Kolkata, Chennai, I never knew thee

The overnight train from Agra to Varanasi has never arrived on time. Arrival time continues to be printed on the tickets for 8am, when it usually arrives around twelve. No miracle occurred and we arrived around lunchtime. After checking in we had lunch at a nearby restaurant called ‘Haifa’. Under the ‘snakes’ section of the menu one could order ‘staffed mushrooms’ or ‘sassikee’.

After lunch we took a long orientation walk into the main commercial streets of Varanasi. We were led into a ‘handveavers cotton emporium’ (mum, you would have gone gaga in here). The owner was saying something about the ‘veaving and the veft and the vaft’ but the floor was padded and we were all very tired. Our leader fell asleep and it was only out of courtesy that Kate and I also did not.

Varanasi is the ‘oldest living city’, although others contest the title. Either way it is very old, at least since 2000 BC. We walked through the old city. The streets are so narrow and the terraces so high that little sun gets in and the smells from street-side samosa vendors are undiluted by clean air. The terraces are lined with colourful silk shops.

Our next stop was a German bakery with a 20 page menu. It was impressive until we discovered they actually only sold a weird peanut brittle, chocolate and apple pie. It is like this with most menus in India.

We walked back through the market, towards the hotel. There were many, open-front clothes markets along the way. As we moved down the street, more and more police appeared. Then the street lined with blue-camouflage paramilitary men with submachine guns. Vinit looked stressed. He put some people on a rickshaw out. We walked. He didn’t speak and we walked quickly.

Guns are everywhere. In the Delhi metro station there were head high sandbags with three men holding Ak-47s behind them, as if the metro was to soon receive a frontal assault. On overnight trains, men with black submachine guns tucked under their shoulders stalk up and down the aisles. Most police, however, if they have a gun at all, carry these antiquated world war 2 rifles. I’d be surprised if they even manufacture them anymore. I have seen one security guard with a musket. One police man wasn’t even issued with a stick (the police use these liberally, especially on out-of-line rickshaw drivers) so he just picked up a branch lying on the road and proceeded accordingly.

The kufuffle was about a rally of the Moselm Union. There is a history of intercommunal tension in Varanasi, and Vinit conceded that he was stressed, and that it was ‘very bad’.

We arrived at the hotel just in time for our evening boat ride along the Ganges. The name Varanasi is a combination of the names of the two ghats bookending the town. We were staying at Assi Ghat at the northern end of the city, presumably the Ghat at the other end has a name with ‘Varan’ in it. The sun had set and its was night by the time our boat took us down the Ganges with the current, past a number of dilapidated and abandoned mini-palaces along the banks for the Maharajas. We stopped and drifted at one point to observe a pooja (I think) ceremony. People lit dozens of small, banana-leaf cups with rose petals and candles in them and cast them off the boat. The lit candles drifted away from the boat in a stream with the current.
We then stopped at the main Ghat, where the daily rituals are performed. I am sure there are a number of reasons why the Ganges is a holy place for Hindus. The version we have though, goes something like as follows. In the ancient times a king in India had 80,000 sons. These sons were very naughty, however, and when they were old enough, they roamed India causing havoc. One day they came upon a powerful sadu (shaman-type figure) whom they teased and abused. The Sadu turned them all to ash and cast a curse upon them, decreeing that they (and the rest of humanity) would never reach heaven until their ashes touched the Ganges river. The complication was that the Ganges was in heaven (the milky way in the night sky was understood to be the Ganges). So this went on until another king decided that the curse should be lifted. He performed a perfect ritual for the god hindu’s consider to be the creator (Brahama) to release the Ganges on earth. However, the Ganges was very powerful and its flow needed to be controlled. So the king consulted Shiva (the destroyer) who fought a battle with the Ganges and brought it under his control. He thereupon released it on earth in its present form. Thus, to be released from the cycle of reincarnation and move to heaven the ashes of a hindu person must touch the water of the Ganges, or one of its tributaries. As such, a number of the Ghats are dedicated to cremation ceremonies, whereupon the ashes of deceased family members are scattered here.

There are caveats to this. Babies, pregnant women and people with smallpox who die (and some other specified diseases) are deemed to have died an unnatural death due to indiscretions in a previous life. These people are placed in the Ganges uncremated, and the material decomposition of their body is considered penance for their wrongdoings in a previous life. Of course this causes serious problems for the river system (alongside the tonnes and tonnes of raw sewerage pumped into the river every day) so, some time back the government introduced flesh-eating turtles to solve the problem. No-one knows what happened to the turtles, but the problem still remains, bodies continue to bob slowly down the Ganges.

The main Ghat has morning and evening rituals that have been reportedly going on for thousands of years. We parked the boat alongside many other boats so that it formed a kind of pontoon. Naturally, people climb out onto the temporary, shifting pontoon to sell you things. The ritual was a 45 minute show of fire waving and chanting. What was most interesting was the absurd number of massive lenses around. It was like a sports match. People come to Varanasi I think to get that quintessentially ‘Indian’ photograph. As we returned back to Assi ghat on the boat, we saw the burning pyres of people being cremated, and one that was yet to be burnt, with the body wrapped in white cloth and sitting between the logs.

We were exhausted and had a quick dinner before getting to bed.

We rose again at 5:30 for a morning boat ride. It was much different in the morning. We watched the sun rise over the brown water. People were bathing, washing their clothes and saris, and collecting the remains of the previous evening’s cremations.
We were both exhausted beyond reckoning and following a quick breakfast after the boat rise we went back to bed, not to rise again until 1pm. We took it very easy that afternoon. We mailed some stuff home that we don’t need anymore, along with some presents (for Christmas!). It was great to get everything organised, have some space, and reset a little. A festival was underway that afternoon and the steps to the river were packed. People were crammed in on the banks, playing in the mud, standing on their tippietoes and sitting on roofs to watch the ceremony. We could not see more than a guy with some fire standing out on a decorated tree, but everyone seemed excited about something. The goats were all painted pink.

Day 3 in Varanasi was a leisurely start before Kate and I took a walk along the front of the Ghats. All along people wash and clean their teeth, slap wet clothes against laundry boards and leave them to dry on the concrete. Water Buffalo loiter around the steps, waiting permission to go for a cooling swim. There are a number of colourful river-side temples that incessantly clag their bells. Naturally there are people approaching you selling post-cards and boat trips. It was quite relaxed as we walked past. There were not too many people.

At the main Ghat we took a left and wandered into the market area. It was very crowded and people aggressively tried to get us into their rickshaws and shops. We just tried to walk through as quickly as possible and take in all the stalls and wandering cows and interesting people walking around. When we moved out of the sweaty press of bodies and stalls, into a calmer place near to our hotel, Kate bought some very very nice linen pants and two Indian-style tops. They look fantastic and were very cheap. We spent the afternoon in a cafe with wireless internet. I had two coffees and gave myself the jitters. We posted the last blog post then.

That evening we took an overnight train to Kolkata. The train was late and we had to wait at the station, all in a circle around the bags like cows protecting their calves. There were a lot of beggars, many with appalling and disturbing injuries or disfigurements. I won’t go into detail, but it is very sad, and very confronting.

The train ride itself was fairly uneventful. We learnt a Vietnamese card game a bit like 500. Mostly we pass the time by describing waht we would be eating were we not in India. Its a simple game for me: lamb roast.

On the overnight trains everyone is woken at around 6am by this droning ‘chai.....chai....masala chai.... tea.... coffee.... chai.... chai’ or ‘chips-biscuits..... chips-biscuits.... chips ahoy’. Its just a question of whether you can get back to sleep.

We arrived in Kolkata at around lunchtime.

At the train station, which was modern and clean, was a notice board informing the public in red that the 3016 had ‘carshed’. Either interpretation is possible.

Kolkata is a remarkable place and it was a terrible shame that we had only one afternoon there. There are no tuk-tuks on the roads, just hordes of yellow, new-york style taxis. The roads are wide and the traffic is comparatively light (the spit bridge is still a highway in comparison). There are parks and open spaces with well-kept flower gardens and horses trotting along. People pay attention to road rules. The streets are lined with luscious trees and the vibe is calm and laid back (mind you, we did not go to the slum area, which would be very different).

Lunch was at a weird little restaurant and then walked to the Victoria Memorial – a dominating white marble building dedicated to Queen Victoria and surrounded by gardens. Inside there was a great museum detailing the history of Kolkata with an emphasis on the European periods of occupation. By the time we finished wandering around the museum, reading the plaques and checking out the old European paintings of India’s sights and cities (which were fascinating, what would the first European who stumbled upon the Taj Mahal have thought?) it was late afternoon and museum Kate and I wanted to visit afterwards (the largest museum in Asia) was closed. So we strolled past a auspicious Catholic Church and went for coffee at ‘flurrys’. Flurry’s served semi- real croissants (that the waiter was convinced were ‘muffins’) and warm, fudge-covered brownies, so we ate those.

That evening we went out to a rooftop restaurant for our last meal as a group. Kate and I pulled the pin fairly early, as we had to be up at 3:30am for our transfer to the airport, but a couple of Australian guys (Tim and Angus) and two British girls (Pheobe and Tash) stayed out. We ran into them at 4am on our way our the door to the airport. Everyone said their goodbyes (8 of the 12 continued on for the south India part of the trip though) and there was a fairly sombre mood as our group leader, who again we had become good friends with, had found out his uncle was going to pass away.

In theory, Kate and I were to arrive at the airport in Kolkata for a 6:50 flight to Hyderabad and a 9:50 flight to Chennai. When we arrived, however, our Hyderabad to Chennai flight had been cancelled and the next connecting flight was not until 8pm, meaning we would have to wait 12 hours at the airport (and miss all of Chennai). This was not on and I made it known to the service desk. They were very helpful. After some waiting they organised a flight for us to Bangalore and a connecting flight to Chennai with a different airway (with no extra cost, of course). We arrived safely in Chennai about 30mins later than we originally would have.

My first impressions of Chennai were a lot like Kolkata. Wide streets, a reasonable level of urban planning, palm trees and vines crawling through the narrow spaces between buildings, people obeying the road rules. Huge yellow bananas and chilled guavas hang from the streetside. Our driver for the airport transfer pointed out that people here have much darker skin and are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically very different from north Indians. He said that north Indians are predominately Aryans from Central Asia while south Indians are Dravidian and the two cultures were separated for a long time. Few people in the south speak hindi, most speak English and their local language (Tamil, in Chennai).

Upon arriving at the hotel, again we had a daytime sleep before some lunch. I went out to collect a great wad of cash for our new tour leader (whose name is Charles) and we all met at 4pm.

Just around the corner from our hotel was a south Indian temple. In place of the dark stone, engraved obselisks of north India are temples that rise to 30 or 40 feet narrowing softly as they get higher. The facades are covered in sculptures of their gods all painted in bright colours. At the top there are big, green dragon faces and hooks like teeth capping the structure. They are vibrant temples, full of life.

Further down the road, towards the beach, was a catholic church. It was white with one large, clocktower spire encased by much smaller, sharp arches on the facade. Just to the left of the entrance gates is a garden with an idol of Mary at the centre, lit by fluro-green lights. You can’t take the kitsch and the colour out of Indian religiosity. We only glimpsed inside but saw murals painted in that Italian, Sistine chapel style and some posters of Jesus looking like a supermodel. There was mass and the singing was pleasant (although incomprehensible because it was in latin).

St Thomas’s church is famous because it is reputed to be one of only three churches in the world built upon the remains of one of the twelve disciples. It is said that after Jesus’s death, Thomas (the ‘doubting Thomas from the new testament story) came to India and founded the church. He was killed in 52 A.D. There was a museum and tomb which we briefly visited. The tomb was a papier-mâché manikin of Thomas laying down with a sword. He was surrounded by lights and bright flowers and there was a small chapel inside.

The museum had relics extracted from the area of Chennai over the years. We are not sure of the historian’s abilities, however, as one exhibit shows some clay relics dated from circa ‘the olden days’.

The church was very close to Channai’s main, 12km beach. We visited at night, so could not see the colour of the water, although it is apparently quite polluted. There looked to be little waves and the sea breeze tasted like home and filled me with calm. It was not a beach like home, however, as there were hundreds of straw and rag shacks set along the sand. It was a beach-slum. Fishermen were out on the roadside, selling their daily catch – snapper, prawns, small crabs, mackerel and other fish I did not recognise. The air was heavy with salt and fish decomposing in the warm air.

One of the English girls was not impressed, I quote –

‘Only in India could they f*&% up a beach. Its oceans, its sand its beautiful’.

She also commented once after having too much to drink –

‘I can’t believe i’m hungover in India. Its like staring at a bowl of sick and being asked not to be sick’.

For dinner I had Dhosas and Sambas. Dhosas are very thin, crispy, pancakes folded over with spicy vegetable mixture in the middle. Dhosas are served with three chutneys – coconut, mint and chilli tomato. Sambas are deep fried rice cakes served in a spicy, watery soup. The cakes are fine and puffy and mixed with a little coconut.

The change in food is welcome, mixed veg and three chapattis was wearing.
Our next stop was Mamallapuram, a small fishing village an hour or so south of Chennai. We took a private minibus, which was a nice surprise (we were to take another agra-type local bus) and stopped at a bakery for the first real croissants in 6 weeks (or however long we have been away, I can’t remember).

Mamallampuram is a very old port and famous for its beachside, monolithic temples. A dyantistc king built the temples in the 7th century and today you can walk around the small town and visit them all. Kate and I first visited the 5 Rathas, a collection of temples and statues of cows and elephants carved from the granite bedrock. Apart from the monuments themselves, what is amazing is that once you pay the entry fee, you can more or less do anything – walk inside the cave temples and climb over the cows. Many families were treating these 1300 year old monuments like theme-park rides. We then walked back into town via a tree-lined, world heritage walk through more temples and monuments carved into the granite rocks rising from the earth. From the top of one temple was a great view of the beach and the lake behind. At the end of the walk was a huge boulder, perched precariously on a granite slab. It is called butterball and they tried many years ago to pull it down with seven elephants, to no avail. It looks as though it will roll down the hill at any minute, but no-one can move it.

The premiere attraction is the shore temple. Built around 640 A.D, the dark stone, pyramidal engraved temples stands on the beachfront, facing east to catch the first rays of sun rising over the ocean.

That afternoon we walked down to the beach itself. Its probably a cliché, but we are a product of our environment and being at the beach was immensely relieving. There were fishing boats beached on the shore and the men were hanging around, waiting for their nets to dry. Some kids were swimming in front of what looked like a makeshift sewerage canal. We dabbled our toes in the water and it was warm. While the water looked very clean, we thought it best not to swim here.

There were a few, onshore, windswell waves on offer, and some people in our group said they saw four people surfing. As we walked back up the road, through the markets, Kate and I saw a surfboard sitting out the front of a shop. I was very tempted. Varkarla reportedly has waves. If they do, there will be no hesitation.
The 2004 Tsunami came through here and wiped out many of the seaside restaurants. You couldn’t tell though, most have been rebuilt.

Late in the afternoon the group hired bicycles and rode out of town, past the lake-side rubbish tip where the cows congregate to feed, to an orphanage intrepid supports. The kids were friendly and I chucked the frizbee around with a few of them. Kate got talking to one of the older boys who mentioned that the girls do not go to college after to school to stay back, cook and clean. The boys go on to do engineering and such trades. We don’t know why the girls don’t. In all, it was nice to witness a positive scene among the negative ones here.

We ate at the seafood restaurant run by the orphanage owner (it too was rebuilt in 2004 after the tsunami, and a number of kids at the centre were orphaned by the tsunami). After some heavy negotiating Kate bought a silver pendant on a long necklace. It looks very elegant.

I had a seafood platter – the fish had been just caught and were on display (on ice) in the restaurant. Kate had grilled fish. The fish and calamari was fresh and plainly grilled with just a few spices. It was superb and we lived to tell the tale.
The next morning we took an all day train to Madurai after some Indian breakfast. The carriages had no air conditioning and it was steamy inside. I have not mentioned how hot it is down in the south. Each day is 35 degrees but the air is heavy with moisture and rainstorms pass from time to time. I am wearing two t-shirts per day because they are disgraced by the humidity.

Eunuchs boarded the train at one point and started clapping – clearly a prelude to their song and dance harassment. People pay them to go away. We bought some fresh guavas on the train, but they were not ripe. This is how the locals eat them. And the most sour gooseberrys imaginable.

I like South India. The vibe is relaxed. There is no yes or no, only ‘possible’ and ‘not possible’.

‘Can I have four bananas please?’
‘Possible’.

‘Do you have ripe guavas?’

‘Not Possible’.

I have just looked at a surf report for the area we will roughly be in tomorrow. There is a good chance of waves and offshore winds.

I am just going to get my hopes up. Lonely planet says they rent 'boogie' boards.

We love you and miss you.

Thankyou again for all your e-mails, we hang on for them.

Love Kate and Charles.