Hawkers and Beggars

I wanted to take a second out from the travelouge and talk about an issue we've seen more of this time than last: hawkers and beggars. Hawkers are the street people who come up to you offering you junk for sale. Today for example it was a mother and child selling small boxes of Q-Tips. They tend to be relentless and troublesome.

The only thing beggars are selling is a little feeling of charity. Or perhaps more honestly, they are selling the service of getting rid of themselves by going away. Maybe hawkers are selling that, too.

We see a lot of both, but it was worse in Chennai and Dehli than it ever was in Bangalore.

They tell you in the books that you should buy from hawkers and not give to beggars. The idea is that the hawkers are one step up from the beggars. Keeping them employed keeps them out of real dire circumstances. This logic makes sense, but when a leper with no legs rolls up to you it's hard not to feel that dropping a couple bucks would really help this guy out.

This is a girl in Dehli that was selling beads. No one wanted beads, but the kid was charming as heck. We rebuffed her but she hung around and when Val mentioned she needed an ATM the girl sprung into action, directing us to the nearest one. That one was out of order, as was the next one, but the kid was resourceful and found another and then another, finally locating a functioning one. The kid beamed with pride when madam finally got her money and exclaimed "Madam has gotten it!". Of course we bought beads from her afterwards, she was a joy.

But meanwhile, this woman was there at the same time, drunk and grunting at us. Her kid was inert and didn't look too healthy. She kept repeating the same incomprehensible syllables and making the food gesture. She clearly needed help but she didn't get any from us.

Is that bad?

Stopped at a stoplight late at night we saw a family under a bridge in Dehli with newborn. There must have been four kids there of varying ages living on a piece of cardboard. The mother saw the light change and shoo'd her eldest over to our car to pound on the window and beg for change. It was a terrible sight. But we didn't roll the window down.

I don't have a solution, even thinking about it makes me feel selfish and shallow. Mike says that you can't help them and that they need to help themselves; he says that if you give them money they just stay beggars. I'm a softer touch, but even I've gotten more defensive about it. There are reactions on several levels; you feel bad about their situation, angry that they are bothering you relentlessly, guilty that you have so much and they so little, frustrated that you can't do anything about it, unsure what they will do next.

I read in a book that the concept of karma helps out here. That the beggar's karma is to beg and you can't change that so you have to accept it. At the time, this seemed like a convenient way to justify not doing anything to help and blaming the situation on events in some unseen past life. But as I think about it after getting just a small taste of the situation, I warm to the idea some. The problem we have with beggars if we are really honest is that they make us feel uncomfortable. That's our problem. If you can really let go of the defensive frustration and not be angry at them for doing what their situation requires it would be easier to accept.

We're going back to the shopping district in Chennai tomorrow where we are sure to see beggars and hawkers. I am going to try to view them with calm and acceptance. We'll see how it goes.

Mahabalipuram: The Shore Temple

These events took place Sunday, July 4th. We are in Mahabalipuram winding down a day of adventure visiting temples, shrines and oddities built by the Pavalla kings in the 7th century.


This is the Shore Temple. The pass we bought back at the Five Brothers got us in here as well. The temple is sandwiched into a park between two waterfront stallwarts: the fishing village and the tourist town.

The fishing community was on the left, tourist beach on the right. It was amusing how similar this was to our hometown versions. Vendors sold ice cream and beach balls. Kids ran around in groups, playing and screaming. There were even carnival rides. You can see the tourist beach in the background below. It might have been fun to hang out there a bit, but we were on an agenda and were actually fading a bit by this point. The sun was intense, but after Agra we had a little bit of tolerance to it built up.

So, it terms of the temple, it's the usual biggies, Shiva, Durga and Vishnu. And look at all the bulls. Is it Nandi or just an ordinary cow? Not sure. The scaffolding and such that you see is because the salt air takes a toll and they need to do repairs regularly.
Below you see where the Shivalinga was. It was switched out later with a Ganesh I believe, but I'm not clear on the reasons.
Now this temple was a nice cap to the trip, it was breezy enough and pleasantly located. We enjoyed the diversion and learning about the history and culture. It was a great trip.
But getting in and out of these places we were bombarded by touts, beggars and hawkers in a way that we never were in Bangalore. Not surprising I guess, but perhaps worth discussing next time.

Mahabalipuram: Krishna Likes Butter

These events take place Sunday, July 4th in Mahabalipuram, a small town outside of Chennai.


Okay, at this point I have to admit that my ability to follow our guide's narrative breaks down a bit. We are visiting a shrine to Vishnu. This is the Varaha Cave Temple.These are actually monuments now, not active shrines, so it's not requitred to take your shoes off inside.
Again, these are monlithic granite sculptures from the Pavalla kings in the 7th century.
The sculptures here show several sides of Vishnu. Now Vishnu is the preserver; he's the diety that saves the Earth when it's in trouble. In this capacity he takes many forms, or incarnations. In the West, sometimes we notice that some of our Christian traditions have pagan elements. Like the Yule Log or the Easter rabbits. The thinking is that popular elements were absorbed into Christianity to help it's spread. People could do what they always did on the Winter Solstice, but now it was a Jesus thing.
I wonder if Vishnu has a similar thing going. Like you have the story of Rama, but all of a sudden he's Vishnu at the end. In his ninth incarnation he's actually Buddah himself. I'm no theologian, and I know very little about this culture or religious history. Or my own for that matter. I'm just observing that he takes on a lot of different aspects.

Like for instance he takes animal form sometimes. At one point he was a fish in a story that is similar to Noah and the Ark. After that he was a turtle. Here he's a boar who used his tusks to raise up the earth which had sunk into the sea. Our guide told us he's holding his wife Laksmi, the goddess of fortune, but it might make more sense if it was the earth goddess Bhumi, since that's what the Boar-Vishnu did. But like I said, my understanding of this is very tentative and I think I'm mixing up the details.

And I have to say, I completely lost the thread on this one. This gal is summoning elephants for some reason I think. There were carvings of Vishnu holding up the roof of a saving people and doing some fighting.

So, with a tentative theological grasp on things we turn our attention to Krishna's Butter Ball.
Our guide says, "Yes, you know, Krishna, he like all butter so this Krishna's Butter Ball". It's a giant rock balanced on the side of a hill. Our guide joked that it was held in place by Super Glue.
But it's a nice spot where families come and picknick on the grass. There was a small active Ganesh temple up the road as well. So you go and have your picture taken holding up the rock and there are fun things going on around. Like a guy with a parakeet wearing a feathered crown you could take snaps of for cash and ladies selling strange souvenirs like sticks with glitter on them.

The kids had found that on the smooth side of the hill you could slide down. No fool, Mike wasted no time sliding down as well, much to the delight of the other tourists.
I bought a souvenir carved rock after being stalked by a hawker and we piled back in the car for the final stop on our tour: the Shore Temple.

Arjuna's Penance?

These events take place July 4th. We are in Mahabalipuram visiting Pallava sites

Arjuna's Penance is a huge bas-relief mural. It's about 100 feet long, maybe 20 high. It's the same pink granite monolithic style as the other sites. Like them, it's from the 7th century AD and made by the Pallava dynasties.
But what is it?
Well there are two interpretations. It's called Arjuna's penance. Here penance means something you do to get a boon or reward, not to make up for sins. Arjuna apparently performed an austerity to get a weapon from Shiva for the war with his half-brothers.

That would be Arjuna there, the old man holding a pose. I don't know this part of the story well, and I'm no art history scholar but if it was about him getting the weapon, where's Shiva and the big payday? Usually these are pretty literal.

Oh, but look: the kitty is doing the pose too! He wants the mice to think he's a guru and come over to worship him. Then wham-o! Dinner time.

And what about these critters? This is where the other interpretation comes in. See how this is a crack in the rock? There used to be water from above running through it here. This could be the Descent of the Ganges. We've seen earlier in the blog where the great river came down from heaven and was filtered through Shiva's hair. This would make the person doing the penance Bhagiratha. I don't know this story well, either, but apparently he did penance to have the river come wash away the ashes of his relatives.This seems a little more plausible to me. The creatures in the crack would be Shiva and Ganga then. But I don't know anything one way or another. To me it was another cool powerhouse scupture.
And there were more to come, we are only about halfway through. Stay tuned

Mahabalipuram: Two Lighhouses

These events take place on July 4th in Mahabilipuram, a small village South of Chennai. We have hired a guide and are viewing the local sights that make the town famous.


Our next stop was the Two Lighthouses. We walked up a long, sloping ramp and came upon this large elephant sculpted out of granite. What you see above is the elephant from the side. His head is on the left behind the trees. The house at the top is like the carriage atop his back people ride. Inside the temple behind the columns you see above there is an intricate relief.


This is Durga slaying a Bull demon. The story was that the demon was harassing the town until Durga steps in. She kills him, but he springs to life again from his own blood. This happens a number of times until she gets wise and rides in a lion. She kills him again and the lion drinks up the blood. Blood in the lion, no reanimating demon. Win for Durga.


Now is Durga the same as Chamundi, the demon-slaying beast riding goddess from Mysore? I think sort-of. You see the general archetypes recurring but it seems like there are differences in the local versions that make the unique. I think a Hindu might suggest that they are different but that the differences aren't important.
Our guide also showed us the amazing "musical columns". Basically, you put your ear to the column and he slaps it in different places and you can hear the vibration. Our guide explains that in an era before electricity and musical instruments this was how the people played songs. I gave him a rather dubious look but didn't say anything. You could hear the whunnng sound of the column when he smacked the solid granite, but that didn't make much sense to me.

In any case, next we climbed the stairs around to the top of the elephant temple to see the top. You sould see the inside had chambers leading to the top where the tenders could keep the signal fire of the lighthouse lit. It gave a commanding view of Mahabalipuram and the second lighthouse.

The second lighthouse was about a hundred years old. Practically a baby thing. We sat on top of the original lighthouse and enjoyed the cooling breezes. I could have stayed up there for a long time. It was very peaceful.

But the time came to get down and that was the only time I really had any anxiety. Some of the steps down were steep and it was a little crowded. But we were fine and it felt great to join up with our friends on the bottom and head off to the next site to see.

Mahabalipuram: the Five Brothers

These events take place Sunday, July 4th. We have quit Pondicherry in search of adventure and find ourselves in Mahabilipuram.

We drove to Mal by a different road than the one that took us to Pondy. This was a surprise because it's between The resort town and Chennai. We passed it on the eway in fact. But the change was pleasant as the road was pastoral and flirted with bodies of water the whole way. We smiled and nodded and before we knew it, we were at the first site to see: the Five Rathas.
Our driver (whose name is "Money" incidentally, how cool is that? I think it's actually Muni or Many or something, but it sounds like "money". The first time I called him by name, I misremembered and called him Cash. Oh brother) pointed where to by the tickets and I set out to pick them up.
On the way I was intercepted by this gentleman:

He approached and asked if we needed a guide. I asked him a few questions to gauge his English and personality and he seemed suitable so we agreed on a price and set out.

So, here are the Five Rathas. These are monolithic temples; all carved from single stones rather than assembled. Rathas means Chariot, but the place is also called the Five Brothers, which of course in Hindu points to the Pandavas, the heros of the Mahabarata. Each temple dedicated to one of the characters. Our guide starts into the story, this one is for their wife Draupadi, this one is for Arjuna. Our guide's English is good, but here and there it's not clear and he needs a words repeated. Arjunathearger he says. Hunh? The archer I fill in excitedly. Next is Bhima, he is very fat. I frown, he's strong I add. The guide gives me a look and says "Yes, you know everything". My trainer instinct kicks in and I realize I'm stepping on his gig. After that I let hm do his thing and tell the story his way.

So, these data back to the 7th century. They are made out of pink granite. The story seems to take their meaning a little away from pure Panduva. For example, the Draupadi temple is dedicated to Durga. She's shown on a lotus, but her lion is out front. That's the sculpture you see there. The Arjuna one has sculptures of Indra and Nandi on it. It makes it hard to understand the connections. The one for Yudishthira has Krishna on it. Shouldn't he be with Arjuna? Maybe the Panduva are metaphoric on different levels than the ones I saw before. Maybe Joseph Campbell's on to something and one Strong Woman archetype is the same as the others. Once again, I know only that I don't understand it at all.

You can see the beginnings of the Dravidian style here. If you look at the roof of the far temple in the snap above it looks a lot like the temples you see on the side of the roads here today.

Pondicherry

The Fourth of July is a holiday for us and at our job site, so we get a long weekend in India. We discuss what to do back and forth and the idea of going to Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram sounds best. Pondy is a French community that everyone has told us is great. Mahabalipuram is a small town nearer Chennai with a series of archealogical things to see. Pondy, meanwhile is about 3-4 hours away. At length we decide that Val and I don't want a long car ride again and we will go to the nearby site and spend the night.
We are all set to do this until Friday night when a manager from the job comes by an tells us that he has made reservations for us in Pondy. Screech go the brakes. It's a beautiful resort, nice massages, change is good. We decide to go with the flow and head to the French community after all.
So we rise early Saturday, pile in the car and off we go. Along we the way we see the usual fun crazy sights like the king and queen above. I couldn't begin to tell you who they are. I think they presided over a dilapidated playground.

At length we arive at the hotel and it's nice enough. We head to the beach it's on and relax a bit. The waves are rough but the water is warm and for once in India, nobody else is around. It's nice to just hear the waves for a while.

But not for too long! We decide to sightsee at nearby Auroville. Now, this is a town with a hippie vibe. The idea is that in the late 60's this French woman that they call The Mother decided to found an international community dedicated to peace and brotherhood. Or something like that. They got a bunch of people from different countries to move there and all be hippies together. So you see a lot of Europeans around. I hear that things aren't all peace and love between the town and the locals, though. The Ashram doesn't do much charity work or hire too many outsiders.

But! They have a giant, golden golfball building called the Matrimandir that we were there to see. Apparently, you go inside this marble chamber and mediate around the world's largest crystal or something. I say "apparently" because we got there too late and Peace and Love'svile locked the gate to the dome house compound.

So, we walked around in the jungle which was good and saw some exhibits about eco-friendliness. Here Mike tries out the convenient hippy coffee-maker that is sure to be in every home soon.

Eventually, we find our way back to the gift center and sit down for a snack. As we sit there, enjoying our food, Mike sums it up: "So, we basically came all this way to have cake and ice cream." Mmmhmm, but it was pretty tasty. We go back to the hotel for a nice dinner and relax the night away with drinks on the balcony listening to the waves.

At sunrise I get up to shoot some snaps.

I'm struck again with where I am. This is sunrise on the Bay of Bengal.
As I walk along the beach, I notice a lot of fish spread out and can't figure it out exactly. They didn't wash ashore, they are up to high for that. And where are the flies? Why aren't the birds all over them? Later we find out that they have been salted and are curing in the sun right there on the beach. Hunh.

We have a breakfast and enjoy the strongest, sweetest coffee I've ever had.

We talk it through and decide that though Pondi is lovely, we don't want to see the Ashram very badly and we want more adventure and less relaxing. We decide to check out the sights in Mahabalipuram, which turned out great.

Next: tourism in Mahab