painted about ten years ago. Although many temples in South India paint their gopuras with bright colors, bringing the gods to life, this temple goes beyond the others in terms of its sheer size and detail.
Inside, the Dravidian-style temple was bristling with activity. Pilgrims--men in their dhoties, women in their saris--lit ghee candles before the gods and goddesses, prayed and prostrated, and circumambulated the statues of the planets. Even before the outer planets were observed through telescopes, somehow the Hindus (among others) knew of all the planets, and worshiped them.
A Christian nun passed through the tall, long stone corridors.
People meditated before dancing Shiva--Nataraja.
Brahmin priests carried idols of Sundareshwarar and Meenakshi, forms of Shiva and Parvati, into the temple.
Continuing on to Rameshwaram, one of the four holy dham of Shankara, a seventh century advaita Keralan guru. Believing that there is no separate self from the creative force of the universe, Shankara found these four sites to be especially auspicious for pilgrims.
As the heat bore down upon me from the sun above, I drank dry my second liter of water from my Nalgene bottle. In Trivandrum, I had Aqua Mira water purification sent to post restante at the GPO, so they were waiting for me when I arrived from Sri Lanka. For a few weeks in Sri Lanka I had to drink bottled water, my water purification running out.
I consider water bottles one of the banes of traveling, so try to avoid drinking bottled water at all costs. Why? First, bottling companies get water rights in developing countries as villagers lose their rights (Coca-Cola, who is attempting a PR campaign, is especially disliked by many in India). Second, plastic is a huge problem, with little or no waste disposal available. People burn plastic or throw it on the side of the street or in the river, in general. Finally, does it really make sense to contribute negatively to these issues, if you can help it?
Thank you Aqua Mira.
Finishing my water, I bought a coconut from a local man at Rama's footprints, a holy temple, the Gandhamadana Parvatam, overlooking the sandy coast of Rameshwaram. He cut the coconut, revealing the juice inside. Rameshwaram was where Rama, of the epic Ramayana entered with Hanuman's army into Sri Lanka to save his wife Sita from the demon Ravana. Pilgrims circled the flower and tikka covered footprints of Rama. Back in town, I met Abraham (click for Abraham's story)
That afternoon, I took the #3 bus to Dhanushkodi for 5 rupees. Dhanushkodi is a large barrier spit, pointing towards Sri Lanka. Also known as Adam's bridge, the long narrow beach is the causeway Hanuman's army built connecting India with Lanka. From the bus stop, I jumped on the roof of a beach jeep along with everyone else and drove to the last small settlement on the edge of India, Danushkodi. The salty wind blew on my face and into my nostrils.
At Danushkodi, families were folding their fishing nets at the end of the day. Children ran around on the beach. Women cleaned clothes or watched their children from palm thatch homes. Behind them were ruins of a church and other structures, destroyed in a cyclone. As her mother and father cut shrubs for fuel, one young girl talked to me in a broken combination of Tamil with some English. I talked in English. She gave me the Indian head bob. Somehow it worked.
As the sun set, I watched the waves roll onto the beach under large pink clouds thinking that this barrier beach easily looked similar to many of the ones on Martha's Vineyard, back in the states.
Saving the Ramalingeshwara Temple for last, the next morning, I entered a long corridor flanked by hundreds of columns as some pilgrims were getting drenched. I think the Brahmin priests really enjoy their job of dousing people with water.
At the inner sanctum, I participated in darshan--"seeing god"--a ceremony of music and fire and read the story about the Ramayana told in Tamil, Hindi, English, and with pictures. One man talked with pure honesty, hands in prayer, to one painting of Rama. The story involved the creation of the two important lingams found in the sanctum.
The night before, one man--call him Rajesh--asked me what I was doing so far out here. He didn't believe I was coming in part for darshan, quizzing me and telling me that I got the temple story wrong (the story that was in my guidebook essentially) in a judgemental and superior way. Turns out he got the story wrong and the guidebook story was right. He should learn his Hindu stories better!
If anyone asked me, however, how I would define Hinduism, it would be a very broad explanation. In the broad sense, Hindus even have one class for athiests, the Lokeyata. Christians are also Hindu, in a way, because Jesus is part of the Hindu pantheon. In part this is how Hinduism expanded historically, by assimilating everything.
At the same time, there are people like Rajesh, who take a snobbish look at outcastes like myself. "Hindus Only" signs keep tourists or others out. To many Hindus, I am unclean, spiritually speaking, belonging to outcastes yet at the same time tourists are seen as wealth, with the whole colonial stigma looming.
So on some occasions, I am accepted in the broad sense. The sadhus, the brahmin, and many others accepted me into their temples and groups with open arms. On other occasions, I and others are excluded--the "one god" idea replaced by a "our Hindu Indian god" and "god is only in our temple, not elsewhere" concept. This, in essence, shows the diversity of Hindu thought.
Continued...
