Around India in 80 Trains (12 page)

He smiled.

I smiled.

He shook his head from side to side.

I shook my head from side to side.

He handed over the new tickets.

I fled.

Two people had been pushed down the waiting list because of our whims and fancies and I felt terrible—but only for a moment. This was India and this was how India worked. Somewhere along the journey, the same would happen to us. That was how karma worked.

Travelling on 80 trains was a tall order, but the numbers were set to rise in the next week on the Great South Indian Temple Tour through Madurai, Trichy, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam, ending in Chennai. Each city was relatively close to the next and the stretch would include a number of unreserved passenger trains. As the Nagercoil Express slipped into Madurai at midnight, it marked eleven.

Madurai’s Hotel Chentoor had been booked on account of the guidebook’s description of ‘spic-and-span rooms’, which were so filthy that the sheets looked as though someone had died in them. A patch of greasy handprints slapped on the wall—just above the pillow—suggested that the room had, however, witnessed plenty of live activity. According to the same book, the hotel also laid claim to ‘what surely must be the dimmest lit bar in India’. That much was true. It was a perfect hideout for meetings between hookers and drug-dealers, or more fitting for Madurai, young lovers cowering in corners. The bar was so dark that it was impossible to see if anyone was in there and it required much blinking and grappling to find a table or a waiter.

Once we adjusted to the darkness and ordered drinks, Sai Baba became the topic of conversation. Not Shirdi Sai Baba, the slight man with a white beard and headscarf, often seen holding one foot across his knee, but Sathya Sai Baba, more commonly known as ‘the one with the ’fro’. Just before the age of 14 he had declared to his parents that he had come to this world with a mission to re-establish the rhythm of righteousness in the world and to motivate love for God, and had since earned a mass following that included Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Sachin Tendulkar. He was famed for performing miracles that ranged from coughing up what looked like golden Easter eggs into hankies, to curing illnesses and conjuring up sacred ash, which he then sprinkled into his devotees’ outstretched hands. His ashrams were established in over 100 countries, though his image was heavily tainted with allegations of sexual abuse and fakery.

Passepartout looked around and smirked: ‘They have photos of him everywhere. It’s crazy.’

It was true. Most hotels, restaurants and shops displayed his photo with a stick of incense crumbling in front. Friends had sat in his audiences and were convinced that he was as much a miracle worker as a magician at a 6-year-old’s birthday party. Passepartout was on a roll.

‘He should be exposed! People like that should be brought down and put away for exploiting the poor.’

‘But at least he funds hospitals and schools.’

‘These people make the poor spend money on small pictures and trinkets that do nothing!’ His voice was rising and a furrow began to crawl down his forehead.

‘If keeping a photo of somebody gives them a sense of protection and comfort, and that’s all they have, who are you to criticise their choice?’

‘Carrying pictures of people who aren’t real and placing faith in them is fucking stupid!’

My cheeks prickled. In the cloth purse I had bought at Dilli Haat was a palm-sized picture of Shirdi Sai Baba that my dad had given me the day before I left England. An amusing chat had morphed into an ugly exchange and I was keen to end the discussion over what was essentially a personal choice. I picked up a handful of chilli peanuts as our drinks arrived.

‘Anyway, can we please stop talking about this?’

‘It’s dis-gust-ing!’ he enunciated, as though I had learning difficulties.

‘Why do you care so much?’ I asked. ‘It’s really none of your business what other people choose to do with their lives. I’ve already asked nicely if we could change the topic.’

‘He’s a FUCKING FAKE!’ he spat, showing no sign of relenting.

I briefly mulled over the face gurning across the table, then took a small sip of my gin and tonic.

‘Talk to me like that again, and you’re on your own.’

I picked up my bag and walked out, leaving him, his beer and his anger to stew together. It was nearing 4pm and the Meenakshi temple would soon be open to afternoon visitors, so I made my way there alone. It was not that I disagreed with his sentiment, but spouting obscenities in the middle of a bar more reminiscent of a dungeon, was hardly the appropriate warm-up to visiting a temple.

Winding through a labyrinth of backstreets, I spotted the first of the Meenakshi temple’s
gopuram
s rising above the entrance to the temple town. It was a gaudy, wedge-shaped monumental tower, decorated with radioactive paint and covered with rows of gods, goddesses and demons. They had eyes like Chihuahuas being squeezed at the neck and a confusing mix of beards and breasts. Winged lizards glared outwards, their tongues hanging out next to figures that looked like a mixture between Chinese dragons and angry housewives.

Inside was beautiful. Feminine figures frozen in motion gazed outwards, their sharp nostrils breathing in a combination of camphor and marigolds. The walls were cool to touch and the ground warm from hundreds of pairs of feet padding through. Worshippers had thronged for the evening puja and hurried past carrying ladoos, garlands and restless children. In the heart of the temple, butter-balls, rolled and sold outside, were being thrown at the statue of Meenakshi and her consort and a group had gathered before Parvathi, the temple elephant. If visitors bowed before her, she placed a blessing on their head with her trunk then swung the hairy tip down to take a coin from their hand, dropping it into the lap of her owner who sat behind. It was a smart, entrepreneurial move, marrying charm and religious servitude for material gain, but ultimately being tapped on the head by a smiley elephant was a rare occurrence and a childish thrill. One afternoon, while being walked to the temple, Parvathi had been scared by a couple of stray dogs and charged into a restaurant, much to the horror of the diners, but to the delight of the owner. Overjoyed that the elephant had blessed his establishment, he rewarded the tearaway with 100 idlis and a handful of bananas. Parvathi was a proper little Indian with the right level of cunning to survive.

A short distance away, a man using opposite hands to grip each of his earlobes with two fingers, began bobbing up and down in penance. His son was pulling at his pocket, asking for a coin for Parvathi. He ignored him and the child gave one last, fatal tug. He turned, slapped his son on the back of the head and went back to gripping his earlobes. This behaviour was not uncommon. During my Madras days I would often dangle my feet through the gaps in the balcony and watch the Brahmin at the house next door doing his daily puja. Every morning without fail, he would appear, freshly bathed and powdered, then sneak across the road to snap three heads off the bougainvillea tree that belonged to two dancers, scuttling back to place them on his shrine.

‘Shameless fellow, as if God can’t see you,’ my mum would mutter.

Fed up and feeling cynical I wandered out of the temple and found cynicism personified lurking with his camera. After a stiff exchange Passepartout and I made our way back through the streets to catch train number 12, the Nagercoil-Chennai Express to Trichy where the Sri Rangam temple awaited our arrival.

A ride on the number one bus brought us to the Sri Rangam temple complex, where the bus braked, slamming my forehead against the woman in front, then banging the back of my head on the railing. The temple sat on a small island formed by two fingers of the Cauvery river, and was visible for miles.

Deemed the largest Hindu temple in the world, after Angkor Wat, the Sri Rangam complex was almost a town in its own right. Passepartout refused to come in.

‘I don’t see the point,’ he said, kicking at the sand.

I stared up at him, my face flaming from both the heat and my own pent up anger, and chewed my lip to stop from screaming out:
Well why the hell did we come all the way then?

Shrugging, I turned and went inside. He eventually drifted between the columns just inside the entrance.

It was easy to get lost between the carvings and the forest of sandy-brown pillars, many of which provided shade to dozing visitors stretched out across the paving slabs. Being within the compound calmed me immediately, and my breathing soon went back to normal as I moved with the crowds, stopping briefly to take aarathi and allow the priest to press a finger gently to my forehead. A rapid tinkling drew me towards an enclave where another priest was bringing out an aarathi tray and I watched from behind a pillar. Several people waited, palms pressed together, shoulder to shoulder. I enjoyed seeing the coming together of strangers, in particular the moment of absolute silence when the bell stopped ringing and many bowed heads closed in around the flame, then moved back and dispersed, carrying on once again with their business.

A man clutching a plate of fruit and prasad saw me examining the carvings and wandered over. His eyes expanded behind his thick glasses and he shook his head with approval.

‘If you climb up, you will see Sri Lanka from the tip.’

‘Really? From the top of the temple?’

‘Yesssssss,’ he hissed with excitement, jiggling his plate.

‘Is it open for visitors to go up and check?’

He squinted through his glasses at the wall. I tried again.

‘Can we go up to have a look? I want to see if it’s true.’

He walked off.

Scraping squashed flowers and barfi from my feet, I threaded deeper into the temple maze to where a line of devotees queued to reach the deity. It was like a human pile-up: each nose was pressed into the back of the neck in front. Limbs protruded from all angles and a row of eyes watched enviously as a well-dressed couple walked freely through the empty VIP lane. The pair glanced around with the smugness of business-class passengers watching other passengers traipse through to economy.

To the right and up some steps was a yellow door with a sign scrawled in black:

HINDUS ONLY ALLOWED

It looked rude. Why invite someone into your home if they could not warm their hands at the hearth? Among the candles and carvings that symbolised harmony and love, the words were contradictory and divisive, far removed from the notion of Hinduism as an inclusive philosophy. Despondency was beginning to bore a hole into my stomach, so I found Passepartout and crossed the road to plug it temporarily with food.

Balaji Bhavan was a pure vegetarian restaurant that specialised in bowls of pongal soaked in ghee and foot-long dosai served by Narayan, a 73-year-old delight, smiling with what appeared to be one long tooth peering through his candyfloss beard. He hobbled his way barefooted around the room, ladling hot sambar onto banana leaves and came back to see if we wanted coffee. Of his own accord he pointed and asked:

‘Black coffee?’

Passepartout fell in love. Narayan laughed behind his beard, his tooth wiggling around.

‘Foreigners don’t always like Indian coffee. Too sweet.’

Narayan had a B.A. in Hindi from Kerala University and spoke six languages. Here was yet another example of an over-qualified worker: back home he would be working for MI5. Narayan moved around the restaurant on rickety legs, single-handedly serving every diner during the lunchtime rush. He put his health and agility down to the fact that he had never been married. ‘But I’m not a bachelor!’ he winked, waving a finger in the air before sending us on to the Rock Fort temple and chuckling at his own joke. Hard-working, cheerful and seemingly happy with his lot, Narayan mirrored the temperament of most train vendors, road-sweepers and shopkeepers that we had met so far.

Leading to the foot of the hill upon which the Rock Fort temple stood, was a street jammed with stalls and shops selling everything from saucepans and lampshades to adult nappies, baby dolls and ‘dictionerys’. At this early point in our travels we had already collected an inordinate amount of junk. Much was typical tourist tat: postcards of people with mullets, incense sticks, mirrored shoulder bags and cheap jewellery. It was a complete waste of money: the postcards slipped into books only to be rediscovered on the flight home; incense sticks broke; the bag was far too kitsch to be used outside Asia and the jewellery left grey stains on the skin. Determined to stop being wasteful, we emerged at the other end of the street with jasmine flowers tied in twine, a bag of masala popcorn, an Archie comic and two cages of live birds. For the bargained fee of
`
450, 10 birds—the colours of the Meenakshi temple—had been purchased with the intention of releasing them at the nearest patch of green, which in dry, brown Trichy, was no mean feat.