10.08.07
A passage to India
Two weeks ago I returned to cold, dreary, depressing, rainy Seattle after nearly two weeks spent in warm, humid, India, the second most populous country on Earth. The purpose was to attend my brother Jason and his fiancee Jyothi’s wedding in Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu and reception in Calcutta, in Bengal, and catch a few sights. I drove down to Portland to meet up with my mom and we left Sept. 9 for Belgium via Washington, D.C. We spent a day in Belgium with my aunt, uncle and cousin in Waterloo, Belgium outside of Brussels before leaving on the morning of the 12th for Chennai via Frankfurt. The flight pattern passes over the Black and Caspian Seas and over a corner of Afghanistan. We arrived in Chennai about midnight where Jyothi’s parents, T.V. and Vasantha Ramanathan and my brother met us at the airport. We left in two cars to the Savera Hotel, where the engagement ceremony was to be held. The next day we had breakfest and met Zona and Betsy, secretaries for Exide, the company T.V. is the CEO of, and Jyothi’s brother Ajith, who lives in San Francisco. We did some sightseeing, visiting Marina Beach on the Indian Ocean, the world’s second largest city beach, which is deep, wide and lined with vendors. The Indian Ocean is like a warm bath compared to the chiling Pacific. An earthquake in Indonesia prompted a tsuanmi warning which cleared off the beach the day before but it turned about to be only precautionary in contrast to what happened in 2004. Back at the hotel I tried on the red Punjabi suit that T.V. arranged for me to wear in the wedding. It fit but I also needed what my aunt referred to as ”elf shoes.” Think Michael Jackson. This shoe shopping trip with me, Ajith, one his uncles and Betsy took two-plus hours and many detours before we found the right shopkeeper in the corner of a mall. One of the notable things about India, is that driving is an art of aggression and anticipation. You honk, veer at the traffic, and they get out the way. All the while you share close quarters with rickshaws, autorickshaws, people, bikes, scooters, buses and trucks. And the cows too, don’t forget the skinny cows that share the streets, the highway medians, along with dingos and goats. It’s chaos if you need to make time but it can be done.
Later that night we all participated in the engagement ceremony. As we entered with my brother, Jyothi’s relatives greeted us with garlands and sugarcubes. The ceremony led by Hindu priests or pandits lasted about two hours with a couple costume changes by Jason and Jyothi. A vegetarian south Indian meal followed. Then we went up to our hotel rooms to bed so we could wake up at 6 a.m. the next morning for the wedding, Sept. 14. The wedding festivities started at the hall at 6 a.m. with the pandits chanting in Sanskrit for good luck. Many garlands, fruits, nuts, etc. were spread around to use in the rituals. Wearing our punjabi suits Jason, Ajith took part in several rituals while Jyothi was getting dressed up in her saree and flowery headdress. Jason was taken on a symbolic journey by Ajith, who led the way with an umbrella outside. Jason and Jyothi met in the in the courtyard and while surrounded by relatives they went through a routine of spurning each other before finally putting garlands on each other, finally agreeing to go through the ceremony. Next the couple sat on a swing and relatives warded the evil eye off with fruit and milk and other substances. Then it was back to the wedding hall for more chanting and rituals.
By noon, more than five hours later, the extravaganza was over and we sat down to lunch. Food was served on dollops on plantain leaves. Most of the guests and Jyothi’s parents ate with their hands as is the customs while us westerners were given silverware. Bottled water of course was consumed at all times. Then it was off to Mahallapuram for me, my mom and aunt, a seaside resort town that attracts Europeans, which is an hour-and-a-half to the south. We saw sculpted rock, a large boulder (known as the butterball) and temples, such as the Shore Temple, an ancient temple and UNESCO world heritage site, built out of a mixture that includeded sand and egg. One of the Shore Temple’s ts neighboring temples was nearly unearthed by the sea during the tsunami in 2004. Other sights included the Five Rathas and Arjuna’s Penance, a carving of a man who had to stand on one leg for 12 years. The first floor of the Ideal Resort where we stayed, which is popular with French, German and Italian tourists, flooded there in 2004 during the tsunami. My aunt and I took some photos of the Indian Ocean on the Bay of Bengal and then it was time for one last lunch at the resort and a trip to the airport, en route to Calcutta for the reception Sept. 16. The flight on Indigo Airlines took about two hours.
When we arrived in Calcutta, I was hustled by T.V. to a men’s shop to try on the western suit I was going to wear for the wedding. Govind, T.V’s personal driver, took my mom and aunt to the Woodlands Syndicate where the Ramanathans live and we had drinks there before heading to the Tolly Club, a remnant of the British Raj, which would be our home base for the next few days. The next day, Govind and my brother picked me up and we went to get my suit. That night, the reception was held in the backyard of the Ramanthan’s building, about a 10-story structure of three-bedroom apartments. The entry was draped with flowers and lights and the yard had been transformed, with a large covering housing a stage where Jason and Jyothi sat like a Prom Queen and King and greeted guests. Drinks were offered, such as lychee fruit juice and coconut juice. A food court with Indian and western offerings lined the tent. Ajith and I, the two unmarried siblings of the bride and groom, hung out most of the evening. He was kind of trying to avoid people who kept asking “so, when are YOU getting married?” In all there were about 400 people there, many of them connected to T.V. through Exide.
The day after the reception we took a day trip to the estate of Rabindranath Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel Laureate and supporter of Gandhi and the Indian Independence Movement.The Bengali poet, sculpter, painter, writer, philosopher wrote India’s national anthem and sought to blend the scientific advances of the West with the contemplative nature of the East. His work won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Although glad for the recognition it brought to his work, Tagore was a bit depressed that India was only excited about the honor because he received recognition from the West On his estate are five houses. He inhabited each one during a different season. Many Indians and non-Indians come from all over the world to study there, including many Japanese. We also visited a shop where handmade leather and batik goods were being made. Vegetable-based paint is used on the leather goods, such as wallets, purses, key chains, coasters and notebooks. The villagers who manufacture the goods sell them in a store on site, which is part of a rural development organization.
The following day we saw several temples, the Queen Victoria Memorial, and later visited Mother Teresa’s Tomb. About five people sat in the room around the Tomb, reading and meditating, while I took a closer look at the origami cranes folded in the shape of a cross on the top of the tomb. More cranes lined the sides. Visitors can take metal charms with Mother’s and Jesus likeness on them as well as cards with printed sayings of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her room, where she died, is very simple. A metal cot, with a blanket and sheet in a small upstairs room, about the size of a small bathroom, is where she lay in her final hours. Sparse, with some artwork, her home in Calcutta seemed quiet in comparison to the beatification in Vatican City, where thousands would turn out later. Afterward, we toured a new temple in the city and then went to a saree shop where my mom and aunt bought sarees for themselves and my cousin.
The next day after breakfast at the Tolly Club and checking out, we went to an Exide guest house, where we napped and had tea. My mom and aunt slept while I found a copy of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat to read until it was time to head over to the Ramanathans for dinner. And an excellent dinner it was. Curry, rice cakes and concoctions, yogurt, coconut, and so on. We left for the airport and sped past some of Calcutta’s slums on the way. While the poverty is striking, it wasn’t as pervasive as you might think and neither was the smog. As T.V. pointed out there is an information technology corridor springing up between the airport and downtown and the leftist ruling party in Bengal seems to welcome economic development. A news story in the Calcutta daily mentioned the leftists seem to have embraced the market more than Marx as of late. When we got to the airport, T.V., managed to get us out of waiting too long in line and we sat in a lounge where we had tea and visited until it was time to leave. We said our goodbyes and boarded the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt and then Brussels.
