A spoonful of sugar and a dose of religion

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Ok, so the telephone lines have been down for a week now thanks to the widening of the road. It seems in cutting down some trees, they also cut down some phone wires.

So after a trip into the local town (40 min on the bus) I found a working cyber cafe. sort of....


One of the things I’m loving here is the use of language. Indian English is very formal. Almost antiquated. “What is your mother tongue” is a common question for example. And expressions such as “What the Dickens”, “It’s beastly hot”, “What a rumpus!” and “He’s a queer fellow” just keep popping up. It somehow all feels a bit Jeeves and Wooster and cuccumber sandwiches on the lawn.

One of the things I’m not loving so much is that the food here is incredibly sweet. Everything has added sugar. Indians, it seem have an incredibly sweet tooth. There are sweet shops stacked high with mutli-coloured goo and syrupy balls, all soft and sticky and oozing. Tempting as this all looks I am quite convinced that one bite would kill me either due the nut or the sugar content. Even the fruit salads and fresh fruit juices get sugar added to them.

Coke and Pepsi only returned to the country in the early 1990s having been banned from India for the previous 17 years to avoid exploitation by foregin companies. In the meantime various homegrown brands of soft drinks sprang up, battling out the lead for the market spoonful of sugar by spoonful of sugar. Ads have been known to boast “Absoltuetly no natural ingredients”.

Aruna took me last week to Nagapattinam. It’s about an hour’s drive East from here (mind you the local shop is about an hour’s drive from here), set on the coast. On the way we passed one of the villages where Aruna and Raghavan provided aid work after the tsunami. It lost over a third of it’s population and the remaining 100 villagers are still housed in temporary shelters.

Nagapattinam hasn’t got a beach as we know it, just the usual families standing around in the water, but what it does have is a Catholic Church. The church is a white wedding cake of a building that rises out from the chaos and deluge of a busy Indian market street. But that in itelf is not the only juxtaposition of cultures. Seeing a Catholic church in a predominantly Hindu land is an eye-opener. Pilgrims come from all over India to pray at this sacred spot. Aruna herself walked almost all the 60 km here when her mother was ill. And that in itself is one of the surprises. Shaven-headed Hindus come from far and wide to give offereings here, not just Catholics. And just like in a Hindu temple, shoes are left outside, locus flowers, coconuts, bananas and garlands of sweet-smelling jasmine are all offered up to Mary just as they would be to Ganesh or Shiva or Vishnu, accompanied by the tamil chanting of the Lord’s Prayer.

Whilst the exterior reminds me of the French Sacre Coeur, the gaudy technicolour flourescence of the interior is pure India. The whole experience is a celebratory mix of cultures, tradition and heritage.


At school, I’ve started kickboxing with the kids. I’ve got to admit they have more enthusiasm than talent, though I fear that is the pot calling the kettle black. We were watched suspiciously on our first day by a curious looking eagle perched in a nearbye tree. I’m also having one to one ‘classes’ with Niru.

We had a storm the other night that gave me my first taste of monsoon. We were sitting outside in the a cooling (33 degree) breeze watching the fireflies and the summer lightening when the Heavens just opened. It was like being caught up in an animated negative. Black turned to white and white turned to black as thunder and lightening tore up the area. The trees were as sharp as an Ansel Adams print.

I am settling in though there are things that I’m missing. Cold water, cold beer (or any alcohol for that matter), like-minded people, a good salad, news, regular electricity, loo paper and most importantly – a sense of personal space. I don’t however miss the Kilburn High Road or the White City bar.

We took the day off school the other day for a family trip to a nearby temple (at Srirangam) and a fort (in the town of ‘Trichy’). A three hour drive there and back in one afternoon seemed as casual as a 30 minute drive across London. All this in a car with no wing mirrors, no seat belts and a great feature which allows it to play ‘fur elise’ everytime it reverses (just in case the noise of all the hooting wasn’t enough). I was not surprised to see that night driving has the same kamikaze approach as day driving. When you see an on-coming car down an unlit rural bumpy ‘road’ (read ‘gravel track wide enough for a small fiat’), the best tactic is to flash your full beam headlights at the other driver, put your foot down and (of course) toot your horn. It seems to work most of the time, though we did pass 2 crashes on the way back.


When we got to Srirangam and the Ranganathaswamy temple I was graced with the presence of Garuda – the winged eagle-man who is Vishnu’s disciple and ‘vehicle’ (all gods have different methods of getting around... I’m most intrigued by Ganesha (the elephant god)’s choice of a rat for transportation). The temple covers more than 120 acres in all encompasing homes, shops and markets, however as a non-Hindu I was not allowed in to the depths of the main temple.

In the cool of the detailed 14th century sculptured columns, families lie around out of the heat, the obligatory elephant blesses small children (and Niru) and bare-chested Brahmin serve up a variety of sugary goop.

I particularly like the Rock Fort at Tiruchipally ‘Trichy’. Perched on top of a hill overlooking Trichy the steps to the fort (and accompanying temple) were carved directly into the rock. A climb of this covered stairwell spits you out to an amazing view of the city and a temple devoted to a beautifully adorned Ganesha.

After a race to the top Niru and I sat on the rock watching the sun go down over Trichy. As I was sat there I realised that, as it happens, I had been there before. I had already climbed to the top and sat and looked out over the city. All in a dream about 10 years ago. India’s a funny place.

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