Return of the Native Part III Some musings on the New India
Mar 9 2008 | Views 761 |
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The Native Returns to his chosen land after six weeks of hectic abosorbtion and enjoyment of the In...
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The Native Returns to his chosen land after six weeks of hectic abosorbtion and enjoyment of the India that is today, I found the going a little tough, because firstly it was my longest stay in India in thirty years(full time work in the West does not allow luxuries such as a six week vacation). Secondly, not being as sprightly as in the past i became susceptible to the environment and succumbed to the flu, coughs , colds and whatever, which I still have a few days after my return. I was unable to do much in Bangalore after three hectic weeks, which included three blissful days at Kabini and the Nagarhole National Park about a week in Madras(note I am one of those standouts that Madras will always be Madras and NOT Chennai, a name coined by the fascisti, that are currently ripping off the common people of that benighted state.
Kabini
The trip took us to all parts of Southern Tamil Nadu. The countryside is still beautiful, but the
inroads to the environment can be clearly seen everywhere. As we had to remove our shoes in every temple that we visited, and some of these temple corridors are good quarter of a mile from the gate to the sanctum, the dirt and in fact filth on our paths, were difficult to take. But the rest of the world was oblivious to it. The human psyche can accept anything and internalize it as normal: I would do the same if I continue to live in India a few more months.
Another sign of change is the the strong desire for upward social and educational mobilty even in a deep south backwater as Kumbakonam. Our driver through the south, Ravi, was a Brahmin of quite modest education. His father had died when he was quite young, but through a dint of personal sacrifice he had educated his four sisters as college graduates and married them off to professionals. He told us that he had spent eleven lakhs on his two last sisters, and he had still a loan that he was paying off. He had managed to move his sisters from the lower middle class to middle class status with even higher aspirations, while he remained steadfast in pulling himself up the bootstraps also to middle class status. He invited us home for lunch, his home though modest was clean and the food quite tasty. His wife was charming and his mother who had cooked the food appeared stoic, though friendly. He owned the taxi that he drove and had managed to start a coffee shop for his wife, which served in addition tiffin items, such as Iddly, Vadai,with accompaniments. His dedication to moving up the ladder to me was the personification of the India of today. With this kind of urge to better oneself, India appears to be on the upward path.
Acquisitiveness through education are the watchwards of the day as colleges and a peculiar animal called, deemed universitiy, rule the day. Everywhere deemed universities are sprouting, some as decent plants but I suspect, some are weeds. I cannot believe that the number of deemed universities, which implies a certain amount of independence and consequent lack of control, is good for education. But, the education genii is out of the bottle and good, bad and indifferent the show will go on. The number of MBA's sprouting everywhere leaves one in doubt as to how much an average MBA outside the IIM's and selected other schools, has learnt.
Chettinad the home of Chettiars of Tamil Nadu is situated in and around Karaikudi. The Chettiars were and are far sighted businessmen who not only suceeded in their ventures in India but spread their businesses to Ceylon(now Sri Lanka), and large parts of S E Asia. We went to Karaikudi to stay at a theme hotel, called the Bangla,a Tamil rendition,of the English word bungalow meaning house. The Bangla tries to recreate the way of life of the Chettiars, is comfortable and modern. They serve Chettinad food, breakfast, lunch and dinner at somewhat steep(for India) prices But a stay and a meal at the Bangla is well worth the price.
We also visited the unique and ancient Ganesha temple at Pilliarpatti that the Nagarathar's(Chettiars) worship. Wikipedia describes the temple thusly "
Karpaka Vinayakar Temple at Pillayarpatti
Madras Central Station 1873
Ripon Building 1913
I am writing this after about six weeks in India. I can give my first impressions of changing conditions in India.
The one constant is Change
: The sense of impermanence is endemic in everything that exists. This applies of course to prices. But it also applies to traffic patterns, to restaurants, to food, to television, to relationships, be it so called permanent relationships like marriage, but also to acquantianships and jobs. It applies to the railways, to education, to temples and whatnot. I have given you all a potpourri of generalities, that I will try to substantiate by the changes I have seen since last (2007) January, when I came here previously. However, this feeling of impermanence has a solid basis, it is tliterally incessant transformation, caused by economic growth of historical proportions: a growth that has winners and losers, predators and victims.
Kabini
I spent three days in Kabini visiting the Nagarhole National Park. I shall write separately about the trip as I am waiting for pictures that I can publish along with my post, but the change I saw was the heightened interest in wildlife, both amongst the natives and also by the number of foreigners that I saw at the Park. The staff(the so called naturalists) are more professional and the facilities more modern. The open jeeps have been topped by canvas covering and remind me of the kinds of transport I saw at Krueger in South Africa. I saw more sightings than the last time I visited Nagarhole and daily sightings are advertised to bring a sense of excitement amongst the visitors.However, the doleful news that Tigers are down to 1411, less than half the published findings of two years back, is the kind of change I do not like to see. Most of the decemation of the tiger population is evident in Madhya Pradesh and UP, probably indicative of the relative backwardness of those states. Nagarhole has a fairly constant population of Tigers(current count of 65) and though I had only a fleeting look at a Tiger (head only) taking a dip across the Kabini River at dusk, other parties had good sightings of the King and my wonderful sighting of two leopards that I hope to write about, gives me some confidence in the boast that Nagarhole is one of best spots for varied sightings(including big cats) of wildlife in India. There was a recent newspaper article that the elephant population has iincreased to over 18,000 in India and has increased despite poaching, which is heartening to read. I saw over a hundred elephants in the three days, which is indicative of a healthy population. I had healthy sightings of Gaur, Wild dog and thousands of Chital and several other animals.
A Taxi Trip Round the Deep South
I drove around the South of Tamil Nadu mostly visiting the wonderful Chola Temples, from Tanjore to Kumbakonam, to Swami Malai, to Trichy, to Chettinad, and so on. In Swami Malai we stayed at a Theme Hotel run by Sterling Properties .The theme here is Brahmin Agraharam living. Little Agraharam type houses(cottages) have been built around park like surroundings. These houses have modern amenities, airconditioning and a good vegetarian restaurant to boot ! The quality of the service is reasonably good, though some of the responses from the front desk were a little disappointing.One feature of our trip was the film shoots. The hotel we stayed was having a film shoot and the actors were sitting on our doorstep, called Thinnai, waiting to be called up. We saw one character that we saw regularly in a Tamil serial, but had recently been 'killed off'.We also saw a pretty young woman, an actor of repute, who was both comely and very pleasant as a person.Swami Malai is very near Kumbakonam, which is the ancestral home of the boss, my wife. The temples I visited included Vaitheeswaran Koil, my family's Kula Devata. The temple is a marvellous and majestic rendition of Chola architecture. There was another movie being shot there and we were treated to a meal there by the producer who happened to be the grandmother of the eighteen year old hero. They found us a little different from the visiting public and kindly invited us to eat.
The trip took us to all parts of Southern Tamil Nadu. The countryside is still beautiful, but the
inroads to the environment can be clearly seen everywhere. As we had to remove our shoes in every temple that we visited, and some of these temple corridors are good quarter of a mile from the gate to the sanctum, the dirt and in fact filth on our paths, were difficult to take. But the rest of the world was oblivious to it. The human psyche can accept anything and internalize it as normal: I would do the same if I continue to live in India a few more months.
Another sign of change is the the strong desire for upward social and educational mobilty even in a deep south backwater as Kumbakonam. Our driver through the south, Ravi, was a Brahmin of quite modest education. His father had died when he was quite young, but through a dint of personal sacrifice he had educated his four sisters as college graduates and married them off to professionals. He told us that he had spent eleven lakhs on his two last sisters, and he had still a loan that he was paying off. He had managed to move his sisters from the lower middle class to middle class status with even higher aspirations, while he remained steadfast in pulling himself up the bootstraps also to middle class status. He invited us home for lunch, his home though modest was clean and the food quite tasty. His wife was charming and his mother who had cooked the food appeared stoic, though friendly. He owned the taxi that he drove and had managed to start a coffee shop for his wife, which served in addition tiffin items, such as Iddly, Vadai,with accompaniments. His dedication to moving up the ladder to me was the personification of the India of today. With this kind of urge to better oneself, India appears to be on the upward path.
Acquisitiveness through education are the watchwards of the day as colleges and a peculiar animal called, deemed universitiy, rule the day. Everywhere deemed universities are sprouting, some as decent plants but I suspect, some are weeds. I cannot believe that the number of deemed universities, which implies a certain amount of independence and consequent lack of control, is good for education. But, the education genii is out of the bottle and good, bad and indifferent the show will go on. The number of MBA's sprouting everywhere leaves one in doubt as to how much an average MBA outside the IIM's and selected other schools, has learnt.
Chettinad- The Bangla
Chettinad the home of Chettiars of Tamil Nadu is situated in and around Karaikudi. The Chettiars were and are far sighted businessmen who not only suceeded in their ventures in India but spread their businesses to Ceylon(now Sri Lanka), and large parts of S E Asia. We went to Karaikudi to stay at a theme hotel, called the Bangla,a Tamil rendition,of the English word bungalow meaning house. The Bangla tries to recreate the way of life of the Chettiars, is comfortable and modern. They serve Chettinad food, breakfast, lunch and dinner at somewhat steep(for India) prices But a stay and a meal at the Bangla is well worth the price.We also visited the unique and ancient Ganesha temple at Pilliarpatti that the Nagarathar's(Chettiars) worship. Wikipedia describes the temple thusly "
Karpaka Vinayakar Temple is an ancient rock-cut cave shrine dedicated to Ganesha, located at Pillayarpatti, (15 kilometers west of Karaikkudi), in the state of Tamil Nadu, India.
In the cave temple, there are rock cut images of Shiva and other gods as well as several shrines. The Agama texts found on stones in the temple help date the temple between the years of 1091 and 1238. A unique Tamil image of Ganesha found in the temple helps to verify this dating. The presiding deity of the temple is Karpaka Vinayakar or Desi Vinayaka Pillaiyar.[1]
Today, the Pillayarpatti Nagarathar worshipers are involved in conducting daily worship services in the temple, as well as maintaining it. People from all over the state, as well as great numbers of pilgrims, come here everyday and gather for the Ganesh Chaturthi festival held every year during the months of August and September.[2]"
The palace of the late Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar a few miles outside Karaikudi is an interesting example of deep south Tamil living of the wealthy. None of the great scions of Chettiardom live in Karaikudi anymore and the town appears to have have a forgotten look.
In deep south Tamil Nadu, I found generally broken down infrastructure, bad roads, minimal sanitation, but the people are generally upbeat and greatly interested in bettering themselves. A sign in my view that despite the exploitative stranglehold and political and economic shenanigans of the Dravida kind, the general atmosphere is still upbeat. This, is because of the economic ferment that has created opportunites for the populace.
Thanjavur
Of course the marvellous ancient Chola Temples, the Brighadeeswarar at Tanjavur and Gangaikundacholapuram are still the most stunning head turners, that I know in South India. We saw a lot of work being done at Gangaikundacholapuram by the Archeological Survey of India, in re-building portions that had broken down from ancient times. However, despite the work we saw a horrible site, the water and effluents from the Aarathi of the main shiva shrine were being deposited in a enclosure just outside the temple. That enclosure had not only the fluids emanating from the Aarathi, but also all kinds of garbage that people had deposited. In my view it was the worst display of filth in a temple I have seen, When I asked the employees of the Government of India's archealogical survey, they said that cleaning up the garbage was the state government's responsibility. I think the state government's sole task appears to be to steal the money from Temple hundi's and do nothing for the temples. I think there is something wierd in a athiestic Hindu hater like Karunanidhi being ultimately responsible for running Hindu Temples. He does not have that responsibility over mosques and churches, but Hindus are exploited to the hilt in this area. It is high time that all religious institutions are removed from the clutches of avaricious state governments.The sooner this happens the better for religious amity in India.
Trichy
Trichy is another town that is hurtling into cityhood caused by the inexorable move of rural populations into the city. However I found Trichy to have taken to modernity with greater ease than cities, such as Madurai and Tanjavur. The traffic is less frenetic and the super slums( I call the posh houses in the midst of slums, super slums)less so than any other city and this includes Bangalore and Madras.
The marvellous temple of Vishnu (Ranganathaswamy) at Srirangam, is both ancient and counts as the largest Hindu temple structure in the world that is still a working temple. The largest hindu temple that is extinct is Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The total space Srirangam is 156 acres, with seven gopurams and seven concentric enclosed courtyards, It is one of the marvels of the world. It is quite an ancient temple, probably contemporaneous with the Ramanuja reformation of the 11th and 12th centuries. Wikipedia talks of an attack on the temple, by Malik Kafur of Delhi in the early 14th century.
The Mariamman temple at Samayapuram a few miles from Trichy though much more recent(circa eighteenth century) is a marvellous temple with a striking deity. The idol is supposed to be much older, but whatever its age, it is an unforgettable temple.
Madras AKA Chennai
Madras now known as Chennai is different from the Madras of yore as the rest of India is different, I lived in Madras, that included seven years of schooling, Good Shepherd Convent and Madras Christian College High School and seven years in College, Loyola and Law Colleges. Those were halcyon days, days that were larger than life itself. In the last three years at College, I had a Royal Enfield Bullet, I learnt to fly, played cricket and I had a great coterie of friends that helped me paint the town(it was then a city in a town's clothing) crimson. My cup, thus did run over, constantly, those many years ago.
Returning to my old haunts was difficult as over the years the city has changed unrecognizably. Roads that I had travelled through over and over, were now strangers. Over time I started recognizing directions from a gross sense, though individual roads were still a mystery .
When I was in Madras as a young man, restaurants were generally either S Indian or there was the occasional Moghalai restaurant like Kwality or Pal's or the Irani type restaurants and Aaram Buhari. There were two Chinese restaurants, on Mount Road, Chung King next to Bosuttos and Buharis(both appear to have disappeared long since)and Allies next to the Cosmopolitan Club.
Present day Madras has become a restaurant town, with restaurants practically in every block. There were several restaurant's that I would call international class, if not world class. They are so in service, in ambience and quite often in food. I visited one called Cornucopia on 30 Cenatoph Road(which by the way was named after the Cenotoph built in 1805 by British factors in Madras in memory of their just deceased Governor General, Lord Cornwallis), Teynampet. Though Cornucopia is a subdued restaurant, it produces beautifully put together, generous helpings. of various fusion dishes remniscent of both Europe and the Far East.
Chef Anand and his wife provide magical fare that the late Marquis(Cornwallis that is) would have found tempting. Other restaurants such as Mainland China at Hotel Tulip Aruna Complex, 144/145, Sterling Road, Nungambakkam,(a large rambling restaurant, a part of a chain) that serves wonderful Chinese dishes and Sanjeevanam at 45 Nungambakkem High Road serving Ayurvedic fare , also the authentic high quality, Sarvanas, at the Kapaleswarar's Temple Tank in Mylapore, give you a representation of the gamut of literally hundreds of restaurants of decent quality.
Madras is also host to Hospitals of varying quality and doctors both of repute and of doubtful repute. Because of differences in quality, one needs to ask around before one ventures to a hospital or to a doctor. However, hospitals are mushrooming the way of educational institutions, making the task of quality control very difficult.
IT is present, but what Madras has in good measure is manufacturing plants galore, The city has become the automobile hub of India. It had always been so, with the Amalgamations Group of Old, the Standard Motors Plant(now defunct) and TVS. Now, big names have arrived which include Ford, BMW, Renault, Nissan and many others. Manufacturing appears to be coming into its own in Tamil Nadu despite the venal government in power.
Another interesting and welcome development I see in Chennai is the care in which the remaining old Raj landmarks have been lovingly restored. These buildings were built in the Indo Saracanic style by Raj architects that included the great Henry Irwin, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What is striking is that the present government has brought back some of the grandeur that was Madras of the past. The source of the pictures is Wikipedia.
Madras Egmore Station, 1906
The city is still a repository of some wonderful buildings of the Raj era see samples above. Others are of course Fort St George(largely of the 17th and 18th centuries) Madras High Court, 1892, the Cathedral at the Gemini Corner called 'The Kirk", built in 1802 and the Museum Theatre at Pantheon Road built in 1896. As Madras has been overbuilt with ugly modern structures, these gems nestle in the midst of architectural mediocrity, if not worse. But they are well worth visiting. However, by acts of deliberate vandalism in the last sixty years beautiful old buildings have been razed to the ground for the greater good(supposedly) of the greater number. I suspect, it was to add hugely to DMK and AIDMK coffers.
Bangalore
The city is also re-named by the Kannada political mafia as Benglooru. This speaks volumes of their ineptitude but does not help much in alleviating any of the serious ills that have been visited on that erstwhile beautiful garden city.
I first started visiting Bangalore in the fifties for my summer holidays. The practice was that my grandfather rented a large rambling house during the summer where his children and their children(I was part of the latter group) stayed at different points of time, enjoying summer in Bangalore. The City was green, the climate was much more temperate than it is today and the whole city gave an air of somnolent
splendor. It was the city of excitement for us kids , as a visit to MG Road and Brigade Road from outlandish places Basavangudi and Jaynagar, gawking at girls on Brigade Road and visiting eateries there, was the stuff of legand. A visit to Koshy's for lunch or dinner, (an escape from the vegetarian household that we were living in) was sometimes the high light of the day. A walk around Cubbon Park partaking of the excellent Omlettes that were prepared by a Government canteen there or an energetic walk around Lal Bagh, culminating in a visit to the Mavalli Tiffin Rooms(MTR) were some other delight my siblings, cousins and I shared. These were simple pleasures of the innocent. Another special but simple treat was to eat the special 'English'(sic) vegetables, such as Brussel's Sprouts, Capsicum, Betroot, Cauliflower etc that were available in Bangalore in plenty and absent on our banana leaves in Madras, were special and were appreciated both by us youngsters and also by our betters of the previous generations.
The Bangalore of today is very new kettle of fish: I would say fish, because there is a prevailing smell of urine all over town. It is probably a function of the over population and the general Indian penchant of exercising our God given right to piss where we like and defecate where we like. While walking in Lal Bagh
I see standing(literally) examples of policemen pissing, and other men pissing. My understanding is that women also have that necessity, but I did not see them perform this bodily function. Though I have seen
them doing it with relative abandon, in paddy fields in the morning when I look out the window out of a speeding train. I think this capacity of dirtying the environment has to change if India wants to have any pretensions of being an advanced country. This is not only true of Bangalore(I saw a lot of it here as I stayed put for three weeks) but also in such disparate cities as Delhi, Mumbai, Madras and elsewhere. It is an universal phenom. I visited a gated community of apartments which I noted did not have this smell of urine: This implied the perimeter was being policed. I later found that these apartments were being sold at a large premium in this area, which told me that there was a urine smell factor discounting the prices of housing while there was a premium where this smell was not that evident. I call it the Urine Smell Index(USI) which appears have a negative correlation with the price of housing. That this state of affairs has unchanged this sixty years this tells me that the politicians also belong to the hordes of road pissers and so there is no hope in sight that the situation will change.
Bangalore has a special pride of place in modernity especiallly in the sprawling digital cities and complexes that house the great IT houses like Infosys,Wipro,Honewell, IBM et al. These areas at least as far as the concrete and glass facades are concerned look like the first world, but when you look at the traffic and the general chaos on the self same roads, you know otherwise. There is a great deal of frustration expressed by Bangalore IT at the slow progress of infrastructure and the Government's ham-handed handling of progress in this areas. One example of it is the decision by Government fiat to move the Bangalore Airport from the current HAL area to Yehalanka, about 40 KMS away. This is going to happen within a couple of months with no preparations on how to handle the average commute to the airport which is expected to be about two hours.The collision between modernity and business as usual of the political beaurocracy, could not be more stark than in Bangalore.
Final Musings
In summary, India that i visited is vital, full of hope, a study in contrasts where anything can be justified : A can do country going on an upward path, a'la Tom Friedman's The Earth is Flat, is there but so is the country mired in the past, in a hidebound beaurocracy, in corruption in acquisitiveness. Both coexist, the eternal question remains, as it has in every visit I have made these 44 years, that is which country will win out finally.
The Janus face looking out to the future, or the Janus face looking back and going no where. My suspicion(or hope as I love this blessed land) is that India will ultimately muddle through to a semblance of decent modernity. But, the path will be strewn with seemingly insurmountable obstacles that will either be bypassed or overcome.
This feeling of mine is really a combination of hope and the constant examples that I have seen during this visit, that exemplify an almost universal urge to better oneself. This appears to be imprinted firmly in the race memories of the people of India. This second nature will surely win out !
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Interesting reading....
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Dear Melody : It is not P-Sec Governments that handle temple funds but criminal enterprises run by religion haters in TN they are Hindu haters. There is something strange in putting these wolves in charge of the sheep that are Hindu temples. This is a travesty that has to corrected.
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Shri. Gopal
Very well articulated. Enjoyed reading your post as much as it set me ruminating on certain aspects of change that is happening right now in motherland.
Even when I was a kid, it was drilled and reinforced by parents that education was our passport to a better future. We tried and bettered our lot. But India at present seems to be undergoing a leadership crisis. Lack of planning, myopic vision and utter mismanagement by our 'leaders' are undoing the gains of hard work of the common populace. Same with a P-Sec government mishandling crores of rupees of temple trust funds. We also need some serious lessons in civic sense. The sooner we set these maladies right, the better for us.
Warm regards
Melody
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Thank You Ms BB.
Best regards, Girdhar
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Great read. enjoyed it.
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Avinash: Thank you. Even though I live abroad, I have not lost the connection I have to India. Now that I am a newly minted 'Overseas Citizen of India' that gives me rights to go back and forth but not the right to vote, which I have no business laying claim to: I think India in my retirement(to whatever years that all knowing power provides me) will be a second home and I shall chronicle changes that I see and give my unvarnished but familial look at the land of my birth and youth.
I have in fact written everything on my idyll at Kabini, but unfortunately I did not collect many photographs, my companion during the trip had taken photographs including a video of the panthers. I hope I get those so that I can write about them.
Rgds, Girdhar
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Thank you Tanushri: These are historic times for India: the next few years are going determine what sort of society that India will be in future. Despite all the political shenanigans, I think the heart of the Indian people is in the right place. They deserve a place in the sun and I hope they get it.
Regards, Girdhar
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beautifully reminiscent....you've brought a fresh perspective to the places...
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You really wallowed into all you could. This took me to places I have never seen. Bangalore has definitely changed and the change has been drastic as far as the beauty and the environment of the place is concerned. But economically it has gone up leaps and bounds. It is no more the place though where Kakoli and I had gone and lived for more than a week before we married.
I will anxiously wait for your post on the two leopards.
The tiger population has actually gone up in Corbett National Park. The bad part is that the poachers have come to kanha which hitherto has been the best managed National Park in india. I can only wish that this problem is rooted out.
Jnus faced - true description. You find that everywhere across the length and breadth of India. Old existing with new. Old attitudes existing with the new. Hangover of old attitudes continuing even in those people that are trying to adopt to the new. The change is fast and accelerating. I hope that much of it will be for the good.
Thanks for writing this. An Indian can know India better from the eyes of one who visits once a year because the changes are more evident to him rather than the one who is staying here all the time.
Avinash
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Jaijui: Thank you. India of today is changing so fast and furious that there is lot more to write. I had to exercise some self control but still it is a long post. India deserves a book on the changes, probably every year.
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