What I Saw On The Road

Hours and hours and hours of riding in a car at night, from one nowhere town to another throughout Tamil Nadu for trainings.  A giant tanker truck, coming straight at us; a western-style four lane highway without warning becomes a rocky dirt road, more trucks still coming straight for us.  Every vehicle, including ours, uses only high beams, except to flash that we are passing - on the right, on the left, down the middle.  Signs say "Respect lanes"; meaning unknown to all.  And people: men standing on the roadside, back to the traffic, in that characteristic stance which immediately says "taking a whizz"; people squatting, less immediately obvious, but no doubt the purpose; and people walking.  On two nights now, there have been thousands of people walking along, spread out for miles, all barefoot, many with children, going to some temple for some special puja (prayer) to some particular god.  They'll walk for 3 or 4 days, through the night, into the morning, and sleep in the fields in the heat of the day.  On the first night they were all carrying small yellow bags with the god's picture, and most were wearing orange skirts - dhotis (man-skirts) - or orange sarees - and some were pulling carts covered in artificial and real garlands of flowers, statues of the god and general wildly colorful decorations.  On the second night, they were carrying orange bags and wearing turquoise skirts and sarees - different god, different puja, same idea.  They walk on the shoulder of the road, sort of, but that's dirt and rock, so many walk on the road itself, sometimes fairly far out onto the road.  It's black as night (well, it is night, after all) and the only light is from those high beams, which suddenly illuminate crowds of them right in our path.  When the road is paved, we're moving at about 50 mph, whizzing by them (we stop to whizz as well) and I know that some will die, because last week I saw a dead person in the road, nothing to do with pilgrims.  A not-too-quick flash of blood and flesh and a white dhoti;  I said to the driver, knowing the truth, "An animal?" "No, a person." he replied, as he touched his face in the ritual pattern of pujas. 
My host mother waits up for me whenever I'm coming home from one of these trips.  Tonight I got in at 2:15 am, just a little later than I'd predicted on the phone.  We embrace and she goes to bed, saying now she can sleep.

Shaking Hands

We arrive at the conference hall for a training on mediation skills for lawyers - same thing I always do.  The tiny, scrawny cleaning man, with glasses an inch thick, looking 75 years old (perhaps only 50 in fact) is startled when I take his picture.  Then, when I shake his hand, he looks like he will swoon.  He grins, he sways, his eyes widen to saucers, and he says to my helper, in Tamil, "She touched me!" My helper says now he will be devoted to me for life because he is untouchable and in fact no one does touch him - certainly no one important.  No "advocate" woult notice him, much less greet him.  He gets me water without my asking; he wipes my chair off, he hovers to see what I might need.  I smile and say "Nandri, nandri" (thank you, thank you) which always gets a laugh because a foreigner is saying somethinig in Tamil and because it is quie formal (perhaps like saying "Your courtesy is greatly appreciated.") but this cleaning man again looks as if he'll faint.  My helper says he's sure no one in life has ever said "nandri" to this man.  (Indians actually say "Thanks" mostly)  Then the man is called away and I don't see him again.  Remember also, the lawyers I am training all call themselves "human rights advocates".

Cleaning Man after Shaking Hands

Mysore Palace

It is all that it is cracked up to be. Now I must research about it because the information given is so sparse and eccentric - it was built in the late 19th century by the British and the maharajah, after former versions burned to the ground, but nothing victorianesque about its style. No photography allowed inside and no books for sale with any real photos (just as well - luggage is a problem).  Signs say things like "elephant" under a stuffed elephant head.  A library, which required permission to enter but I just walked in and the fellow guarding the place was fast asleep, had the oddest collection.  Some few truly unique volumes of records of the place itself, but mostly books in English (almost all the books, actually), ranging from Indian symbology to Eskimo art.  Really, quite a number of random anthropolgy books having nothing to do with India, incuding one that was a text book assigned in my introductory anthropolgy class in college "Selected Readings in Anthropology and Archaeology".  The library was totally quiet - a welcome respite from the noise of the crowds everywhere else.  This is the noisiest place I've ever been - the whole of India, not just Mysore.  Beep beep, honk honk, RING RING, and music at a volume that would make your average boombox blaster seem relaxing.