Tamil Nadu

These are days without refrence points, without the patterns of work or class or responsibiities a schedule affords. I have only a steady stream of movement to hold on to and that is enough. But it also means that I am forever looking to somewhere else, looking to find the reason for staying put or moving on at any time. I am blessed to be constantly surrounded with such newness and such life -- I can hardly swallow it all. For now I am content just to be back on the train. Its as much home as anywhere else. I sleep and wake and India floats by my window. I am perfecly still and caught in daydreams, but moving faster than ever.

After leaving retreat in Bodhgaya, I returned to Varanasi for less than ten hours. I unpacked, repacked, picked up a few things to eat, stopped in to see my fute teacher and then left again for the train station, this time with Sandy-ji.

Kanniyakumari



We didn't stay long in Chennai. A hot shower, a solid night's sleep and some wandering with mixed success. Inspired by the ocean, we decide to make a clean break for it and head all the way down to Kanniyakumari, the town on the southern most tip of India, where the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea meet. Not much chance for swimming, but the wind, the rocks, the smell of the ocean and the waves together are incredible. I am cleansed of the two day train ride, the twenty hour bus.

Sandy and I drink think tumblers of Nescafe and then climb out to some rocks to watch the sunset with a group of pilgrims dressed all in black cotton. A giant statue of Vivikenanada loom on the horizon, the sole inhabitant on a gant island, at once memoriaized and exiled from the mainland. Pilgrims reach his feet by ferry.


Madurai

The Menakshi Temple swells around me as I walk within its walls. Its a place I hope to learn more about from a distance now that it has left its imprint. Here, I just walk and gaze -- god after god -- these technicolor plaster towers, the tank and golden lotus, the smoke and sound and color seeping from the inner temple. The protective lions and the bitten snake of ignorance still dangling from its mouth.

Across the road a market has sprung up within an old abandoned temple like so many blades of new grass. Stalls line the inner walls in a square, displaying their silks an brocade wares, dressing the space like the clothes of Krishna. At each end, clusters of tailors sit working with a mix of detachment and concentration at the feet of Parvati all dressed and painted gold and red. The light seeps in at breaks in the high stone walls, falling in harsh rays through the dust, casting long shadows on the worn and slightly sloping floor.

We stay in an elegant little guest house on the grounds of Lady Doak College, Sandy's future employer and perhaps her place of residence. It's a women's college and the teachers who how us around are elegant and adventurous. Not far from the 100 year old American College (a currently boys-only institution), Sandy would teach English, work in the international center and perhpaps help out in the women's center for gender and feminist studies. Its an inviting offer: two more years in India with work and housing guaranteed; two years of good company, college students, libraries, iddlies , dosa, fresh fruit and close proximity to the ocean. Beats teaching math to third graders.

Pondicherry and Mamallipuram

The days keep passing -- another day, another bus, another cosy little guest house, another town -- Chennai, Kanniyakumari, Madurai, Pondicherry, Mamalapurim, back to Pondi, up to Auroville, backto Pondi, Mamalapurim and then Chennai again. I leave Sandy, then meet up with her and Buro, then David flys in from Morocco to meet us in time for New Years. We drift and collide again like waves.

The beach is healing. I try to keep in mind that I am headed north and back to a new desert. These will be my last waves for months. The tide is strong and I sit in the sand in my lungi, drying slowly. We pend New Year's Eve at the Crocodile Bank jsut north of Mamalapurim -- at the home and private beach of Sir Romulus Whittaker, his two sons live there and run the bank and venom extraction project. The party is full of kids who went to school together in Kodi -- including Buro, Sandy's friend who brought us down there. Buro is a sweet heart of a huge bengali man with long silky hair down his back. He is on his way back to the states to do his PHD at University of Chicago. The party and company are good, the beach gorgeous. We jump back and forth between the Croc Bank and town or the annual Mamallipurim Dance Festival in the evenings.


Pondicherry quickly steals a little piece of my heart. I stay in a dodgy little hotel near the park. You enter the Hotel Qualithe by walking through the run-down bar and the kitchen full of crates of beer bottles. A great old wooden balcony connects the rooms. Mine is tiny with a small bed, a wooden writing table, a bookshelf built into the wall and a tiny triangular shaped, black and white tiled bathroom. Sitting back on the balcony, drinking tea and reading, you see only the trees from the park across the street and hear the waves on the beach, the chatter of street vendors. Its perfect and I cannot help but see mysef living in that little room for months -- just writing and going for bike rides along the sea-side lane, spending my mornings reading and doing research at L'Institute Francaise with its incredible library and cool reading rooms in a heritage French Colonial building.
The french quarter is gorgeous and peaceful in a way that one is not used to in finding in India. And the old Tamil side of town brings you back home with crazy street markets, crumbling traditional houses with their mossy courtyards and painted veranas, Tamil films blasting from unseen radios, every corner dabba serving up cup after cup of strong chai and the best iddies and dosa you can imagine. I can still taste the coconut and corriander, the chilies and tamarind chutney. Feel the slight spongy give of a perfect iddly before you pour on the sambar, all on a banana leaf plate.