On a Shoestring to Coorg

by Dervla Murphy

  As we walked back to the bazaar, in quest of more tea, Rachel noticed that the young temple elephant was having his make-up put on. Blue and gold circles were being painted on his ears and trunk, and white stripes on his forehead, and then (big thrill!) he was caparisoned in red, blue and gold tasselled brocade – his Sunday Best, as it were. Next a thick silken rope with heavy brass bells on both ends was thrown over his back, he was given a small piece of wood to hold in his trunk and off he went towards the main temple entrance. ‘Let’s follow him!’ said Rachel, almost stuttering with excitement – though a quarter of an hour earlier she had been complaining of acute dehydration. So we did.

  On the way the proprietors of several little food-stalls came rushing out to present Babar – as I had somewhat irreverently named him – with bananas, buns or pastries. Before accepting these he had to hand (not quite the mot juste, but never mind) the piece of wood to his attendant, which meant a check was kept on what he ate: and I noticed oranges were verboten. When he received coins he carefully handed them to his attendant and then laid his trunk on the donors’ heads to bless them: so he, poor brute, has also been co-opted. I must say he is beautifully trained. On arriving at the main temple entrance, where he was directly opposite the image of Sri Subrahmanya in its central sanctum, he slowly knelt – giving an uncanny impression of reverence – then raised his trunk and solemnly trumpeted three times in greeting to the god. Being a sacred elephant his touch is greatly valued and Laksmi-alone-knows what he earned during the next hour as he stood by the main entrance with his attendant squatting beside him. Many people presented him with food, which he delightedly popped into his mouth, but he had been trained to give his blessing only for cash. I handed him 10 paise, to find out what an elephantine blessing feels like, and it is quite a pleasant sensation to have that sensitive tip of trunk laid gently on one’s head.

  The next excitement started just after sunset, as I was trying to prise Rachel away from Babar. On the edge of the beach, near the temple, was a big, ugly concrete shed with padlocked corrugated iron doors – and suddenly these swung open to reveal, astonishingly, a glittering golden chariot. To it was attached a pair of prancing, life-size silver horses and Rachel stood transfixed, obviously half-expecting the fairy tale to unfold and the horses to gallop out of the shed. An Indian crowd gathers incredibly quickly and moments later we were surrounded by most of the townspeople and hundreds of pilgrims. A small boy who spoke excellent English (he attends one of the last outposts of intelligible English in India – a convent school) told us the chariot-shrine was a new acquisition costing 2 lakhs (Rs.200,000), and that it was to be used this evening for the first time to carry the temple’s most precious image of Sri Subrahmanya around the building three times in procession.

  This elaborate example of the work of contemporary Madrassi goldsmiths proves that their art, at least, is not dying. In its every delicate detail Subrahmanya’s new chariot is truly a thing of beauty and the countless tiny figures adorning it are not mere replicas of traditional images but have a life and vigour of their own. Unfortunately, however, technology has overtaken it, in the form of electricity. One doesn’t actually see any bulbs, these having been so cleverly arranged that the whole mass of gold looks as though it were radiating its own light, but when the procession started four men had to push a clumsy, reeking generator behind the chariot. (I still have in my nostrils the warring smells of jasmine and generator fumes.)

  It was a most memorable experience to watch the Lord Subrahmanya, wreathed in blossoms and enthroned in glory, moving slowly through the blackness of the night. The mile-long path around the temple is rough and in parts quite steep, so several torch-bearers held aloft blazing brands of oil-soaked wood. These gave off an incense-like aroma and both alarmed and thrilled Rachel by occasionally sending showers of sparks cascading into the crowd. Three bands of musicians accompanied the procession – but did not mingle with it, being Harijans – and all around us the fervent, unco-ordinated chanting of various pilgrim groups added to the atmosphere of elated devotion.

  I was particularly struck by the number of young pilgrims, most of whom were completely absorbed in their worship. Then, observing the whole scene, I felt a sudden conviction that India’s civilisation will be the last in the world to capitulate to our sort of materialism. And I saw an analogy between the beauty of the golden chariot, locked away in that ugly concrete shed, and the worth of the Hindu tradition, guarded by a corrupt priesthood.

  As the only foreigners present, we were not only permitted but encouraged to walk close to the chariot and when I tired of carrying Rachel piggy-back (at ground level she could have seen nothing) there were many volunteers eager to take her over. From the broad shoulders of a Trivandrum engineer she beamed down at me, her face glowing in the golden light, and said ‘Isn’t India fun?’

  21 December. Tisaiyanvilai.

  Before catching our noon bus we spent a few hours in or near a Parava settlement about a mile down the beach from Tiruchendur’s temple. The Paravas are a Coromandel Coast community of pearl-fishers whose ancestors were baptised en masse between 1535 and 1537, a few years before St Francis came on the scene. For many previous centuries these gentle, primitive people had been bullied and exploited by both Hindus and Muslims, so they were impressed when an Indian Christian from Calicut argued that conversion would strengthen their position by gaining them the protection of the then powerful Portuguese. But as no available missionary could speak Tamil the original ‘converts’ received not even the most elementary instruction in their new faith and, despite St Francis’s subsequent efforts (he was no great linguist himself), their descendants give the impression of being – shall we say – a unique sub-caste of Christianity.

  Those whom we met today seemed not unlike their sixteenth-century ancestors, described by the Portuguese as a simple, humble, handsome race; they quickly made friends with Rachel but were rather shy of me. Their homes are cramped, palm-thatched huts built on the beach, well away from the edge of Tiruchendur, and they keep their antique catamarans – each sporting a pair of rough-hewn wooden horns on its prow – parked outside their front doors, as you might say. The evident ill-health of the little community was a surprise, where everybody must at least have enough fish to eat; but I suppose no unbalanced diet is healthy. This settlement is dominated by an incongruously large, once-white seventeenth-century church of obviously Portuguese provenance which has fallen into a serious state of disrepair. We found all the doors open and it seems to be in daily use, yet the interior was completely unfurnished and undecorated, apart from a few chipped, conventional plaster statues. About the whole settlement there was an unmistakable ghetto atmosphere, but I have been warned against generalising from this one example of how the Paravas live. Apparently many of their villages are lively and thriving, and their ‘capital’ – Manapad – is said to be an exceptionally prosperous and progressive little town with a fine, well-kept church.

  As we left Tiruchendur my only regret was that I had seen nothing of Shanamukha, deliciously described in our trustees’ leaflet as ‘the Bhaktas Idol, the cynosure of all eyes and the Chief attraction of the commonality.’

  The paradox inherent in Indian attitudes to animals is at present greatly exercising Rachel; how can a mainly vegetarian race be so callous about suffering animals? On the bus today she was very worried when she saw several pitifully bony cows whose horns had been tied to their legs, securing their heads in the grazing position so that they could not eat the young plantains. And she fretted too – quite unnecessarily – about the many goats we saw with long sticks attached horizontally to their collars to prevent them from breaking through fences of stakes.

  To my mind, however, the treatment of small children and babies on pilgrimage beaches is far more disturbing. Both at Cape Comorin and Tiruchendur I saw many infants being carried into the rough sea, kicking and screaming with terror, and being dipped three times under the water, the parents pausing between dips to
roar with laughter at the spectacle of their hysterically frightened offspring. Tonight those scenes are haunting me; there is something very disquieting about parents deriving amusement from the deliberate terrorising of small children. One hears a lot about the security enjoyed by the Indian young, who are breast-fed for years, and picked up whenever they cry (because crying is believed to weaken the whole constitution), and who spend so much time close to their mothers’ bodies. But how real can this security be if one of the most basic functions of the maternal instinct – to protect a child from fear – remains inoperative? And if some mothers actually inflict terror? And, most baffling of all, if they even enjoy inflicting it? This behaviour is perhaps connected with the Indians’ unawareness of themselves or other people as individuals – or it may be a symptom of acute frustration. Many young couples are still living in joint families, where they must unremittingly defer to their elders; and possibly those who resent this restriction find some release for their tension in bullying the only people with whom they can feel themselves to be independent adults, in control of a situation.

  Or am I over-reacting? Most Indians, after all, regard me as a monster of heartless cruelty because Rachel is normally left alone in a bedroom from 6.30 p.m. until 8.30 a.m., without my even once opening the door to make sure she is still alive. In this household, the 3-year-old – who shrieks with terror every time she sees us – spends much of her day on mamma’s hip and the rest of it on grandmamma’s lap and all her night in mamma’s arms. She is a tiny, dainty little thing, no bigger than Rachel was at two and always immaculately dressed.

  When one considers how most Indian children are reared, it is not really surprising that in their company Rachel should sometimes speak and act as though brought up under the personal tuition of Lord Curzon. An alarming number of Indians have an unfortunate way of provoking the mildest Europeans to behave autocratically, and for this the blurred outlines of the average Indian personality are very likely to blame.

  22 December. Tisaiyanvilai.

  This morning we went into Tirunelveli to mail-hunt unsuccessfully – but the postmaster is confident our letters will have come through by the 24th – and to do a little Christmas shopping, since Tisaiyanvilai’s bazaar offers no toys or gift articles of any kind. Tirunelveli, being the market centre for a wide area, was jammed with people, and across the main shopping streets hung banners wishing everybody a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Christmas is celebrated throughout this district much as Whitsun is throughout Britain, where little thought is given over that week-end to the Third Person of the Trinity.

  Rachel is beoming increasingly critical of certain aspects of Indian life and today her comments on the treatment of Hindu women got us involved in the whole doctrine of re-birth. I explained that women are considered inferior because they would not have been born as women but for sins committed in a previous life, which means they deserve no better treatment than they get. Rachel didn’t think much of this theory but conceded grudgingly, ‘I suppose it might be true.’ Then, after a few moments’ silence (an extremely rare occurrence in our joint lives), she exclaimed, ‘Won’t it be interesting to be dead! Then we’ll know everything. Would you like to be dead?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ I said. ‘I’m quite happy with my mortal coil. And there’s always the possibility that far from knowing everything, we’ll know nothing!’ Which of course led me into still deeper waters, but these need not concern us here.

  Another of Rachel’s current grievances – particularly since a gob of phlegm landed on her bare shoulder the other morning – is the Indian habit of spitting in the street. This is the sort of thing I took for granted on previous visits to India but, as I have already mentioned, my daughter is much more fastidious than her Ma. And now I come to think of it, it is a bit uncivilised at least not to look before you spit, if spit you must.

  I used to assume vaguely that Indian spitting was simply a consequence of Hindus being inexplicably chesty and peculiarly devoid of any spark of Civic Spirit. Recently, however, I have discovered that the habit is closely linked with their pollution laws, which are complex beyond anything a simple Western mind could imagine. To us many of them seem outlandish, though others contain obvious elements of common sense. For one thing, all bodily discharges are regarded with extreme horror and fear; and saliva, phlegm and mucus, which are believed to be ‘spoiled semen’ (even today semen is popularly supposed to be stored in the head), are thought of as having an especially powerful polluting effect. Therefore the body must be cleared of these ghastly menaces at the first possible moment, and it doesn’t matter a damn where the discharge lands or who else is polluted in the process.

  23 December. Tisaiyanvilai.

  After breakfast we set off to walk the five miles to Ittamozhi. Having spent a week in this little corner of the extremity of India – one of the world’s oldest inhabited areas – I now feel quite fond of it. At least during this season, it has a certain muted charm. Mid-December to mid-January is the one enjoyable month, weather-wise; by March nobody ever feels comfortable and by May even the locals regard it as hell on earth. But that was hard to imagine this morning, as we walked under a gay blue sky, strewn with a few high, white clouds, and relished a pleasantly hot sun tempered by a boisterous wind off the sea. After the recent rain the wayside was studded with tiny, brilliant wild flowers and butterflies zig-zagged excitedly from blossom to blossom and the bird-life was so dazzling one almost doubted one’s eyes. ‘If there were monkeys here it would be perfect,’ said Rachel. ‘Why are there no monkeys?’

  We followed a little road built under the personal supervision of Ernest’s remarkable Rajput mother during the heyday of his family but which has fallen into such disrepair that few motor vehicles now use it. It must be fascinating here when the toddy-tappers are at work, shinning up and down all those palmyras every few hours to extract the sap for making jaggery. Much ploughing of the rain-softened paddy-fields is now going on and several men, wearing only ragged lunghis and untidy turbans, were driving yokes of small, emaciated oxen along the road while carrying wooden ploughs on their heads: a measure both of the primitiveness of the ploughs and the strength of their neck-muscles. Turning to look back at one such man – young, neatly built, almost black-skinned – we found that he, too, had stopped to stare, and was standing using a hand to balance his plough while gazing at us not with curiosity, amusement or suspicion, but with an expression of the purest astonishment. For a moment we stood thus, on that wide, bright, silent landscape – Europeans of the twentieth century confronting an Indian of no century, a man whose life is contained in a mould that would be perfectly familiar to his pre-Aryan forbears. And then, wordlessly, we turned away from each other and moved in opposite directions.

  Beyond a doubt one has to walk or cycle really to appreciate the flavour of a place. Bus journeys are all very well in their way, but they are not true travelling.

  Between Tisaiyanvilai and Ittamozhi we counted five little churches or chapels of various Christian denominations and, this being Sunday, all of them were open. In an impoverished toddy-tappers’ village most of the children were suffering from malnutrition and/or worms, and many had that rough, dead, brownish-red hair which amongst people naturally black-haired means severe vitamin-deficiency. But even here one of India’s heroic malaria-eradication teams had sprayed and meticulously marked each wretched dwelling.

  As we were approaching Ittamozhi we heard weird, rapid chanting and rhythmic handclapping coming from a well-built, palm-thatched house a little way off the road. There was no other building in sight and the chanting and clapping, accompanied by frenzied drum-beating and cymbal-clashing, created an hypnotic effect that seemed tribal African rather than Indian. Rachel and I were equally intrigued and decided to enter the compound through a little wooden gate in its high hedge of prickly pear. Then we sat on a rough-hewn chair placed, unexpectedly, just inside the gate, and went on listening in fascinated bewilderment until a young woman in
a white ankle-length gown with long sleeves – which look very odd here – came hurrying down the road. She was carrying an armful of Christian prayer-books and I was irresistibly reminded of the White Rabbit as she hastened past us, her pace not slowing for an instant and her eyes fixed on the hut. However, her gestured invitation was quite clear and although her expression had told me that she suffered from some severe emotional disorder we followed her into the building – and none of the rapt congregation appeared to notice our alien presence.

  The chapel measured some twenty-five feet by fifteen and neat strips of coconut matting were laid on the polished mud floor. A few biblical texts in Tamil hung on the walls and the only furniture was the preacher’s desk, behind which stood a tall, heavily built Tamil of about forty, wearing the sort of simple vestment favoured by Low Church clergymen in all countries. When we entered he was leading the hymn-singing (if you can call it that) in a not too abnormal manner, but I soon realised that the congregation’s odd lack of interest in our arrival had a slightly sinister explanation: all those present were in a trance of some sort, having been completely mesmerised by their clergyman.

  It was not difficult to count heads. On the males’ side were four men – one a hideously deformed idiot – and two youths: on the females’ side were twenty-three women – the majority young, and all dressed in white – plus five school-girls and an assortment of sleeping (incredibly) infants. One of the men was beating the drum, one of the women was clashing the cymbals and everybody else was loudly clapping hands and singing while rocking to and fro on their heels. At first glance one might think the whole scene rather touching: simple folk expressing their devotion as best they knew how, and so on … But it soon became apparent that we were in on something very peculiar indeed.