 Home |
|
|
|
India - News
|
News Updates - 1
April 2001 A Hill of riches - New York Times Where India flows at a relaxed pace - New York Times
PRESSED to name the world's most visited holy cities, one might think of Mecca or Jerusalem. Rome maybe. But the name Tirupati would hardly roll off the tongue of many people, at least not many outside India. Still, the temple above this city in southeastern India is reputed to draw more than a million visitors yearly, thousands a day and tens of thousands on feast days. That makes it not only one of the world's holy places most trafficked by pilgrims in a nation flush with holy places but also the richest temple in the land. It has been said that when Tirupati cashes in its gold, the heart of the Bombay financial markets skips a beat. When I visited with my girlfriend Radhika on an ordinary weekday, the wait to enter the temple, even given the shortcut provided by paying a few extra rupees, was eight hours. Many of the thousands gathered had already waited far longer, escaping a sputtering rain by sleeping beneath a narrow, pillar-lined enclosure along the temple, or squeezing themselves into a line that snaked its way through a claustrophobic metal corral, like a winding cattle chute, just outside the entrance. What draws these multitudes to this site is the god Balaji, also known as Venkateshwara, a dark-skinned deity whose eyes are normally depicted partly obscured by a veil of diamonds, and whose following has blossomed in recent times, making him one of the most popular gods of Hinduism, and the wealthiest.
Shaving the head is seen as an offering and a way of purifying the self and stripping away any trappings of vanity and pretense, and atop Tirumala, barbershops and bald heads are almost as plentiful as the narrow vendors' stalls that sell everything from blinking Balaji clocks and Balaji key chains to bangles and baseball caps. To a Western visitor (of which, on this particular day, there appeared to be just one), the unusual development and "commercialism" of the site, where the modern, gleaming white Hotel Bliss smiles down contentedly on the meanderings of the pilgrims, seemed to imbue it almost as much with the feeling of Disney as of devotion. In particular, the wealth of the temple has provided Tirupati with a level of organization and order that seems unique in India. Tirumala is approached along a broad boulevard lined by the many banks that are the repositories of the temple's ample tithings and where six lanes of traffic are neatly divided by a landscaped median planted with trees and flowers. The winding road to the temple, which would be treacherous under any other circumstance, is one-way up the mountain and one-way down, with reassuring cement barriers protecting visitors from a dizzying precipice. For those on foot, the paved steps up the mountain are shielded from the punishments of the sun by a constructed canopy. At the top of the mountain, there is a notable absence of the destitute normally found begging outside temples in India. A menu is posted advising pilgrims of the kinds of prayers that can be made in their name for the price of their offering. And in a remarkably officious attempt at crowd control in a country as crammed with people as any in the world, visitors are registered with a kind of bar-code scanner as they buy their tickets and issued a plastic bracelet that tells them the time, usually hours away, when they can begin lining up. These signs of relative wealth are a stunning contrast to the town's surroundings in Andhra Pradesh. The routes to Tirupati, narrow, precarious and pitted, where the 80-mile drive northwest from Madras can take four hours, throb with the kinds of uncategorical chaos that often makes road travel in India a bone-jarring, nerve-jangling experience. For the determined, the energetic, the intrepid, it is a rushed round trip that can be taken in a day if you hire a taxi (about $70), as we did. That disappointingly, did not leave us enough time to brave the wait to enter the temple, which even non-Hindus may do. But no matter your belief, the drive itself is nothing if not a pilgrimage. Crossing into Andhra from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the landscape turns decidedly rural and a few oddly shaped ridges, one eerily sloping like a shark's fin, present themselves as harbingers of the more substantial range that shelters Tirupati. Road signs change from loopy Tamilian script to another more obscure, Telugu, resembling stylized waves interspersed with hieroglyphic pelicans. In this agricultural expanse, tradition works in strange and sometimes dangerous symbiosis with the intrusions of modernity, as villagers spread the dry chaff of their crops across the road to be pulverized by speeding auto wheels, and then gather up the grains in shallow baskets. Crowding the roads, sluggish oxen, their horns brightly decorated with silver bells and red and green paint, lumber under the weight of rough wooden carts, and women carry on their heads shaggy rafts of hay so immense that they drape down and disguise their saris, until they look like waddling shrubs. But arduous and uncomfortable as the journey is, thousands daily make this pilgrimage to Balaji. India holds temples that are certainly more beautiful and far grander, but they do not have Balaji, who the devoted believe has turned the old young again, restored vitality to the sick, and brought prosperity to those in need. Though the origins of the god himself remain obscure, construction of a temple was apparently begun piecemeal between about the 10th and 12th centuries. The mountain, Tirumala, is revered nearly as much as the structure itself as the setting of parts of the intricate and epic tale of the god Vishnu, the preserver in the Hindu trilogy, of whom Balaji is said to be a manifestation. As Nanditha Krishna, a specialist in ethno-archaeology who wrote a book on Balaji, has described him, he is a Tamil deity situated in Andhra with a name from northern India whose feminine aspect resides in Maharashtra state, on the opposing coast, and is believed to be the manifestation of a pan-Indian god. A sizable minority of devotees are also Muslims. On this given day atop Tirumala, the features and costumes of the assembled pilgrims, many dressed in their very best for the outing, revealed their origins around the country. As many slept huddled under a canopy on a concrete floor, some curled around their children, other children played and vendors worked the crowd peddling food, postcards and simple toys, hollow plastic tubes punched with holes that could be filled with chalk and rolled on the ground to form playful patterns. A few of the wealthier among those waiting smoked cigars. Then, though the low gray clouds hovering atop the mountain had decided to vent themselves again, told their designated time had arrived to enter the temple, a clutch of pilgrims scrambled up the stairs through the pelting rain to eagerly take their place in line. Where
India Flows at a Relaxed Pace A CRUISE on a private houseboat through the backwaters of Kerala is the perfect antidote to the frantic chaos of India - and the rest of the world. At the end of a four-week trip to India in January, my husband, Bill Brewster, and I found joy in the soothing solitude as we drifted for nearly two days through a labyrinth of canals and estuaries, rivers and rivulets, lakes and lagoons. We were treated to an India we had not seen from the road. Indeed, the "roads" of Kerala are its waterways - there were some 1,200 miles at our disposal if we had had the time - and they are plied by all manner of craft, powered by sail, by poles and some by motor. The sounds we heard were few and soothing: the very quiet hum of the motor that propelled our kettuvallam - literally, "sewn canoe"; the plop of fishing nets cast by fishermen either from the banks or from their small dugout canoes; the strident slap against stone embankments of clothes being washed at water's edge; the laughter of children running along the narrow banks to school; the chatter of women working the endless verdant rice paddies, and the murmurings of our three-man crew. Adding to the visual feast were the iridescent blue stork-billed kingfisher occasionally diving in fast and low, the Indian pond heron flying high above us, the various egrets standing on the edge of the water and the multitude of bee eaters and terns sitting on wires. We boarded our kettuvallam, the Pulickattil, or "tiger in the forest," about 8 p.m. in the bustling town of Alappuzha (formerly known as Alleppey) after a two-hour, 72- mile drive from the Kochi (Cochin) airport. It seemed forebodingly dark as we stepped into our rattan-covered houseboat, but our eyes quickly adjusted to the yellow light of the kerosene lamps, swaying with the gentle impact of Lake Vembanad's waves. Greeting us when we arrived were our captain, Thampan, our cook, Jobin, and the first mate, Gopi. Last names were never given, perhaps in acknowledgment of Westerners' difficulty with Indian languages. The Indians we met suffered with our names as well. To many we were simply Mom or Dad or even Auntie. Never one to forget an already delayed cocktail hour, my husband swiftly brought out a bottle of imported Scotch and some soda water. The crew stowed our luggage - a little too much to be contained in our bedroom - unobtrusively in the back of the parlor, and then, while we sipped, the captain got the boat under way, dropping anchor a half-hour later when darkness totally obscured our course. Shortly thereafter Jobin served supper, a sumptuous feast of curried sautéed chicken pieces, "Lady Fingers," or okra, with coconut shavings, long beans cut small and flecked with pieces of cocoa, chapati (Indian bread) and the standard dessert, fig bananas with slices of wonderful pineapple. The whole meal was very good, and produced in the smallest galley I have ever seen: a wooden plank next to two butane stoves. Kettuvallum houseboats were originally designed to haul such heavy cargo as rice and spices, and to house the crew. Once converted into houseboats, they proved to be so popular that it became cheaper to produce them from scratch. Few have decks; the sun is too intense. Passengers sit in the comfortable shade of the parlor, the large all-purpose room at the front of the boat, and watch the world pass by out of the open rattan windows. Off the parlor is a small cabin, hardly large enough to hold a bed — which, in our case, turned out to be three-quarter size rather than the promised queen — and behind it a closet-size bath with sink, toilet and handheld shower. There was no closet or storage facilities. While our 82- by-14-foot floating home contained only one bedroom, it is possible to hire a two-bedroom boat. On the other side of the passengers' sleeping quarters was a long hall leading to the galley and the stern. At night the cook and first mate slept curled up along its length, the captain on a pillow in the bow. All kettuvallum are built of carefully fitted jackfruit wood planks sewn tightly together with coir fiber then waterproofed with a heavy coating of sardine oil, of which there is an ample local supply. Covering the entire structure is an arched bamboo and rattan roof, which, coupled with the vessel's open rattan winglike shutters, made it look rather like a floating model of the Sydney Opera House. Life was leisurely and languorous on the Pulickattil. Although I glimpsed the first golden light of dawn behind the shimmering coconut palms at 6:30 a.m., having been awakened by nearby temple bells, the captain waited until 8:30, after his breakfast, to march forward to his perch in the bow. With the aid of his first mate, he pulled up the great mushroom anchor and stowed it at the very prow. Dapper in a plaid lungi wrapped sarong-fashion around his hips and a Western-style blue shirt, he settled himself on a cushion and dropped his legs through a hole in the deck. In one hand he carried an umbrella to shade him from the sun. In front of him was the boat's wheel and to his right a tiny bell with a string, an effective means of communicating with his mate, who ran the engine back in the stern. One pull meant full speed ahead. Two rings meant slow down, and three, stop. Breakfast was not Jobin's finest meal. Fig bananas and pineapple were delectable, but the fried "toast" was raw inside. A paper- thin omelet, strewn with sliced chilies, cilantro, chopped mushrooms and onions, was good but monotonous on the second morning. Instant coffee and tea from a bag rounded out our meal. During the day, we dragged our armchairs over to the nearest window. Lake Vembanad is a string-bean shaped body of water whose shores are framed with sloping coconut palms, hedges of red and pink hibiscus and, in between, small tile-roof houses with chickens in minuscule yards. In the background stretched fields of startlingly green rice paddies. Because of the lake's size, perhaps 20 miles long by one mile at its widest point, traffic seemed minimal — although later, when we cruised rivers and canals, it sometimes seemed downright crowded. We carried books, but we were too busy observing the captivating sights to read. A small dugout, precariously low in the water with a cargo of bleating baby goats, delighted me. Bill was fascinated by a train of 10 boats whose occupants were busily scraping the bottom of the lake with long rakes for clay and clams. The clams they would take home to eat; the clay was used for landfill and construction of dikes. We stopped once to buy a chunk of ice for our refrigerator. Its off color reinforced our decision never to use ice to cool beverages. Later we pulled over to buy mangoes, coconuts and fresh water. A motorized ferry of sari-clad women passed us, presumably on the way to market. The water system we traversed varied from broad to narrow, and floating everywhere were clumps of water hyacinths, full of charming blue flowers but menacing to maneuver, especially later in the season when they grow to a height of three feet or more. Kerala means "land of coconuts" and the name is descriptive. From a distance, we observed a woman soaking coconut husks in water to later spin into coir fiber. Not far from her we spied a man extracting toddy from a palm; this coconut liquor is much favored by Indians. Everywhere ripe coconuts were sold, their bark shaved off, their tops cut clean to make it easier to drink the thirst-quenching milk. Jobin told us in his halting English that over the holidays India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, had taken a vacation in the area. All Keralans congregated to see him, so Kerala itself had a rare taste of Indian chaos. Although there are roughly 150 kettuvalam in the area - more than enough to satisfy the current demand - I wondered whether such publicity would bring more visitors and less tranquillity. As much as we enjoyed our trip, it was not without problems in spite of the efforts of the Sri Lankan travel agent who had arranged it. To begin with, on embarkation the Pulickattil was not waiting where our travel agent had told us it would be. Two giant cockroaches leaped out of a basket of fruit on our cocktail table, and our skimpy bed was rather uncomfortable in the warm evenings. The biggest problem came in late afternoon of the second day, when we realized with alarm that our boat had done an about-face and was headed back to Alappuzha - as if we were on a 24-hour cruise instead of 48. After a phone call by the captain at the next village, a compromise was worked out: we would spend another night on board but be left, as previously arranged, at the lovely Coconut Lagoon Resort on the Kavanar River early the next morning. Dinner was rather haphazard that night, produced only after we went looking for it: some leftovers from lunch, a sautéed slice of tuna, some cold sticky red rice, and a kind of coleslaw. But we had a nice hot breakfast the next morning. Later we talked with several couples who had taken similar cruises, and with only one exception, we heard raves. The serenity of the trip rubbed off on us, too. In the end, we found the glitches more amusing than annoying. Luggage in hand, we hobbled off the Pulickattil surprisingly content. |
News Updates
|
|
Questions
(FAQ's) or Comments (feedback) about this
site? Email to
damanig@diehardindian.com |
|
