26 November. Mundgod Tibetan Settlement.
Today, while Rachel played with her Tibetan contemporaries, I spent hours in the villages listening to the grim recent histories of families and individuals; and yet again I marvelled at the fortitude of the ordinary Tibetan. In this oasis of calm and contentment Tibetan Buddhism emerges as a most powerful spiritual force, however much outsiders may scoff at its crude animist traits, exuberant demonology, comic superstitions and money-spinning lamas.
I feel the Tethongs do not realise how much they have achieved here. The factors that went to make Mundgod may be divided into four groups; one: practical help from the Government of India and the refugee charities; two: guidance and support from the Dalai Lama; three: the industry and discipline of the settlers themselves; and four – uniting all the rest – the dedication, energy, endurance and imagination of Judy and T.C.
Tibetan refugees, being exiles from a hierarchical, feudal society, need immensely strong leadership during a resettlement phase, and advice of one sort or another every hour of the day, and encouragement, understanding and unsentimental love. All this they got from the Tethongs in a way and to an extent that has enabled them to become what they now are – independent, happy, free and still unspoiled.
Being all the time on the spot (holidays are not part of the Tethong life-style), Judy and T.C. are perhaps more aware of the daily frustrations and the innumerable minor flaws of the settlement than of its remarkable atmosphere. Throughout a middle-aged lifetime I have felt for few people the wholehearted admiration and respect I feel for this couple. To administer funds wisely, to organise practical affairs efficiently, to treat people kindly – all that is accomplished often (though not often enough) in the refugee world. But to have resettled a group of people as culturally fragile as the Tibetans, without destroying their spiritual integrity, is a rare and very wonderful achievement.
From here we go to the Bylekuppa settlement, a few hundred miles farther south, not far from Mysore City, and it will be interesting to see how that earlier and bigger settlement compares with Mundgod.
4
Discovering Coorg
27 November. Udipi.
This evening I feel lonely not only for the Tibetans but for the various livestock in our Palace suite: the two busy little lizards; the swarms of minute, industrious ants who were always dragging around the colossal (relatively) corpse of some beetle, moth or cockroach; and the pretty light-brown frog who lived in the loo and leaped out whenever the lid was lifted (how alliterative can I get!) to take refuge on the wall until the plug had been pulled and his home made habitable again. Sometimes he had a long wait since the water-supply was almost as erratic as the electricity, which went off at least three times a night for periods of anything from ten minutes to three hours.
During the four-hour journey down the Malabar coast from Kumta to Udipi we crossed three rivers as they were about to enter the sea, and the fertile, vividly green, palmy landscape that Rachel calls ‘fatly populated’. Near Udipi our road ran for a few miles close to the beach, where fine sand shone with a strange rosy patina while the setting sun laid a trembling, molten path across the water. Then we crossed the wide Kolluri estuary, and overlooking it stood a steep, solitary peak of the Western Ghats, those high, royal blue mountains that run from Gujerat to Cape Comorin, isolating the fertile coast from the harsher plains and hills and plateaux of South–Central India.
I thought our Malabar travelling-companions exceptionally likeable, yet everywhere in India one is aware of being kept at arm’s length – sometimes literally. This is partly a consequence of the caste laws, which still strongly influence many who have given up formally obeying them, and partly a result of my being a woman and therefore, according to traditional Hindu beliefs, an essentially inferior person.
Perhaps some outsiders are drawn to this opaque world of one of man’s oldest societies – where foreigners are never fully accepted, and can never fully understand – simply because they intuitively recognise how good it is for the soul to be cut down to size. Jolting slowly along those lovely roads today, I briefly felt unimportant and insignificant, in a way one couldn’t possibly do at home. It was an odd but not unpleasing sensation: and there was a perceptible element of escapism in it. In Europe one knows one is unimportant and insignificant, but having been brought up in an ego-nurturing tradition one rarely or never feels it – and if somebody or something did make one feel it, that person, event or circumstance would almost certainly be resented.
This evening I think I can identify one of the things that went wrong during my first stay in India. After a slow journey through the Middle East, and through places as gloriously un-Westernised as Gilgit and the Hindu Kush, I found the degree of apparent Westernisation anti-climactic. Now, however, having flown direct from London – and perhaps having in the intervening decade become a little less obtuse – India’s Westernisation seems to me very superficial: though that is another too sweeping generalisation, since even Hinduism has been modified by industrialisation. Yet only slightly, so far. On the whole, the British influence, like that of many earlier conquerors, is being inexorably assimilated into India’s dharma, which eventually will be a little changed by this contribution as by all the others – though the changes will not necessarily be those the British would have wished to effect.
At Bhatkal, a biggish port town half-way between Kumta and Udipi, Rachel was a little scared to see several groups of Moplak women in silken burkhas on the streets and at the bus stand. One can understand how these completely shrouded figures, moving about so swiftly and silently in their dusty slippers – though apparently unable to see – could make a child feel faintly uneasy. Yet cheerful colours are fashionable in Bhatkal this winter. In one group I counted eight different shades: sky-blue, pale pink, turquoise, orange, mauve, green, pale yellow – and black. Very likely the lady in black was an elderly chaperone.
For over 2,000 years Arabs have been trading with the Malabar Coast and the present-day Moplahs (Muslim merchants) claim to be descended from ninth-century settlers. From what I have seen of the men, they must never have intermarried with Indians to any great extent for they remain perceptibly Semitic. Most of the native Muslims and many of the native Christians are the descendents of low-caste Hindus or outcastes who went over to Islam, or Christianity, hoping thereby to improve their social position – a move which was rarely successful. If the bonds of the caste system could be so easily broken Indian society would have evolved along very different lines.
It was after dark when we arrived here and having tried four full hotels I turned reluctantly towards the posh-looking tourist hotel, expecting to have to pay Lakshmi-knows-what; but as Udipi never has any tourists the charge for a single room, with a fan, is only Rs.5. Already the interior of this new building looks very shoddy and the latrines stink so frightfully that my fastidious daughter had to be taken out to the gutter.
Tomorrow I must buy some candles, before the feeble bulbs in these hotel rooms have ruined my eyes for ever.
28 November. Mercara.
We left Udipi at ten-thirty this morning, after a fascinating three-hour ‘explore’ (Rachel’s term). I am no lover of crowds, but Indian towns – when not poverty-dominated – vibrate with a contagious vitality and I thoroughly enjoyed Udipi’s bazaar. The people seemed happy, healthy, relaxed, friendly; and during the busy early morning hours the streets were flooded with colour – brilliant saris, shimmering silk burkhas, the vivid sweeping skirts of tribal women, the men’s equally vivid ankle-length lunghis (which a few swift tucking movements transform into knee-length kilts) and, contrasting with all the rest, the white robes of orthodox Brahmans or the white saris of Hindu widows.
The usual wide range of goods was being carried through the market on a wonderful diversity of heads from 6-year-old girls with bundles of freshly cut grass to 80-year-old men with rolls of bamboo matting twice the length of themselves. There were improbable loads of tin kitchen uten
sils tied up in old fishing-nets and balanced with circus-artiste skill; trays of coconuts, cauliflowers, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, aubergines, fresh sardines, salted sardines, oranges, limes, supportas, jack-fruit and plantains; bales of firewood and sisal and sugar-cane and bamboo rods; tremendous towers of wicker baskets, perilously balanced stacks of new-fired ochre pitchers, tins of kerosene, crates of hens, baskets of bricks, very long planks, bulging sacks, locked tin trunks and a new-born, orphaned calf in a round wicker basket on the head of a worried-looking young woman.
Throughout the bazaar cattle were being deferred to by all and Rachel is still an incredulous observer of the amiability of Indian bulls. Inevitably she finds the Hindu attitude to cows difficult to understand, though I notice she has not simply dismissed it as ‘a silly custom’.
I cannot agree with Dr Johnson that, ‘Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason’. Like many small children, Rachel has had, for some time now, strong tendencies towards vegetarianism. By nature she is most sympathetic towards this aspect of Hinduism, though she relishes her meat course and realises that it is kinder painlessly to kill an animal, and eat it, than to allow it to die agonisingly of hunger and thirst.
We went to the bus stand at ten o’clock to secure a good seat on the ten-thirty Mangalore bus. The usual chaos prevailed, yet despite this chaos most Indian buses do depart and arrive on time. The Indian road transport system is, unexpectedly, a miracle of organisation and a credit to all concerned.
At its terminus a bus stands ready to leave for at least forty minutes before departure time, yet only when the engine has been switched on do the majority of passengers appear, sprinting from nowhere to hurl themselves aboard with shouts of alarm and indignation. Indians relish drama and obviously enjoy almost missing the bus.
As we moved out of Udipi we were at last feeling the heat, though while the bus was moving – the windows were unglazed – we felt not too uncomfortable. As soon as it stopped, however – which it did six times during the forty-mile run – we both began to sweat spectacularly.
We were on the back seat among the Harijans and looking down that bus was like being at a flower show, so many young women had decorated their glossy black coiffures with exotic scented blossoms, fresh from the jungle. Those are the little touches that make India – for all its obtrusive squalor – seem so much more graceful than present-day Europe.
We arrived at Mangalore just as a crowded bus was about to leave for Mercara and leaped on board to find two front seats inexplicably empty; I can only suppose the watches of the passengers concerned were inaccurate beyond the Indian average. When I handed over our fares I was, for the first time, given tickets previously used. This meant the conductor was pocketing our fare, having got back the used tickets from accommodating passengers to whom he had no doubt paid a consideration. I hesitated. Should I demand a valid ticket, thereby upholding Western standards of morality? Or should I respect local customs, remembering that for Rs.2 the conductor – who probably has a wife and ten children at home – could buy himself a good square meal? I decided on the latter course and put my change and the dud tickets in my purse. Then I felt someone lightly touching my shoulder and looked around to see an elderly Brahman wearing a pained expression. ‘You must ask for a good ticket,’ he said reprovingly. ‘Bus conductors are not poor. They have to pay a lot to get such a job. He should not be allowed to cheat. Please ask for a good ticket.’
‘Very well,’ I said, shamefacedly, at once seeing the Brahman’s point of view. By contributing one’s mite of acceptance to this sort of thing, one is simply perpetuating a tradition that India could well do without. And, of course, the conductor cheerfully gave me a valid ticket on request, with the air of a man who has played a good game and knows how to take a beating.
The eighty-five-mile drive into the province of Coorg took us back over the Western Ghats and as we climbed almost 4,000 feet from the coast the splendour of the landscape exceeded anything we had yet seen. Dense jungle, in which many of the trees were ablaze with blossom, covered the lower slopes. Next came a vast rubber plantation, where the tappers were at work, and then we were amongst a massive array of tumbled blue ridges and peaks. The air felt deliciously cool and on every side mountains rose steeply from deep, narrow, wild ravines, while occasionally one glimpsed, far below in a paddy-valley, the vivid green of a new crop or the gold of stubble. Over its final fifteen miles this road climbs 2,900 feet and at a certain point, where the gradient is one-in-twelve, our Brahman friend again tapped me on the shoulder. ‘You must know,’ he said, ‘that the building of this road was begun in 1837 by a very brave young countryman of yours. You have heard of Lieutenant Fast?’
I shook my head, explaining, ‘We come from Ireland, so I’m afraid Mr Fast was not our countryman.’
‘Oh?’ said the puzzled Brahman. ‘Well maybe Lieutenant Fast also came from Ireland. He was British, you see, and he died of jungle fever here, on the job. He was the engineer. We still call it Fast’s Ghat. Not the younger people, of course. They call it Sampaje Ghat. But we old people don’t mind remembering that the British built all our roads. There were not even cart-tracks when they came to Coorg. The Rajas never wanted roads built. They were afraid easy roads might mean easy invasions.’
‘And weren’t they right?’ I said, drily.
The old Brahman looked at me with sudden quick suspicion. ‘Are you anti-British? Anti-Imperialist? Do you have a war in Ireland? A civil war with Britain? Or am I becoming confused from the papers?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, ‘that is an excellent description of what we have. But I’m not in the least anti-British – only anti-Imperialist.’
The Brahman gestured with his slim, wrinkled hands. ‘Imperialism there has to be. It is part of the evolution of mankind. It is a necessary evil.’
It was my turn to look surprised, for such an historical approach is rather un-Indian. ‘Are you a teacher?’ I enquired.
The Brahman smiled. ‘I was a Professor at Madras, but many years since I have retired. According to the Laws of Manu I should now be a Sannyasin, a holy beggar. But my wife might not like that. She might even join the Women’s Lib!’ He chuckled at my expression on hearing this allusion from Brahmanical lips. He was a charming old man and I was sorry to say good-bye at Mercara bus stand.
We soon found another Rs.5 hotel which is much more primitive than last night’s, with no running water or anything fancy like that. However, we step out from our two-bedded cell on to a long balcony, level with the near-by mountain-tops and overlooking most of the red-tiled roofs of the town – a view which more than compensates for the state of the latrines. On the far side of the wide, shallow bowl containing Mercara’s bazaar one can see the glint of two identical imposing gilded domes, which must be investigated tomorrow, and the steep green slopes that form the sides of this bowl are dotted with neat white bungalows. As for the glory of the surrounding mountains – when I look at them I guiltily wish that I were free to go trekking at my own pace. Why has nobody ever heard of Coorg? Or have I been alone in my ignorance of this most enchanting region? We shall certainly spend a few days here, though I had intended merely stopping overnight in Mercara and continuing to Bylekuppa tomorrow.
29 November. Mercara.
After a seven o’clock breakfast of tea and potato-cakes we walked some way down Fast’s Ghat to explore what we merely glimpsed yesterday, from the bus.
Mercara’s average temperature is 66 °F. and as we trotted downhill the sun was warm, the breeze fresh and the sky intensely blue – an almost incredible colour, to northern eyes. At intervals, in the cool depths of the forest, we saw sudden glorious flourishes of colour – tall trees laden with pink or cream or red flowers; and blue-jays, hoopoes, mynahs, weaver-birds and subaltern’s pheasants were all busily breakfasting, and we chased gaudy butterflies as big as sparrows, and once Rachel came within inches of trea
ding on a small snake. Probably it was harmless, but at the time my maternal blood ran cold. One is a much less light-hearted traveller with foal at foot.
We took short cuts at the hair-pin bends and whenever we wandered by mistake into a compound everyone was extraordinarily friendly. Even the wives or daughters of not very well-off farmers spoke intelligible English and were without that withdrawn, wary shyness which marks most Hindu women. Obviously the people of Coorg are no less exceptional than the landscape; both men and women make one feel welcome to a degree that is most uncommon in India. Also there is a splendid feeling of being isolated here, in a cosy sort of way – a quality in the atmosphere difficult to define but very attractive.
. . . . .
Across the street from our hotel, dominating Mercara and the southern and western approaches to it, stands a strongly fortified hill-top – the work of Mudduraja, a seventeenth-century Lingayat ruler. In the middle of the fort is that ruler’s undistinguished palace, long since converted into the Commissioner’s office, and on the way up from the road one passes the hall-door of Coorg’s old-fashioned, no-nonsense gaol, where gaunt prisoners peer from tiny, heavily barred windows far above the ground, and armed guards look as though they would shoot first and ask questions afterwards should a helicopter chance to land in the courtyard.
Also inside the fort is a Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Library with a delightful notice in the entrance hall: ‘Serene Silence, please! Have respect for thought!’ – a typically Hindu sentiment. Several earnest-looking young men were sitting around large tables studying fat tomes, or consulting yellowed newspaper files, and in the large English language section (General) Patricia Lynch and Bertrand Russell stood shoulder to shoulder. But the selection of books in English on India was most impressive, though there were only two volumes on Coorg. A nice young librarian lent me the Coorg district volume of the Mysore State Gazetteer of India for 1965, very properly insisting on a Rs. 15 deposit, and when he escorted us to the door I asked him the significance of the two realistic-looking grey stone elephants which stand at one end of the fortress compound and are marked ‘Historic Monument. Do not touch.’
On a Shoestring to Coorg Page 6
