Blogs from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Asia - page 34

I took "heaps" of pictures during the last days of school at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM) of many of the amazing students and teachers (and friends!) I met there. This entry is primarily a selection of pics of my fellow students and teachers. On Friday night, March 3, they held a graduation for us, and gave each of us a beautiful pink flower and a certificate. TKV Desikachar introduced the guest of honour -- I didn't get her name. She had been the headmistress of a school for a long time, but she wasn't cold or forbidding! She was warm and intelligent and made a great speech that I totally agreed with: She said she was thrilled that people were appreciating certain aspects of Indian culture and philosophy, and coming all the way here to study. ... read more

I'll keep this one short, as I have a tendancy to gush! The one thing that has struck us since our arrival in India is that this country has no concept of the word 'subtle'! The beautiful, vivid colours, wild flavours and smiling faces sold to us in the guidebooks have materialised into a violent assault on the senses, overwhelming and suffocating! Even God, who features a lot here in many incarnations (which for two agnostics is a bit of a problem!), appears to be sponsored by Coke-Cola! The beautiful temples, rich in history, built by the hands of kings of the dynasties are strangled with flashing Vegas style rope-lights and gregarious twinkles which seem so inappropriate for a country with a strong focus on meditation and simple lifestyles! The past few weeks have been testing ... read more

Well we have been in Chennai for a week now and it is pretty hard going. Very busy, much more hectic than London even!!! It was a relief to be met by Vasanthi from the GELS foundation with whom we were working, to be taken by car to our lodgings before negotiating the city on our own. Chennai is a hectic, smelly and polluted city, most major roads have four lanes on both sides and the traffic belches out tons of thick smoke every second. Crossing each river brings a stronger wave sewage stench. Crossing a road is like crossing the M6 on a bad day and we take our life into our hands each time we attempt it. We have taken to finding locals who are crossing at the same time and crossing with them. ... read more

So we're back in India. Chennai/Madras is quite a shock to the system after Sri Lanka...it is the dirtest city we have visited so far...the dust, heat, smells and poverty are all ten fold. It's great to be eating Indian food again though...we found a great veg restaurant for our first lunch. There are hardly any tourists in the city, so you the food is very authentic (but no Madras. Steve was gutted!) We paid a rickshaw guy to take us round the sights for a couple of hours. We visted the amazing Kapaleeswarar temple, an ancient Shiva temple, the biggest in Chennai, the Santhome Cathedral Church built in 1504, said to house the remains of St. Thomas the Apostle (only two places can boast that they have remains of an apostle, and the other is ... read more

I had a pretty good night's sleep, ended rather abruptly at 6AM by my next door neighbour, whose door-banging and general loudness when he got up precluded any continuation of sleep. I quickly packed up my gear and checked out. The room in my new place is fine, with the only quibble being that my knees touch the wall when I'm on the throne. Decided that a day of rest was in order, not to mention that Chennai is a little thin on the ground when it comes to tourist attractions, so my only departure from the hotel was to visit the nearby St Andrew's Kirk, a very pretty church that is apparently one of only three in India with a circular seating plan. The inside of the roof was painted blue with gold stars, and ... read more