A South Indian Journey

by Michael Wood

  It is like any other small southern town sweltering in the plain, but here the hot, brick-kiln blast of midday is always dissipated by the breeze which comes in from the sea in the afternoon. Just down the lane, past the thatched shed where Mr Ragavan mends broken-down auto-rickshaws, is a yellow-painted concrete water-tower. From here you can see the whole place laid out before you, from the golden roof of Nataraja’s shrine over the temple gardens and out to the green and white minarets of the mosque on the Cuddalore road, where the town abruptly ends and the paddies begin.

  It is a warren of thatched and tiled houses, shaded by palms and dotted with little exuberantly painted shrines. It has three mosques, a couple of churches and three big cinemas. There are tea stalls on almost every corner. The one I used to haunt is in East Car Street. It is run by an unlikely couple, a big albino man and his wiry little assistant. The small one does the mixing and pouring; like a conjuror playing to his audience, he throws his tea in a great arc from jug to cup and back again, never losing a drop.

  Outside the albino’s tea stall, beyond the shadow of his awning, a little lane runs up to the temple gate. Mala comes this way every day: it is full of people from dawn till midnight, walking to and from the temple, stopping to shop or to talk to friends. Here is Raja the priest’s house, and Ravi the tour guide; there is the woman who sells pilgrim souvenirs, painted plaster geegaws of gods and pottery busts of movie stars. Further on is the lugubrious seller of almanacs and astrological texts who squats impassively under his sunshade. By the gate, next to the man who does door-to-door ironing, is the boy who looks after your shoes for a few paise when you go into the shrine.

  On the other side of the temple courtyard is the bazaar. This is the oldest part of the town, and it grew up around the sacred precinct in the Middle Ages. Mala’s father’s house is in this part of town, and it is here that her oldest son Kumar is hoping eventually to set up in business. The daily fruit and vegetable market is here, the bank, the police station and the telegraph office. Near by you’ll find the merchants, the goldsmiths and the importers of electronic goods from Singapore and Malaysia. You can see the new money here, as India’s economy starts to open up. Fancy houses with marble floors and security gates nestle cheek by jowl with the decaying mansions of the old landed class (people like Mala’s father). In their carports are brand new Ambassadors, chrome gleaming under protective sheets, bonnet insignia sheathed in little leather pouches.

  During business hours this side of town is jammed with cycles, bullock carts and honking buses. At the ‘Hackney Carriage Stand’ horse-drawn rickshaws queue for business, little two-wheeled covered carriages which trot up and down at an alarming pace carrying veiled Muslim ladies home with their shopping, or ferrying the pot-bellied moneylender, dabbing his brow, to a rendezvous with some insolvent client. On the corner with Bazaar Street is the pan man, cross-legged at his table, absorbed in his ritual. Like an alchemist with his metal tray and cutting block, his silver tins and blades, he concocts explosive mixtures of powdered white lime paste, betel slivers, tobacco, cloves and cardamom. These he rolls up in the fleshy green betel leaves in the bucket of cold water at his feet to make a mouthwatering (and mildly narcotic) digestive. Like all good pan men he knows the individual tastes of all his regulars as they stop by his stand for a chat on the way home after work.

  If you are heading further afield, the bus and train stations are down in the new part of town, east of the temple. Here, close to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, are the cinemas, packed every night even at the late show. There are flower sellers, sweet vendors and dosa stalls, and a rank of black and yellow auto-rickshaws, little two-stroke three-wheelers which buzz around the dusty streets like cross bumble-bees. All day and most of the night the area round the bus stand is a hive of activity as the long-distance coaches roar in, plying between Madras and the deep south, and battered and windowless country buses lurch out to pound the lanes of the hinterland. Hang around here for a while and you meet the people who always seem to be on the move in India, whatever the hour: families coming home for the Diwali festival, itinerant holy men and women ‘wandering between the great shrines and little bundles of people clutching their life’s belongings, heading who knows where.

  Beyond the perimeter wall of the bus stand is the canal which circles the town; on its banks live the poorest people, in thatched shanties, close by the steps under the bridge. It is dry for most of the year here, but perilously close to the flood when the monsoon comes and the water begins to rise. These people live by recycling everyone else’s throw-outs: glass, plastic bags, bottle tops, bits of metal. Unlike Western society, nothing is ever wasted here, everything finds a new use, a new life. Their self-contained little world lies on the edge of Chidambaram. Cross the canal bridge and you soon reach the town limits. Before you the road snakes off over the tracks toward Annamalai University, past the long sun-baked platforms of the railway station, where a smudge of smoke hangs in the air from the 1230 Chingleput Passenger.

  Just passing through, as most do, you might get the impression the town is dirty, inefficient and chaotic; corrupt even. (I have heard many Indian visitors, north Indians, overseas Tamils, say as much.) But once you have stayed in it for a while, you get to feel something of its real character, to discern its unseen patterns and hidden charms. Chidambaram is a small place, but bursting with life and vitality. In it there is an intricate, many-layered order which works in a way one feels no Western town ever could. At any time of day or night, for example, you can find hot tea, food and shelter. At any time you can travel on to another destination. Nothing is standardized, and hence nothing is ever monotonous. And for all the great variety of people, jobs, religions and castes, there is not the huge disparity in wealth and condition you find in the great northern cities of India, where the poverty is desperate and seemingly irredeemable. The man who bags bottle tops by the canal bridge has his own independence and economic being, and, no less than the tax collector and the town archaeologist, his own outlook and philosophy.

  And in the centre, dominating the skyline and visible from everywhere in town, there is the temple; symbol of an older order, social, economic and psychological. The temple was the meeting place of earth and heaven, focus of a social and moral system which for thousands of years determined how people were born, lived, procreated and died. Now all around it the order is shifting: in the rich houses in the bazaar, in the huts by the canal, in the Muslim and Harijan villages in the hinterland. For the small-town mafiosi, the smugglers of gold, spices and videos; for the pan man and the moneylender; for the temple priests; and for Mala and her children, it is all changing day by day.

  1

  Mala

  We first met Mala at the time of the autumn monsoon. We were heading slowly down the Cavery valley to Chidambaram, simply in order to see the temple. It is one of the greatest shrines in India, and is famous right across Asia wherever Hinduism has taken root. That first night, though, when we got off the slow train from Tanjore, everything appeared hazy and indistinct. A fog seemed to have enveloped the town, the aftermath of a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. It was festival eve and fireworks thumped and cracked in the gloom as we walked past the bus stand; acrid smoke hung in the air like a tropical bonfire night. In the darkness of an unfamiliar place we had no bearings and were scarcely aware of what we saw, which made what followed seem all the more strange and exciting.

  Eventually the pyramids of the temple towers reared up black against the cloud-filled night sky. We passed under a massive stone gate, carved with the poses of the sacred dance which announced the domain of Nataraja. Inside we found ourselves in a vast enclosure with columned halls and sacred bathing tanks stretching away into the shadows. We crossed the courtyard to where huge silver-studded doors opened into the interior down a granite stairway. At the bottom a forest of columns went off into the darkness; above were livid white neon strips. Camphor burning at the foot of the columns created the illusion that the stone was somehow
magically on fire.

  It was the eve of Diwali, and crowds of devotees were milling back and forth. From the inner sanctum came the sound of a bell, and then a swirl of drums and the sharp trill of trumpets. What we saw seemed almost to belong to the realms of science fiction. The inner shrines were ringed by a maze of pillared corridors, which that night were thronged with beautiful young men dressed in white, foreheads shaved, their long black shiny hair worn in a tight bun to the left side: these we learned were the Dikshithars, the hereditary priesthood of Chidambaram.

  It felt as if we had been transported into another world and time, rather like entering a temple of ancient Greece, the Parthenon, say, or Eleusis, still intact, its altars still burning. The strangeness of it all: the smell of sacrifice, the fiery music, the languid young men with their women’s hairdos and darkened eyes, their white loincloths discreetly hemmed in purple and gold. We were struck by the immaculate austerity of their appearance and comportment. Some called us over to talk. In answer to our questions, they readily explained: ‘God is half-man, half-woman, and in token of this we wear our hair this way.’

  In the very centre of the shrine was a strange building, unlike almost any other shrine in India. Standing inside a cloistered courtyard was a little hall on a raised stone plinth surrounded by a portico of polished black stone columns. Its roof was covered with thousands of gilded tiles, bowed in shape like the traditional thatched roof of peasant houses and shrines we had seen from the train all along the Cavery valley. The front of this structure was closed by folding doors of grimy beaten silver behind which the priests prepared their rituals. Further back was an inner chamber, but all we could glimpse of this was the glint of bronze and gold in the fire of puja lamps. Below the hall at the front of the crowd stood a chubby, bare-chested man in a long loincloth and with a briefcase under his arm. He was singing, not in Sanskrit as you would expect in any Brahminical temple in India, but in Tamil: quietly, almost as if to himself, more Quaker introspection than Roman chant. Around him everyone stood or sat rapt, listening to his soft quavering baritone – a honeyed voice, as the Tamils say (the very name of their language is said to mean ‘sweet, proper, speech’).

  When the puja started, the congregation faced this tiny chamber. Two huge bells were rung; one was cracked and began to emit a continuous high-pitched howl as the noise grew. Behind us two drummers and a trumpeter worked up to a frenzy. Craning above the crowd from the back we could just make out the puja lamps but little else. I had been in Tamil temples before, but it was hard to see what was going on, so I edged through the crowd to the front of the platform near the singer. It was then that Mala detached herself from her women friends and came down to touch my arm. ‘This is the Chit Sabha, the golden hall of Nataraja, the place of his sacred dance. Lord Nataraja is here; he is very beautiful,’ she said.

  She was small, quiet, dark. (How large, white and noisy I felt.) I had to bend to speak or to listen to her. In the end we sat together under one of the columns. She had black hair severely parted and brushed back in a long plait twined with white jasmine. She had the kindest smile, lovely eyes and an open oval face which would cheerily crease into a laugh. She wore a light blue bodice which left her stomach bare and a thin, patterned sari striped in lilac which draped over her left shoulder and was gathered at the waist.

  She was quietly spoken, frail seemingly, but resolute. She spoke some English, and understood a lot more. This was unusual for her caste, but we soon discovered she was an unusual woman altogether. What stood out immediately was her shining enthusiasm for her own tradition, an absolute belief in its beauty, richness and enduring value. And her desire to share it with us.

  When the puja was over I asked her about the man with the briefcase; he turned out to be her neighbour and she introduced us to him: ‘He is an oduvar, one of the traditional poets of Tamilian lands. The name means “he who sings”. These are secular people, non-Brahmins from the lower class of people. In them there is an unbroken line back to the saints. It is they alone who sing the saints’ songs in the temples, songs from over a thousand years ago. They sing in Tamilian, here, and in other places, such as Sirkali, and Mylapore in Madras, where they still flourish.’

  He was sweet-mannered and self-effacing, still clutching his briefcase. (During the day he was a clerk in a local government office.) He explained that the hereditary reciters of the Tamil hymns have handed down the saints’ songs, usually within the family, in living chains of transmission from ancient times, an oral tradition which is specifically not Brahminical but Tamil. After a short while he excused himself – his dinner would be ready – and touching his palms lightly together, he bowed his head, turned and departed.

  Eventually the crowd cleared, then Mala motioned us to follow her up the steps into the sanctum. Unlike many Hindu temples, this was open to all, of whatever caste or creed. Inside, a little knot of people quietly leaned on the rail, meditating or simply staring into space.

  There in the heart of the mysterious little hall, framed by shimmering oil-lamps, was displayed the chief image of the temple. Not, as is the case in most other Siva temples, the linga, the phallic stone of the god, but a large ancient bronze of Siva in his ring of fire as Nataraja, ‘Lord of the Dance’. His smiling features were almost invisible beneath the garlands of fresh flowers he receives every day and the strings of precious jewels given by wealthy devotees. But we could see it was the classic image, the four arms holding the fire and the drum, pointing to the demon of ignorance crushed beneath his feet and making the gesture of ‘fear not’. These symbolize his attributes, Mala explained: creation in the rhythm of the drum and destruction in the fire; the inevitable nature of existence; the meaning of creation. His smile reassures the devotee; even when he excites fear, Siva is never far from playfulness. Here the central metaphor of spiritual experience is not crucifixion, but a dance. A quintessentially Tamilian idea; around it, over the last thousand years or so, their culture has spun a marvellously intricate web of poetry, art and philosophy which has given endless solace and delight.

  We peered through a lattice of silverwork into the inner room where none but the officiating priests may go, the ‘little hall’ sung by the saints over many centuries; a place already celebrated when the poet saint Appar came here and sang its fame in about AD 650. By then its legend was fixed: the primeval forest of tillai trees, abode of tigers, where a weird rishi (ascetic) was granted the boon of seeing the Dance of Siva. This ancient and venerated core was not demolished; in the twelfth century the vast halls of the Cholan age were built around it. On this spot, according to Tamil tradition, Siva’s dance took place – and takes place forever, to those who can see it.

  At the side of the statue of Nataraja was a curtain sewn with golden vilva leaves.

  ‘What is behind?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It is empty.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They say this is the secret of Chidambaram. It means that god is nowhere. Only in the human heart.’ She smiled.

  We left the shrine together. At the gate, as we put on our shoes, Mala stopped. Next day, she said, was Diwali, a great festival, and there would be many important pujas to see, many beautiful and significant rituals. She would show us. ‘Come to my house for tiffin at 7a.m. No later,’ she said firmly.

  First meetings often fix relationships, and this felt like a momentous meeting: a door opening. She was the kind of person you meet in Tamil stories, the holy stranger, the wandering mendicant, the kindly householder who appears out of nowhere to point you in on a new road. It was Mala who initiated us into the traditions of Chidambaram and encouraged our adventures on the Tamil way.

  *

  Early the following morning, as the rain fell, we went to her home for the first time. We took her the traditional Diwali gift of sweets, a sixteen-rupeé box from the vendor in VGP Street near the bus stand. When she untied the ribbon she was horrified. ‘It is too costly,’ she said. It was all we could do to
stop her taking them back there and then. She was, we soon learned, not a person who spent unwisely or precipitately; she could afford no frills and she cut her cloth accordingly.

  At that time her two sons were living in her father’s house, but her four daughters were at home for Diwali, and over breakfast we met them (all of us crammed into that little room). They were handsome, intelligent young women. The youngest, Jaya, was fourteen, bold and spirited, with wonderful eyes; she was learning English at school. Bharati, who was more reflective and serious, was at technical college on the coast at Nagapattinam. Sarasu was doing a degree by correspondence at Annamalai University, a selfassured beauty in a crimson sari. The oldest, Punnidah, who was twenty-three, was more withdrawn and, unlike her sisters, spoke little English. (We had only a few words of Tamil, so we never got to know her so well.) She hovered in the background as we chatted. Mala had raised independent, capable and loving daughters.

  All the while her husband sat in the corner on the bed, shoulders hunched. He was a dignified and gentle man, quietly spoken. The loss of his sight must have been a bitter blow for all the family. He had been forced to retire on a small pension; we learned later that Mala had spent 20,000 rupees on an eye specialist in Madras before receiving a definitive no to her hopes of a reprieve. To pay for it she had sold some parcels of inherited land. But we could see that his disaster had left her in a real sense as head of family, taking over the male duties of householder (and this in a society where women – Tamil women – are in any case seen as the driving force, pillars of the house, preservers of tradition). Indeed, although she would never have wished it this way, I wondered whether her husband’s loss had in a sense liberated her. For she appeared to be freer than are many westernized women in Madras. If she wished to go travelling, for example, then she would ask family or neighbours to look after him, and she would just go. If she wished to travel alone with a Western man, then she would and, as it happened, no one batted an eyelid.