December 2006
We were met in Chennai by a driver from our guest house in Mammalapurum, a little fishing village turned tourist trap about an hour south of Chennai. And so here we are, in a much quieter place, where the loudest sound is the tap-tap of the chisels of the many rock sculptors, where the air is clean (although the roads and landscape are, as everywhere, littered with garbage and debris of every sort - and I mean every sort), and where we feel we are at last, really truly in India.
Power to the People – Well, sometimes…
Tangled webs of black, blue and sometimes red, or even yellow wires, not much thicker, and likely not much stronger, than cooked spaghetti, sprout like unruly vines from their junction with a marginally more substantial main electrical conduit. Like unfinished birds’ nests atop thin anemic looking poles or precariously attached to the sides of crumbling brick or cement buildings. A separate wire for every light bulb, plug and switch - no shared circuits here. And on the walls, great banks of switches, never less than three or four, and sometimes up to 20, a baffling array of possibilities. Which switch? Usually less than half have any purpose for their being - empty sockets and broken light bulbs at the end of the wire, sometimes dangling wantonly, so tempting, just above the bed or chair or table where a little light might have been welcome.
We try all of the switches, trying to remember which ones work for what, in vain. Every time we have to start all over again. Is it the third one from the left, or the fourth? Is that the bathroom light, or the fan? And just when we’ve finally got it, the light is on, the fan providing a somewhat cooling breeze, we’re comfortably settled for a quiet read, for reasons no one has yet been able to explain, all of the spaghetti strands are suddenly sapped of life, and we are plunged into a still and silent gloom.
Power outages occur daily, generally during the mid-day, when the heat is most extreme. Overhead fans, tourists’ air-conditioning units, fridges and freezers all go silent. Like everyone else they sit, and wait. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours. In the many cafes and restaurants which have come to depend on electrical appliances like kettles, blenders and toasters, the menu suddenly shrinks. Cold drinks are served tepid. There are no excuses or apologies. We are all, equally, powerless.
And down the beach, not three kilometers from where we’re staying, a huge nuclear power plant, surrounded by 10 foot high stone walls topped with barbed wire, a guarded gate. Do they shut it down for tea? Do they send the power elsewhere?
Who knows. No one asks. No one wonders. They accept.
It is the way that it is.
Water – the Village Taps
The conjunction between the two systems, electrical and water is almost non-existent. Hot running water is a luxury enjoyed by the wealthy elite - tourist or Indian - who are willing to pay the price not only to install the equipment, but more importantly to keep it running, through hopelessly inadequate wiring and plumbing, for the few minutes of pleasure - and status - it affords. For the vas majority, including us, “running water” is a single cold water tap.
Bathing is accomplished, standing or squatting, with a plastic bucket and a scoop. It is best done in the heat of the day, when it is a pleasantly refreshing, rather than a shockingly bracing, experience. For the environmentally aware, this arrangement is satisfyingly conservative of water. Even more satisfying when, as so often is the case, you can see your own soapy waste water draining into the thirsty garden below, watering the papayas, bananas and coconuts you may have with yogurt for breakfast tomorrow.
As disconnected as these systems first appear, they and we are all intimately and undeniably connected. What goes around, comes around.
Garbage and the Sacred Cows (and Dogs and Pigs and Goats)
If one managed somehow to avoid this understanding through the experience of water and electrical systems alone, the message is more forcibly conveyed by waste. The shear volume of garbage, all of the household, commercial and industrial wastes you can imagine, scattered or heaped along roadways, rivers and railway tracks, beside buildings, in vacant lots, and on the beach, is staggering. In the damp heat, the animal and vegetable matter rots quickly, and the smell is rank and overpowering. I hold my breath as we walk by the worst places, sometimes having to pick our way carefully through the heaped and scattered debris.
Amidst the larger stinking seas of garbage, people, cows, goats, dogs and crows compete for edible or usable scraps. Urban and suburban cows, having been raised on garbage, eschew leafy greens and growing grass. They prefer banana peels and melon rinds, paper bags soaked in cooking oil and savory spices. They seek out plump plastic bags, lifting them up with their teeth and banging them against the ground until they burst open, disgorging their reeking contents which the cow then carefully sifts through, searching out the tastier treats.
India’s sacred cows, revered, but not fed or looked after, are in reality its primary recyclers of garbage. Just as well that the people, by and large, don’t eat beef.
The Curse of the Ubiquitous Plastic Bag
By far the most ubiquitous garbage is plastic. Bottles, bags, wrappings and packaging. It is everywhere. Light as a feather, it is blown through the air, along with its coatings of rotted muck and grime, into every street and square, every home and garden, and every sacred temple in the land. It is entirely democratic in its behaviour. No place is too special, no one is too elite, to avoid its generosity and largesse. There’s enough for all, and then some. There is no cultural compunction about throwing whatever is not wanted out the window, over the fence, into the street, or beside the river.
Our ingrained Canadian sensibility - “thou shalt not litter” - is frustrated by the singular lack of other options. No greedy garbage cans to gobble up the waste; no central organized landfills or garbage dumps to segregate the waste from other human activities, like walking, eating, and breathing. Only in the truly rural farmland areas, the rice paddies, wheat fields and forests, does the garbage not overwhelm the landscape. There is collects in little piles, or trails along the verge of the road, like colourful strings of beads marking the route. Almost invisible, but not quite. A constant reminder of where we are, or, more properly, where we are not.
Watch out for the Poop!
But by far the most disturbing, and for us both disgusting and hazardous, but again reliably plentiful and ubiquitous, is the animal and human waste. Cows and dogs of course cannot be expected to give much consideration to when and where they drop their loads. One might think though that people would be more discerning, would seek more privacy. In India, at least, not so. For the millions and millions without toilets or access to toilets, taking a dump (or as they say, “making motions,” is a common, and quite public, affair. It’s just squat and go. A smile and a wave of the hand to passers-by. No modesty (false or otherwise) demonstrated, no particular attention (interest or disgust) paid.
Surprisingly (to us), favourite locales are generally by water - a river or ditch, a pond or lake, the beach. Of course this makes some sense, in terms of “wash-up.” Toilet paper is a western fetish which has not “caught on” and is anyway too costly a luxury for those who have not enough to eat, let alone spare rupees to waste on waste. Unfortunately there are no sacred pigs to recycle this human waste, and so it, like all the rest, accumulates and spreads, carried by shoes, feet, hooves, paws, and claws, to every corner of the landscape. Democracy in motion(s).
Will India ever clean up its act?
Short of traveling in a hermetically-sealed bubble, there is no way to avoid the filth and stench of India. It is a much a part of India as the gurus and yogis, the gold bangles and colourful saris, the temples and the tea plantations. But even in the midst of all this hardship and hopelessness, garbage and grime, we are struck by the dignity and pride of the people. By the way they hold themselves erect, their movements fluid and graceful. By their beautiful white-teeth gleaming honest open smiles. By their helpfulness and consideration. And most of all, by their total lack of bitterness or resentment towards those, like us, who have so much more than they could ever dream of or hope to have.
There is an acceptance here in India that is at once its most wonderful attribute and its greatest downfall; a two-edged sword on which the peace and security of an entire nation, and indeed much of the world, balances. I wonder how might this precarious balance be affected by advancing tourism, technology, and t.v. How long will it be before the glamourous lives of media stars, wealthy tourists, and newly minted Indian moguls, the flashy ads for time and back-saving products, the constant images of well-fed people enjoying yet another sumptuous meal; how long will it be before India’s masses demand their rightful share?
As everywhere, the have-nots are desperate, literally dying, for a share, while the haves hold on tight, with grim determination, to all that they consider theirs. The lion’s share of all the world’s resources, concentrated in the hands and bellies of so few.
What about us?
The planner and environmentalist in me, the previous politician in the Capital Regional District, who carefully considered all of the reasons why Victoria should FURTHER treat its sewage, who weighed the costs and benefits of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to effect a relatively minor improvement in the health of the environment, and almost no improvement in public health, looks at the sewage problems here and thinks: what if, instead of allocating those hundreds of millions to yet more treatment of Victoria’s sewage, Victoria voters decided instead to spend that money on sewage systems and treatment here?
The environmental and public health benefits, the benefits not only to several small towns and villages, and indeed to the world, would be so much more substantial, so much more real. The idealist in me believes that gestures of this kind could happen, that global awareness and a desire for global good could inform geo-political decision-making, even (or perhaps especially) at the local level. The realist in me knows that this will never be.
We are all too selfish, too inward-looking, too concerned with our own problems. More’s the pity for us all.
Christmas at the Crocodile Bank
We celebrated Christmas with a long morning walk along the miles of sandy beach that stretch in either direction out front of our hotel. Once out of the town’s influence, the beach is clean and quiet. We can walk barefoot and feel the sand squidging through our toes. The water is warm, though we do not choose to swim (who knows how polluted it might be?). In the afternoon we took a taxi to a nearby crocodile bank, where hundreds of different kinds of crocs and alligators are bred, some for protection and some for later release into the wild (none for eating or handbags). The grounds were lovely, with lots of trees and plants and great ponds and tanks where the crocs could slither in to cool off.
It was a very large compound, immaculately clean, with absolutely no plastic garbage, and very little litter of any kind (lucky crocs!). There were many Indian families there, enjoying a Christmas outing, and very few tourists. Although I hadn’t been that keen on going (I’m not a fan of animals in captivity), I was most impressed. Fortunately information about each species, including where it comes from, what it eats, how big it gets, and where and how many eggs it lays, is all in English as well as Hindi. So we were educated as well as entertained. Additionally our taxi-driver was great - unhurried and careful in the rushed and chaotic traffic that characterizes Indian roads.
Christmas Dinner with a Dentist from Switzerland
In the evening we went to our favourite restaurant, the Searock Cafe, for a lobster and fried rice dinner. We were joined by a young dentist from Switzerland who has done more traveling than anyone I have met (including Doug!). He regaled us with stories of his travels in Lebanon, China, Argentina, Yugoslavia and Egypt, and kept us entertained until almost midnight, when we decided it was time to go to bed. Back at the hotel, we had our usual nightcap of bottled water and cashew cookies. And that was Christmas.
Peddalling around Mammalapuram
Since then we’ve hired bikes several times and we’ve been pedaling around the countryside, trying to ring our little bells as often as the Indians do (which is all the time), and trying to remember to KEEP TO THE LEFT! as we are squeezed between buses, trucks, tuk-tuks and ox-carts. We’ve seen some beautiful landscapes of lush green rice paddies and lotus-filledponds, many tsunami-ravaged fields, some recently planted with palms or conifers, and several little villages of mud and thatch-roofed hovels where people, cows, goats, dogs and chickens spend most of their time outside, mostly scavenging for something to eat.
Everyone we pass waves, smiles and says hello. Many ask “How are you I am fine?” They are all eager to talk, to ask us where we’re from, to hear us say how much we like their village, their country. Children run to greet us, or try to catch us up. They want food, or pens, but if we have none (and we don’t), they are happy to run or cycle along with us, chattering away in a mix of English and their own native language (here mostly Tamil), and laughing easily at the little jokes we make with one another. There is an atmosphere of fun and friendliness.
Right next to the nuclear plant we cycled into a new village, still under construction with funds donated by the Deutsch Bank of Germany, for fishermen and their families whose houses were destroyed by the tsunami. It was very orderly and neat, quite clean, and a hive of industry. Men and women were working together building new roads, walls and houses. The men shovel and mix the cement. The women carry it, in baskets, on their heads, their dignity and gracefulness undiminished by the heavy weights they carry. They work in their brightly coloured saris, bare-foot and bespangled, as beautiful as if they were strolling carefree in a garden. It’s truly amazing.
If every tourist fed a street kid, once a day…
Three evenings ago we were tailed by two little girls, pulling at my arms and begging me to buy their beaded necklaces. They were ragged, dirty and very thin. I told them I did not want to buy their necklaces, but I would buy them dinner. Their faces brightened, and they skipped along with us to a roadside stand, where a friendly guy cooked rice and veg in a large wok over a propane flame. He tossed the contents of the wok up into the air and caught them several times, putting on quite a show for all of us. We’d told him we were buying dinner for the girls, and agreed to a price of 25 rupees (around 70 cents) for each, the going price for a street-stall meal. But he knew well that this meal would be feeding more than just the two young girls, and made a small mountain of rice, which he divided into two packages and put in bags for the girls to take “home” (to the sand pile at the corner of the road that they and their family sleep on at night) to share with their family. Both he and his helper thanked us sincerely for feeding the girls. And I thought to myself, if every tourist in India fed one person, one child, one meal each day, it would be something. It would make a difference. So little for us, so much for them.
Lunch with a Gypsy Girl
Yesterday our lunch guest was another young girl from the same family of “gypsies” (we’re not sure what group they are actually from, but are told they are not untouchables, but people who choose to live by their wits, on the streets). She was quite different from the other two. Very beautiful, with fine features and natural grace and charm. She told us she is twelve, and the oldest of four children. She speaks her own language, likely several other of the many different languages of India (because many Indian tourists come here), and some English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish. Enough to say hello and sell her necklaces. She had charmed me into buying a fistful of necklaces from her the day before, and happened to catch us as we were heading out for lunch, and so we invited her along.
She was great company, and was comfortable using a fork (most Indians eat with their hands) and sitting making small talk in a reasonably fancy restaurant. She was appalled by price of the food (“it’s too expensive!”). We ordered salads, and she ordered chicken fried rice and a coca-cola. Although she only picked away at the rice, she loved the slices of white bread dipped in coca-cola, and was particularly taken with the white sugar-cubes, which she’d not seen before. The obliging waiter wrapped up her uneaten rice for her to take to her uncle, a henna “artist” working in the street below.
She is such a smart, engaging young girl, with so much potential. But when asked what would she do when she grew older, she replied without a moment’s hesitation, “sell necklaces on the beach, of course!” She cannot conceive of any other life, any other reality, than the one she now lives. When we parted, she gave me a necklace, a hand-shake, a smile, and a thank-you. My heart went out to her - if I could only take her home with me. She’d miss her family, she’d be always cold, and she’d likely hate the food!
New Year’s Plans
Although we were thinking of moving on from here before New Year’s Eve, there is a dance festival starting here tonight, and we are told there is a fabulous celebration on the beach here on New Year’s Eve, so we’ll likely stay. We’ll consider this our “two weeks in an all inclusive resort.” The real traveling will start with the new year, when we’ll head south, to the tip of India, and then start making our way up the western coast.
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