Happy Tamil New Year! from Tiruvannamalai and Gingee

Among the ruins of a hilltop fortress at Gingee.

On Saturday, Tamil New Year’s Day, we took a day trip to the town of Tiruvannamalai, and then hiked among the hilltop forts in nearby Gingee. These destinations are a two hour’s drive from Vellore. For weekend trips like this, we are able to arrange a car and driver for about $20-25 a day. When we’re not thinking in rupees, this is an incredible deal. We even request cars with seat belts! Sometimes the seat belt strap is there, but we have to flip down the seat to fish for the buckle – to most Indians, seatbelts are a useless nuisance, and their buckles impediments that take up valuable seating space, so they are rightly shoved below the seat cushions. We were told that some major Indian cities are starting to enforce seatbelt laws; some taxi drivers install black sashes to hang diagonally across their chests to fake out police, instead of going through the trouble of using an actual seatbelt. Our drivers cannot figure out why we go through the trouble of fishing for the buckles. They’re probably right – they’re of no use if a bus hits us head on, which is how it would happen on these roads!

The town of Tiruvannamalai is a major Hindu pilgrimage center in our state of Tamil Nadu, where people come to worship at the Arunachala Temple. It is dedicated to Shiva as God incarnate of Fire. The walkways leading to the temple were lined with vendors selling coconuts adorned with flowers and displayed ceremoniously on plates; at the temple entrances we found large burning torches around which men and women were smashing coconuts and approaching the torches to brush the fire with their hands. Babies and young children were also brought up to the fire. Babies sure are lucky when it comes to religious rituals; they just hang out while various holy acts are performed upon them. Back home, they’re dunked in water. Here, they are dangled into fire or thrust out for an elephant to smack with its trunk (see picture below).

We took off our sandals and joined the crush of other barefoot people to enter the temple grounds. There were courtyards within courtyards and numerous shrines within the temple walls, many with large porches where people were lounging or sleeping. In the U.S., when we see someone lying on the ground outdoors, they are usually homeless. Here, it is quite common to stretch out anywhere in the shade, even on a busy walkway, which is then decorated with women in saris curled up on their sides. We liked this temple; its symmetrical plan and ornate structures and series of courtyards were coherent to our eyes. Also, it was very much alive with activity as we imagine it may have been for centuries. Cows lined the outer courtyard, and crowds of families came to spend the day sitting in clusters to talk, nap, or eat packed lunches.

The one difficult thing about visiting temples is the barefoot aspect. Not so much the schlepping in and around puddles of unidentified wet substances or the temple elephant’s manure, but the heat. The stone plazas become unbearably hot to walk on for those without the leathery soles developed from a barefoot existence. To my amazement, most Indians walk along the hot stone in a matter of fact way, and Alex is much better at it than I am, but I have to chart my course from one patch of shade another. This is the land of no shadows; it seems as if the sun is always directly overhead, so despite the tall phallic dimensions of the temple structures, astoundingly there is often only a selfish sliver of shadow hugging the edge of each building. The shadow is often so thin that to take advantage of the cool stone I must walk heel to toe along the edge of each building as if on a balance beam. If no such shadow exists, at the edge of one patch of cool stone, I zero in on the next small patch 100 meters away while I dance across the hot plaza on the smallest surface area of foot as possible, my hands waving in the air for balance and speed, while panting “Hot. Ow. Ow. Hot.” I know it hurts his feet just as much, but Alex just walks quickly but casually, bearing the pain rather than recreating the pathetic scene that his wife just made.

Smashing coconuts around the flames at Arunachala temple




Throngs entering the temple.




WWF Smackdown! We've encountered elephants at other temples. They are usually painted or adorned with colorful silks. If you give them a rupee, they will pick the coin up from your hand with their amazingly agile snouts, then bless you by touching you on the head. Latter action, not as agile. Usually a clumsy boink. Small child is getting boinked on the head by the elephant. The small infant is next.




WWF Smackdown -- Elephanto vs. Jermynator!




Everything we do is observed with intense interest. Children followed us the entire time we were there. Alex sat down to read aloud from the Lonely Planet guidebook for me ... they don't speak English, yet gathered 'round and listened intently to his wise words ... "To the south are pillars carved with vigorous horses, riders, and lion-like yalis."




Sitting in the shade, amongst cows in the outer perimeter of the temple.







Carved gopuram, or tower-like gateways, to the temple.




Sleeping in the shade in front of a shrine on the temple grounds.




"One of these things is not like the other!
One of these things is not the same..."

After our visit to the temple, we drove for about half an hour into the countryside to Gingee to explore the ruins of a 15th century fort set upon several adjacent hills. The landscape is striking -- either steep rock faces or hillsides that appear to be composed of large boulders that rest precariously despite the precipitous inclines. Atop each hill are the remains of a fortress, with a stone wall meandering through boulders from one ruin to another, up and down the hills. The other striking thing about the landscape is that there were virtually no people around. India is so populated that it is difficult to escape a crowd, even in the fairly removed area in which we reside. If we ask an Indian who has visited America how they found it, they invariably tell us how “empty” and devoid of people it seemed. To us, of course it is the opposite, and it was eerie and pleasant to walk amongst manmade structures with barely a soul in sight.

As we approached, one particular hike looked tempting, particularly because of the impossibly situated fortress at its peak, but the heat and scorching sun made the climb appear unfeasible and foolish. But that’s just me, and then there’s Alex – so we started our ascent. And then most miraculous thing occurred. A dark cloud approached, a cool breeze picked up, and it actually started raining! It’s hard to adequately express how unusual and glorious this was, as we have not seen rain since our arrival in January, and the relentless dry heat and intensity of the sun are turning us into raisins. A man tending a shrine waved us in as the rain picked up, but there was no way we would miss the rain. Enormous glob-like raindrops gunned down on us in a painful way, but we were only grateful for the cool that it brought. By the time we reached the peak, the rain stopped. A man and his daughter gestured vigorously for us to hurry, and when we reached the cliff and looked down, we saw a rainbow whose peak lay at the level of our feet and then arched down on either side. We were so close it was almost possible to see exactly where it started. Almost.

The view from the top.




We brought a picnic lunch to eat at Gingee. We were shoo-ing away monkies throughout much of our meal. During this photo op, I thought I'd lure the monkey closer for a buddy shot. Our loverly friend Melissa had sent a package from Seattle with lots of treats, including Odwalla bars. As I brought out a wrapper from my pocket, he lunged toward me at which point I screamed and he won. See below.




Not so cute anymore. Greedy monkey-face grabbed it like a ravenous madman and vigorously licked off any remnants, in the way hungry bandits are depicted eating stew in old Westerns. He then started rapping and beatboxing "Yo this here hungry monkey's gonna fight to the death, Gimme food, gimme foo-, Smell my Odwalla breath. Bow-wow. Ch-ch. Ch-ch-chick'n aiiight."




The fortress to which we climbed.




Goats grazing at the base of the ruined fort.