A South Indian Journey

by Michael Wood

  My lack of earth then became a subject for comment and amusement.

  ‘Mm. You are all wind,’ said Rajdurai, furrowing his brow as a smile hovered on the corner of his lips (the joke is the same in Tamil). ‘And fire too. Some water. But no earth.’

  ‘Yes, it’s lucky you’ve got an earthy ascendant: otherwise you’d be completely unrealistic,’ Rebecca added.

  I had to admit that this sounded not too far from the mark.

  ‘Still, you are a good combination,’ Rajdurai continued. ‘Very nice. One thing, Michael: in consulting with your wife you must defer to her in everything for final decisions on important matters.’ Then he paused. ‘You will be having two children.’

  ‘Boys or girls?’

  ‘Both female.’

  ‘You will do much travelling. God will do this for you. Though you may wish to stay in one place. One important warning. Do not take up other people’s problems; if you do, the problems will come to you and you may end up in prison. Also, Michael, beware wheeled traffic during this next year.’

  He looked up. ‘Rebecca, your long-lasting stomach pain – is this now gone?’ It was. She had got rid of her ulcer after ten years. (Her sign, Cancer, is held to rule the stomach in Western astrology too.)

  ‘You have government jobs?’ (To an Indian this means salaried employment.)

  ‘Not exactly,’ I replied, ‘though I did once work for the BBC.’

  ‘Whatever, you will be millionaires in ten years’ time.’

  By now, Mala was getting visibly excited at such positive predictions.

  ‘You are a good combination. Now, there are some things you must do. Michael, for the good of your soul, it would be better if you fasted on Tuesdays and pray to Mars. Take only small food before dawn.’

  I decided to take that as optional.

  Rajdurai continued, still addressing me: ‘But this is the most important thing you will do. Some time in the future you will come back here to Chidambaram to Lord Nataraja and you will make a pilgrimage. Now, there are thousands of holy places in Tamil Nadu. Among them the most famous are 274 temples of Lord Siva which were sung in the hymns of the saints in ancient times. Also there are 108 especially holy places of Lord Vishnu. They are joined by living paths of pilgrimage. Even today there are ordinary people who take a vow to visit all of them. In addition there are many others. For example there are five temples dedicated to the elements of Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and the aetheric. There are eight shrines to the planets and eight holy places where Siva performed his great deeds; there are twenty-two temples in Chola Nadu specially sacred to Siva and seven places where the Lord performed his dance of bliss.’ He relished each number like a cricket enthusiast turning in his memory through the almanac of great innings. ‘There are also many places sacred to the goddess, who is revered by Tamilians. This is not to mention holy places of the Muslims and Christians which also confer spiritual benefit. Unlike in north India, in Tamil country we do not discriminate against one religion at the expense of another, and members of one religion find benefit in pilgrimage to those of the others.’

  Mala interjected to agree. She herself goes with Hindu friends to the Muslim pilgrimage centre at Nagore, where a famous holy man is buried; the Christian shrine of Our Lady at Velankanni is another favourite. She has a Muslim friend and neighbour who takes off her veil and attends the 6.30 puja in the Nataraja temple every day because she finds it beautiful and uplifting, and a nice social event after work. Down here communal relations are not the gloom and doom you might think from the news bulletins.

  ‘A lifetime would not suffice to see all of these places. But in everyone’s, birth there is a particular journey revealed which one day they must make. A journey special to their own astrological chart. This is the one which you must undertake. Indeed you will undertake.’

  I had been nodding off in the soporific heat, baffled by incomprehensible star signs and conjunctions, my mind reeling with aspects I never knew I had, and others I had hoped to keep to myself. Now I found myself craning forward attentively, pen and paper in hand, anxious not to miss a word.

  ‘One day you will come back to Chidambaram to visit Lord Nataraja. Then you will go to a place named Vaithisvarancoil. This is a very beautiful and ancient temple near to Sirkali. Only an hour or so south of here by bus. It is a temple of Lord Siva as God of Healing. It was sung by the Tamil saints of thirteen hundred years ago. Many people resort to this place to be cured of illness or disease. It is very famous among Tamil people. In the summer months people perform their vows by walking there barefoot from hundreds of miles away. There is a sacred tank for bathing, and a holy neem tree. Now here at Vaithisvarancoil, near to the sanctum of the Lord, there is also a shrine to Mars. You will do puja there.

  ‘Next you will journey to the sea coast, to Karaikkal, which was formerly, like Pondicherry, a French possession in India. Here there is the temple to Lord Siva at Tirunallar which I have mentioned. Before you go into the sanctum, on the right-hand side, there is the famous shrine to Saturn. This is very important for you to visit. It is the most celebrated shrine to Saturn in India. Very many people go to this place, even Indian people from abroad. The lord here is very powerful and not to be disregarded.

  ‘There are many other places which might be beneficial on your journey. On the way by bus from Sirkali to Karaikkal is a famous shrine at Tirukkadiyur. This is where Lord Siva overcame Yama Dharmaraja, the god of death, the keeper of the life span of each human being. Tamils consider it must be visited by every pilgrim in his lifetime. It is a huge place, and probably one of the best in the south for artistic and sculptural beauty. The goddess here too is very popular among the Tamil people.

  ‘Then go inland from the sea coast up the Cavery river to Suryanarcoil near Kumbakonam. This is the only temple to the sun in south India – very popular. Here all the planets can be worshipped together; and you will see Jupiter is standing opposite the sun as his guru. This is a small temple but very beautiful, deep in the forests close to the river, and many of the most famous places in Chola Nadu are close by: Tiruvalanjuli, Saktimuttam, Tiruvidaimarudur, Tiruvavaduturai, Tiruvilimilalai. Very lovely places.’

  Lovely-sounding places too. Their names rolled off his tongue like a magical incantation. I was already dreaming of Tiruvidaimarudur.

  ‘Several days might be profitably spent there. Then you should journey south – there are many convenient buses. Visit the goddess Minakshi at Madurai. She is most beneficial to couples desirous of children, and she will bless your marriage and your forthcoming daughters. Her temple is one of the most magnificent in all India. Going southwards still you will come to the mountains bordering Kerala. Here there are also many famous places. One is called Courtallam, which is also sacred to Nataraja, close by five sacred waterfalls. In July these waters are at their most delightful; but also in this present season of the monsoon in October and November. Bathing here is most beneficial to the mind and the body. Indeed this place was a very popular health resort among English types during the British times.

  ‘From there you should go to Cape Comorin, which is the very tip of India. Here the three oceans meet, and the sunrise and moon set can be seen together simultaneously over the same sea. Here is the ancient temple of the virgin goddess, and you should bathe there, taking a dip in the ocean. But your journey should conclude by going to Tiruchendur. This you have to do. For Jupiter. It is in your birth signs and you will return to do this. Others may be optional, but these you will do: Chidambaram, Vaithisvarancoil, Tirunallar, Suryanarcoil, Madurai and Tiruchendur. This is your journey.’

  He paused to sip tea from a small metal cup. I pulled a map from my bag. At a guess it was a round trip of nearly a thousand miles: off the beaten track as far as the tourist trail was concerned, but most of it on well-frequented bus routes – not surprisingly, as all the places were on religious itineraries which must be travelled by thousands of pilgrims every day, although invisible to Western tourist guidebook
s. It seemed a wonderful idea. To be given a journey special to oneself, which one had to do. From that moment, the journey to Tiruchendur took on a life of its own in my imagination, and I resolved there and then that, fortune permitting, I would return one day to Tamil Nadu and do it.

  ‘What is there at Tiruchendur?

  ‘It is a most beautiful temple far to the south of here, standing right on the seashore on the coast opposite Sri Lanka. It is one of the six abodes of Lord Murugan, the son of Lord Siva, who is most beloved of Tamil people. It is run by an ancient community of Brahmin priests, who resemble the Dikshithars who serve Lord Nataraja here in Chidambaram. There is a shrine to Jupiter, where you should pray after bathing in the sea and having darshan of Lord Murugan. There you will find what you are looking for.’

  (What was I looking for?)

  ‘It is a most happy and blessed thing to do, and many good things will come of it, especially if you practise some kind of fasting or austerity while you do it. Many good things will come of it, even if you do not know them at the time. The full benefits of such pilgrimages often only become clear later. Whether Hindu, Christian or Muslim, this is the same I think.’

  I said I wasn’t really sure at this point in my life that I came into any of those categories.

  He smiled and smoothed his lungi down over his knees.

  ‘No matter. It is important to be open-minded, that is all. A good atheist will also draw nourishment from such a trip! The point, as the saints say, is not temples or idols or holy baths, but what you carry with you in your heart.’

  Mala came out of the kitchen and spoke with him in Tamil for a moment. For her it was still important that the whole thing be done in the right way, that the rituals be performed ‘correctly’, a word she emphasized with a vigorous shake of the head. The doing was all. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a caste Hindu. But it would be pointless if I didn’t do it right. And for traditional Tamils, like her caste, doing it right was some task, for literally every action was loaded with significance. Even the timing of a journey must be auspicious, and even a Christian was not advised to take the Dakshinapath – the route south – in the wrong season or on the wrong day. And of course Mala believed absolutely in the efficacy of the bathing and the pujas. I saw that this adventure could get very complicated.

  Rajdurai turned back to us: ‘But returning to the purpose of our meeting, please be assured you are a fine combination, a good pair, and the signs for your marriage are auspicious. As for children, as it says in the Kural, the ancient Tamil book of wisdom: “Of all the good things on this earth, there is no finer gift than to have children who are able to learn the lessons needful for life.” ’

  He smiled. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘Any doubts?’ I said.

  ‘You must always remember Saturn.’

  We sat on the floor to eat our plates of rice and sambhar while he talked to Mala about other matters; her continuing worries about her youngest son, the planned marriage of her oldest daughter. At last he rose to go. We stayed for a little longer while Rebecca tried on a skirt which had been sewn by Mala’s oldest daughter Punnidah. Punnidah hovered in the shadows and said nothing, only a shy smile, Cinderella-like. Then towards midnight we walked back down the lane in the fitful glow of the street lamps as dogs barked and scuffled, and the neighbour’s cow still patiently turned over the rubbish in the drainage ditch hoping to find some scrap of food. At the corner of the lane, behind the locked grille of the shrine to Ganesh, an oil-lamp flickered on the broken tusk and the jolly smile which brings good luck at the start of all adventures.

  Part Two

  THE SEASON OF RAINS

  It was four years before I returned to India. Our two children duly arrived, both daughters, just as Rajdurai Dikshithar had said, and inevitably other priorities took over. I continued to write to Mala and her family, exchanging news at Christmas and Diwali. In the interim, Punnidah finally got married to a young engineer from Tirukaddiyur, and they moved to the industrial city of Coimbatore in the north of Tamil Nadu. For us for the moment there seemed little prospect of an early return to the south. We felt our children were too young to be subjected to the vagaries of Chidambaram’s water supply and the cooking at the Hotel Tamil Nadu, let alone the danger of mosquito-borne diseases out in the countryside.

  Not long before our firstborn’s first birthday, Mala wrote asking us to go to celebrate the occasion in her house. ‘I have prayed to Lord Nataraja for her long life and happiness,’ she wrote. ‘I would like to have her first birthday celebrations in India in my house. We will do ceremony of putting on her earring at Vaithisvarancoil temple.’

  Life is constantly fraught with dangers in traditional Tamil society. On any station bookstall or bus stand you can pick up booklets which enumerate the dangerous times and psychic perils for the first sixteen years of life, starting with day one and going month by month and year by year right up to maturity. But passing the first year is the major hurdle – perhaps because in the old days so many poor children never made it that far. Tamil families still make much of it. It is not just a matter, as with us, of the naming. There is also the first cutting of the hair, the first feeding with cow’s milk, the first seeing of the sun and moon, the seeing of the first cow, the first giving of solid food (rice): all these are accompanied by special rituals. Then, on the first birthday (or more precisely on an auspicious day under her natal star around the time of the first anniversary), the child is ceremonially bathed, given new clothes and an earring; the proper ceremonies are performed for long life, good health and success.

  ‘So when she is one year old, you must come!’ Mala’s letter ended. ‘I hope very much to see her very soon, to watch her play in my house and hear her speak and sing. She is my first granddaughter! We are awaiting news of your arrival anxiously. Please write to me the date and I will come to the airport in Madras. Yours affectionately.’

  I was touched more than I can say by her open-hearted efforts to coopt us into her world, but we declined her invitation; we were unduly cautious, I see now, but we feared our unruly one-year-old could only get into trouble in Chidambaram’s dusty streets.

  Then, a year later, Mala wrote saying that Sarasu was hoping to marry before the end of the year, if a suitable match could be made. The marriage was provisionally set for November. I took the chance of a short break and flew to India with wedding presents, photographs and letters, intending only to stay in Chidambaram for two or three weeks. After an overnight stop in Bombay, I reached Madras on a mid-October afternoon. It was a balmy end-of-summer day and the city was bathed in golden sunlight and saturating heat as I took a taxi from the airport to the city centre. On the hot leather back seat of the Ambassador, the sweat ran down my arms and my shirt was soon as wet as a dishcloth. ‘The monsoon will be coming shortly,’ said the driver. ‘There have been water shortages everywhere this summer. Everywhere is so dry, tanks are empty and people are becoming desperate: everyone now is waiting for the first signs of rain.’

  3

  Madras

  There had been big changes even in four years. After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination here in Tamil Nadu, in 1991, the new government had set out to put an end to more than forty years of Nehru’s socialism, the creed on which independent India had been founded. Ironically the prime minister, Rao, was himself of the Nehru generation: an old literary figure, translator of Telugu poetry; a godman who had no qualms about being seen in the press worshipping at Tirupati before a political campaign in the south. At first tentatively, now with growing speed, this unlikely figure had inaugurated massive changes, loosening the bonds of protectionism which had been in place in the economy since Independence. And with that there had come a dramatic and perceptible acceleration in the erosion of traditional culture in India. Everywhere the élites and the growing middle class were consciously rejecting the old ways which had sustained – and oppressed – society since long before there was such a thing as India.

  You
could see the signs everywhere. Once a city of gardens and low rise, Madras was booming. Huge new buildings were being thrown up along Mount Road; tower blocks, offices, car showrooms, even fast-food restaurants. At the junction with Harris Road a massive new emblem of the city, Tarapore Towers, stood over the choking traffic, the pavements lined with huge, handpainted movie hoardings. Old landmarks were going; a new concrete-and-glass Spencer Plaza was rising next to the red-brick fragment of Victorian Gothic which was all that remained of the famous store. It was comforting to see the pretty arcade of Higginbotham’s Bookshop, founded in 1844 and still going strong.

  I stayed in a lane round the back of Ellis Road, a bustling down-at-heel neighbourhood, in an old courtyard house which had once belonged to a wealthy Muslim merchant. ‘His harem place,’ said the desk boy; if so, he was a man of regal energy, for there were dozens of rooms clustered round three delightful courtyards full of potted plants and luxuriant banana trees; mine was a bare loggia on the roof terrace which overlooked a bone-dry water tank.

  It felt like, the same civilized place, though. Madrasis proudly and rightly see themselves as guardians of their southern culture. An easy place too; although deep in the tropics, the city is never hit by the ferocious heat you get in the northern plains. For much of the year it basks in sunshine, but it is always cooled by the sea breezes from the long town beach, the Marina. There in the evening Madrasis take a stroll in the golden hour, stopping at little wheeled carts selling spicy peas, roasted nuts and other delights cooked over charcoal. They stand dipping their toes or just watching the rollers as the wind whips up the edges of their saris. Thousands of people of all ages, and a good few ribby, longhorned cows too, simply sitting or standing as the waves crash and the sun goes down. On the shore there is a monument to Annadurai, the Dravidian nationalist who delivered Tamil Nadu its first DMK government when Nehru’s Congress Party was kicked out in 1967; this was the beginning of the state’s proletarian revolution. Here too is the memorial to MGR, the film-star chief minister who died in 1987: ‘People here have now given their verdict on behalf of MGR’s co-star Miss Jayalalitha as the new chief minister,’ said my Tamil friend. ‘She will be another Iron Lady.’ He smiled. ‘If they cannot be gods, the Tamils at least like their leaders to be stars.’