Yet another temple town, Vaideeswaram is the “olai chuvadi” capital of the world. Using an ancient text to tell your history as well as your future, these guys belong to a special clan that has safeguarded these texts for 1000s of years. These texts, written on palm leaves, used a kind of archaic Tamil script that only people in that clan can still read. So they make quite a killing reading these texts to people who either want to know their history, or their future.
If you remember, the point of my trip was to trace my history, so we went to one of these guy to see if he could shed some light on my ancestors. Finding him was hard because there was literally a whole street of these guys in Vaideeswaram, all claming to be the original. (Sounds a bit like the whole Papa Roti thing, doesn’t it?) But in the end, a call to my dad’s friend Rajendran solved the problem. It helps to have friends in high places.
Outside Vaideeswaram temple, we were swamped by the ubiquitious pest of India – beggars. They hang around the temple hoping people’s piety will move them to pity. I was warned sternly by Malar and John NOT to give them money. They said, if you really want, you can give them food – biscuits or buns – but chances are they will reject it. Apparently most of them belong to a syndicate that feeds them, but makes them beg for their keep.
I had to test it out. I had bought some packets of food (prasadam) from the temple, which I didn’t want to eat. I offered it to this beggar lady with 2 children, but she refused to take it and kept asking me for money instead. Now, if I was a mother with 2 hungry children, I would take any food that comes my way, especially when it’s still piping hot.
Lesson learned.
Vaideeswaram is a small town, well supported by the astrology business. But there really wasn’t much else to do there. So after we got all the footage we needed, we left and headed for Pondicherry for dinner and the long drive back to Chennai.
We reached the ultra comfortable Raj Palace Hotel at about 9:30 on Sunday night. With the most strenuous part of the shoot behind us, we could relax, enjoy a good dinner (Chicken fried rice washed down with several gimlets), and entertain each other with horror stories from the media industry. I found out that John was the CEO for a cable channel called SS music, before life on the road called him back to sound engineering.
And Malar has worked in almost every major city in India and South East Asia, including Singapore, where he holds an employment pass.
Day Four – Chennai
Finally, the last day of shooting. All the shoots today are in Chennai, so we had a little bit of time for some shopping in the evening. But before that, I got to experience the colour and vibrancy of what is touted to be now the best Indian city to live in.
Beggars, cows and pollution. I didn’t really find any of these a problem. I don’t know if I just looked unapproachable or what, but there weren’t a lot of encounters with beggars in Chennai. I saw more beggars in the small towns, strangely enough, just outside temples. There were still street and slum dwellers, in rags, and with children in throngs around them, but they seem to be gainfully employed. I was glad to see that.
The ubiquitious cows were everywhere, but they were quite grazing in little grassy alcoves, rather than obstructing traffic or terrifying hapless tourists (aka me). It just wouldn’t be India without the cows.
As for pollution, I noticed something really interesting. Women would sweep their houses clean of dust and debris, then gather the said pile of dust and dump it just outside their houses, where the wind will blow it in again during the course of the day.
A lot of the rubbish is also organic. Indians use natural resources a lot more than we do here – banana leaves instead of paper plates, palm leaf baskets instead plastic bags and cow dung instead of pesticides. Yes, there are plastic bottles, cans and other man made rubbish as well, but for city as large as Chennai is, they must either have a lot less trash or much more efficient waste disposal teams. But there is no doubt that India is the original recycling society. People save and reuse everything, which is really admirable.
I felt that politics and cinema drive the city more than then many temples, spiritual gurus and ancient texts and books. Everywhere you look, they are posters of political luminaries. Actors endorse everything from Aircel mobile networks to pumps for agricultural use. And the people are such big fans of some of the actors, that apparently in the cinema the film reel operator has to stop the reel in order to accommodate the whistling and celebrating that goes on once the hero appears. I wish I had time to have experienced this, but sadly, it didn’t happen. But the next time I surely will.
Chennai has been an eye opener. The memory I had of the city I visited 17 years ago remains an old and distance memory, the way you remember your grandma when you were 5. As I have grown, Chennai has grown along with me, infinite in beauty, wisdom and grace. This is not to say that it’s perfect, no place is, but its faults have been exaggerated more than its virtues. The people are gentle and hospitable, I wasn’t eve-teased, rubbed up against or even gawked at even once. The food is amazing, with enough variety to keep foodies like me happy for a long time.
My heart is full. I am so glad I came. Chennai, you have a part of my heart, and you will see me again.
