Always a silver lining.

To finish the recording of my trip, I thought I’d report a few of the more random or somehow culturally different happenings of my last 7 weeks. They might be normal to some, but they made me smile, whether at the time or in retrospect. Please excuse the disjointedness.

Last week, I made a late night trip to a big flower, fruit, vegetable, wooden implements, perfume, cow, sugar blocks, and many-other-things market in mystical Mysore, just before it was closing for the evening. My friend and I were buying a lot of wooden spoons, rolling pins and knives off a beautiful young chap (who probably could have also sold me a cow), when his brother came and helped us to select more things that we didn’t really need to carry all the way back to our countries. Just as we were closing our sale, the brother came back with a massive garland of jasmine and roses and put it around my neck. I was very honoured. I bought another wooden spoon. Then they requested a photo of us all together before we went on our way. After that I bought several bottles of incense I also didn’t need. The sales boys were quite sweet!

A few days later, after a big walk up a very steep hill (the tallest peak in Kerala, Chembra Peak), my friend and I treated ourselves to an Ayurvedic massage. It’s quite a different kind of massage to those people are used to in the west; I think the emphasis is more on purging than relaxing. It was on the vigorous side: you strip naked (bar a form of cotton thong), lie on a hard plastic table, are covered in warm oil and rubbed, vigorously. After an hour of that, they sit you in a wooden box, with only your head poking out, and pump steam into it. You stay there until you can feel a mix of water, oil and the day’s grime dripping from you and you’re about to fall asleep. Then you’re towelled ‘dry’, again rather vigorously, and re-enter the world as a more relaxed and very oily being. I did find it relaxing, bar the hardness on the table and the mobile phone conversation and gossip that the masseur and Ayurvedic doctor had at certain points. Glad I got to try it.

They have cheese flavoured pop corn in India! Has that hit Europe yet? And intervals half way through their films in the cinema....but then your average Bollywood blockbuster is about twice as long as Lord of the Rings.

I have to mention a muslim man, Salam Abdul (or possibly a variation on that), and his family, whom were so so kind to me and my friend when we stayed with them for two nights in a little town called Kalpetta. He went beyond the call of duty in looking after us, wouldn’t let us go to bed without eating more than our tummies’ fill of rice, took us to a waterfall where we could swim and kept the bathing adolescent males in the pool above from coming down to spy on the white girls, and told the driver of the bus that was to take us away to our next destination to stop if there were elephants on the road so we could take a photo. I’ve seen such kindness here.

I’ve also seen so many near misses on the roads here! Oh my. Over-taking on blind bends is standard, even more so if they are hair-pin turns on steep ascents or descents. Somehow being sandwiched between a window and a large sari-glad aunty is the best way to experience them, especially if they offer you little balls of sweet sesame. Cycling without lights or a helmet in central Bangalore at night is also standard, it seems. As is not looking behind you at ongoing traffic, whether you’re driving a car, an auto (a.k.a. rickshaw), riding a bike, or just strolling across a road. I presume their moto is a combination of: “Don’t stop movin” and “Never look back”.

I have had some wonderful transport experiences though. At one point we got to ride a bus and a boat at the local school home time. They were moments of very fun chaos. It reminded me of a similar situation I had one wet (soaked is a better adjective) holiday I had with my family in Wales. I could understand the little Indian people about as much as I could the Welsh youngins.

We did meet one gentleman back in January at the generic hippy beach resort of Varkala, who we could understand quite clearly, at least in language, if not in context. He invited us to join his table since the restaurant was full, revealing an accent telling of a very ‘proper’ education. He was a Bachelor of Arts from the Oxford Bubble, owned a double-barrel surname, and was wearing a shirt. He seemed a good chap though and we ended up joining him for cocktails at a stoners bar and having an intense and quite emotional debate (obviously) about Indian and British politics (again, obviously) and the Colonial impact with an Indian journalist acquaintance of his, until 2am. About a week later, we were wandering along the Cochin waterfront, admiring the big Chinese fishing nets (that now catch a fraction of the fish they did a few decades ago), and who were we to bump into but our friendly Oxbridge pal. It’s a small World.

Oh, I couldn’t resist putting in this photo of one of the priests leading the first ceremony of the second wedding, with his mobile phone hanging around his neck. An essential part of his attire.

One more, possibly my favourite happening....my friend is trying to dig a new well for his home in Bangalore, since the water dries up regularly on one side of the house (I don’t quite understand how it still runs on the other, and why the side it does work on swops daily), and so has invited various contractors over to try to locate a point at which to dig for water. They had a geologist come before, and ended up paying him a ridiculous amount to survey their land, pick a bore-point and dig, only to find no water at the bottom of the 800m (or similar) hole. I think they found that a bit frustrating. I was lucky enough to be around when the latest water-finder came. He uses the famous(?) coconut technique to find underground streams and reservoirs: he walks around balancing a coconut in his hand, and when it stands upright, it means there’s water. I wasn’t the only dubious one! He seemed to find a few different points were his coconut got excited, and even jumped out of his hand a few times (quite a spectacle!), and will be back soon to start the digging. We tried to find water with the same coconut and same technique once he’d left, but didn’t have quite the same success, surprisingly. Since he only charges if he finds water, he’s definitely worth a try, my friend thought. Wonderful.

A very colourful trip.

Right, back to the DPhil.

Beautiful brides.

However beautiful she is (and I do think she is a true English Rose), I think that Kate Middleton wouldn’t get a look in next to the two brides I was lucky enough to see get married in India. They probably had more outfits over the whole wedding ceremony as well, and just as regal.

Hindu weddings are a marathon affair compared to the standard British Christian one. The two I went to involved three days of ceremonies. The first, back in December, was a fusion of Hindu-Nayar (the Bride’s family group) and Roman Catholic (the Groom’s family’s religion), with a beautiful ceremony hosted by each family in different parts of the country. The Nayar celebration was on the edge of the Backwaters of Kerala, early one morning, and was just magical. The Bride and Groom arrived on separate little decorated rowing boats, and were then led by Thalapuli girls (which I was lucky enough to be one of) into the open air marriage ‘hall’, made of wood, coloured cloth, and hundreds of thousands of strings of jasmine flowers.

There was so much colour everywhere, and everyone looked so very beautiful in their saris. And the men obviously looked handsome in their south Indian clad too. After the ceremony, many many photos, and some queuing (because of our lack of knowledge of how not to queue), we had the most delicious Keralan breakfast on a banana leaf.

The second ceremony was held several days later in Gudalur, a little town built off two main roads (with a population the size of Oxford’s) in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu. It took some eight hours by bus, train and disco coach, to get the 65 of us international attendees there. One of my most epic journeys, if only for the all-singing all-dancing disco bus.

It was an equally beautiful ceremony, and brought the odd tear to the converted sports hall. (An unexpected cyclone on the east coast the night before put an end to the plans of having it in the open-air at the Palace on the hill I mentioned staying at before. Amazingly, the Groom’s awesome family and friends managed to move chairs, tables, the cake, garden plants, a load of relatives and the kitchen sink, down a very steep hill to what was a concrete badminton court just a few hours before the show. It was definitely an example of where there’s a will there’s a way.)

The second wedding was probably more traditional, from a Hindu perspective, but also rather untraditional given that the Bride is an Indonesian-born American-educated Indian, and the Groom, a British football fanatic. No-one had any doubt that they weren’t made for each other though.

The event started on Day 1 with industrial-scale decorating of the ladies attending the wedding with henna, including the Bride, who had to sit for about 6 hours as her lower arms and legs, hands and feet were elaborated patterned with the earthy smelling paste. I’d love to introduce this tradition into Western weddings – it makes my rugged hands look so much more beautiful.

Henna hands.

The next Hindu ceremony, the following morning (mornings are auspicious apparently, and the earlier the better) was one to represent the couple’s engagement. It took about 3 hours and involved all sorts of rituals, gifts, chanting, priests, family members, many bananas and some sprinkling of water. I wish I knew a bit more about what was going on, as I suspect did the Bride and Groom from the expressions on their faces. They displayed a stoical strength of endurance through the whole event, especially when they had to walk round and round in circles laden with heavy garlands of flowers after very little sleep.

The night before the true marriage ceremony, there was a Sangeet. Although originally this is more of a north Indian event where the Bride and Groom’s families compete against each other for superior dancing prowess, it seems to have warped somewhat into a night of entertainment for the Bride and Groom provided by their guests. My friend, my ukulele (Jimmy), and I attempted to entertain with a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Jimmy seemed to enjoy it, my friend’s voice turned out to be angelic, and apparently we were entertaining too, which were all welcome outcomes.

Just a few hours later, after we’d left the post-Sangeet dance floor, we were up and trying to dress ourselves in metres of sari fabric. When we left our hotel room at 6am to join the wedding party heading to the Temple, some Aunties mentioned it might be a good idea to get the ladies who’d come to help the white ladies to put on their saris to have a look over our technique (in not so many words!). We promptly were re-dressed. We definitely hadn’t mastered the folding technique yet.

Waiting to get re-saried meant we missed the first few parts of the Temple ceremony unfortunately, but it didn’t seem to matter too much, as there were still many parts, three hours and two meals left by the time we did arrive. It was epic....for the guests - I can’t imagine how epic it was for the couple being married or those others up on the stage. It was a beautiful show again though and very elaborate in ritual and colour. It was a good opportunity to reflect more specifically on the different parts of a wedding celebration and the meanings behind the vows, which are much more subtle and quick in weddings I’ve attended.

There was much more to both weddings than I’ve described, and I’ve hundreds of partially focused photos, mostly of the back of heads, so do invite me around for tea if you want to hear or see any more. And I can lend out the odd sari but can’t promise to show you how to wear it correctly. I would definitely recommend marrying an Indian if you can. It was a complete priviledge to have been invited to attend both of these weddings and testiment to the wonderful two couples that they were such magnificent events.

Me and some chums in saris.

1000 different gods.

That is how many there are in the Hindu religion (Lonely Planet fact – perhaps take with a pinch of spice). I think I now know the top 3 so have a bit of a way to go before I can claim any useful knowledge of Hinduism. But there have been a few experiences related to Hinduism that have amazed me, so I wanted to share.

On my first set of travels, we visited a large temple town called Trichy, where there is a massive seven-gated temple, which houses a village in the outer rings. The architecture and decoration on the buildings was immense – so elaborate and colourful, with figurines (don’t think that’s the right word) of the temple god and his various incarnations and wives everywhere.

Here's a photo of some of the gates of the outer parts of the temple.

Bruce Willis’ friend showed us around, and answered lots of our questions, or atleast talked in response to our questions. It seems you need to ask an average of three people in order to get a reasonable answer here. (I blame my poor Indian accent.) It was a beautiful temple. We also were there during a dance festival, so got to see lots of beautifully costumed little people dancing to drums and bells, and making very precise facial expressions. Apparently, in the skill of Kathakali dancing, there are some 10 different ways of moving your eyebrows (again, a Lonely Planet fact). We managed two eyebrow positions between the 5 of us. Perhaps British people have a limited portfolio of facial expressions though, given our general lack of use of the emotion muscles. We are good at making scones though, and roast dinners.

Unexpectedly, I was also lucky enough to come across a temple festival one night, with an elephant procession. They were the three most decorated animals I think I’ve ever seen.

The towering elephants slowly made their way around the outside of the temple, serenaded by drums and enormous circular horns, every so often stopping to munch on some (elephant) grass and let their riders do an arm-waving dance on their backs. I’m not sure what a happy elephant looks like quite, but they were very well behaved. There was so much colour about the place, and music and burning ghee – it was quite spectacular.

We left back to our homestay before the elephants were put to bed and what sounded like a Club Med rave started.

As well as the odd elephant, we saw hundreds, or more like thousands of Hindu pilgrims. They are everywhere. Piecing together bits of information from various sources, every year, when the Sukebind flowers or something, men leave their homes and become pilgrims on a mission to a holier place in South India. For the few weeks that they’re travelling together (often in minibuses with all sorts of flowers and leaves hanging from them), they are only allowed to shower before dawn and after dusk, cannot wear shoes, can only wear a black mundu around their waist (a bit like a linen towel), it seemed liked they weren’t allowed to cut their hair, and they were only allowed to have girls below the age of around 8 or over 60 accompany them. My friend got a few ideas for his stag do. (I think I’m missing a few useful facts in describing the phenomenon.) One of the places these pilgrims seemed to be heading was to a temple in a protected wildlife area in Kerala. The temple only opens to the public on one day a year, apparently, and on that day thousands of people can pass through. Religion is both a blessing and a challenge for wildlife conservation here.

And there are just so many people in this country.

Since....

....I seem to have been spending most of my time over the last few days eating, I thought I'd note down a bit about food.

Apparently 40% of the population of India is malnourished. The Government has a welfare programme where everyone should have access to free rice, but that access depends very much on how the individual states manage the programme within their boundaries. So often it means the rice money gets used elsewhere. At the same time, there is the rising problem of obesity, as seems to be happening all over the world. A ridiculous situation, but one that is obviously so challenging to sort out.

For the priviledged, as I certainly am, there is a multitude of delicious food to eat, and if you're a guest, an obligation to eat your fill and a bit more. There have been weeks at a time where I've not felt hunger.

I've just got back from a new friend's house where her Granny cooked hundreds (give or take a few) of dosas for us for breakfast. I hadn't finished one when the next one was put next to me, stuffed with even more hearty fillings - egg, masala potatoes, chutneys. And each one is the size of a large plate. My tummy has gone into extended-belly mode.

When we were staying in a place called Thekadi, on the edge of Periyar National Park in Kerala, we had a cooking lesson from a very rotund middle-aged man and his various female family members (not sure who was wife, sister, mother, etc.), in their kitchen. I didn't manage to keep up with the recipes, but it was amazing to see the colourful mixes of spices, the grinding of pastes, the shoe-horn type thing that's used to get the nut out of the coco-, and to smell things as they simmered. And we got to (literally) try our hands at making parottas. It was quite a process, but good fun, and we're convinced (much more so than any Indian we've promised to make them for) that we can recreate the greasy delicacy in an Oxford kitchen. Oh, and the pineapple curry - my goodness.

One time, my five fellow comrades and I stopped for a thali lunch at a big eating house, and were all completely full on delicious Keralan rice, curries and daal for the grand total of 40p. Amazing. You are only meant to spend about 40p's worth of time sitting and eating it though. In - wash hands - EAT - sip of warm red-coloured water - wash hands (and chins, arms, etc., for the inexperienced hand-eater) - pay 40p - out. Bam. I think the economies of scale in the production has something to do with it.

Hands eating foods on the train.

For example, at the fourth wedding ceremony of the first wedding, there was a feeding-of-the-800 event. Five tribal priests from local villages came to bless the couple, along with many many people from these villages. And over the period of about 4 hours, everyone was fed a banana leaf lunch. Here's a picture of mine.

It was delicious. And you should have seen the size of the cauldrons food was being cooked in. (Queue: photo of the size of the cauldrons food was being cooked in.)

And I'm finding plenty of sweet things to satisfy my sweet tooth/teeth too. Milky fudgey balls of all different colours, lassis, jalebis, all washed down with a hot cup of intensely sweet milky chai. Yum. I'm working on my Bollywood love handles. (I saw a Bollywood film last night - The Dirty Picture. It was in-ter-esting (as much as I could understand it in Hindi)!)

Alcohol is not legal in many places, but in some of these places it's served to you inconspicuously in mugs, or tea pots, or something that the local law-enforcers are able to turn a blind eye to. And the beers are strong - 6-8% and labelled names like "10000" and "Super Strength"! It tasted pretty super to me.

I'd best go now and do some work before we go off for lunch.