Tales of South India

A Myth-Soaked Mangrove

On a balmy February morning some years ago, a group of us seeking peace, history, context, stories, inspiration, set out to the Pichavaram mangrove forest, a short 15 kilometres coastwards from Chidambaram. This is a magical place. Nestled between the Vellar River to the north and the Coleroon River to the south, separated from the Bay of Bengal by a solid band of sand, this coastal ecosystem is like no other place on earth. There are thousands of islands - it is impossible to keep count as the numbers shift with the tides - that dot the many channels, canals, and creeks that flow around and over them. The only way into the forest is by boat, or, on the shallower waterways, by foot. The place is a veritable maze, and only the local boatmen know their way around some of the parts of the forest and are intimately acquainted with the ebb and flow of the tides. They will take you around and are happy to point out the wealth of bird, marine, and floral life all around.

The Moon Lord's Town

Any dynasty that succeeds in rising to power does so with a combination of luck, timing, having friends in the right places, profiting off the fading fortunes of rivals, and clever maneuvering on the chessboard of politics and warfare. So it was with the Hoysalas who were masters of much of the southern Deccan, ruling over a large swathe of present-day Karnataka from the 11th to the 14th century. Three rivers enriched their lands and blessed them with abundant agricultural fertility: Yagachi, Hemavathi, and Kaveri.

The Yatra Chronicles: The Angry Auto Driver

The plan was to go to a few goddess temples in the morning and attend Herambanathan Sir’s class in the evening. Sinister Dude was our guide for the morning. He tried to push his agenda on us but Saskia was firm and insisted on sticking to her plan. We set out in 3 autos. Our driver had bloodshot eyes that seemed to blaze with anger.  He was clad in a half-unbuttoned, not very clean shirt. Appointing himself gang-leader of the auto drivers, he set off at breakneck speed to an Ugra Kali temple. There were open fields around. The temple was empty, with no devotees, save for us. The Kali was fierce with fangs. An interesting happening: after the priest - who was a non-Brahmin as evidenced by the lack of a sacred thread (Pandaram??) - said his thing, he muttered something to a woman standing near us. She turned on a switch and a nadaswaram - tavil racket broke out. This was modern temple technology, apparently. The switch activated a contraption of a drum with a stick, bells, and other noise-making stuff. A Raja Melam that was an auto melam!

Rajaraja Has Landed!

 

I have some very exciting news - my book, Rajaraja Chola, King of Kings, has been published by Aleph Book Company and is out in the big wide world, in bookstores, libraries and online, for anyone who might be interested. It has been a labour of love for the past several years. The book is no longer "mine", in the safe cocoon of my computer and accessible only to me, but has been released into the vast unknown, where I have no control over how it will be received, what people will make of it. This is nerve-wracking, to say the least, but in an oddly satisfying way. After all, that has been its destiny all along.

A Bright Star of the Deccan

One of the loveliest temples I have ever seen is the Ramappa-Rudeshwara temple in Palampet, 70 kms from Warangal, the capital of the Kakatiya dynasty. This dynasty, formerly vassals of the mighty Chalukyas, ruled over much of central India, right up to the eastern seaboard, during the 12th-14th centuries. Palampet and its environs were the domain of the Recherla Reddys, loyal feudatories of the Kakatiyas.

The Temple of the Fish-Eyed Goddess

It is one of the oldest cities in southern India - probably the oldest. It encapsulates so much - the very essence of Tamilness, home of the Sangams that birthed some of the world’s most extraordinary poetry, the holy site of so many wonderful and crazy tales and myths, the command centre of  fierce and fearless kings, a place whose history stretches back to antiquity when Megasthenes and Kautilya made their impact on this earth and further back still, slipping seamlessly through to a time of kings and heroes who may or may not have actually lived, and then even further back past the invisible barrier between the divine and mortal worlds to a time when god and man rubbed shoulders and sowed the seeds that gave birth to this timeless city.

The Yatra Chronicles: An Unbroken Thread

We had an earlier start than usual today, 9 o’clock instead of 10. Our destination was the Konganeshwarar temple, somewhere near which was the home of a Sri Herambanathan (love the name!) and his Bavu Pillai school of dance. They are very near the Brihadeeshwara temple, and these streets must have housed many of the musicians and dancers who served the court and temple. As usual, nothing happened linearly or as planned. We arrived at the place where we were told someone would be waiting for us and of course he wasn’t. Poor Saskia. Against the din of the traffic and of our 3 auto drivers shouting out helpful suggestions, she tried to conduct a phone call with her contact (who she said sounded like he was in a disco, such was the background noise he was shouting against) to find out what exactly we needed to do. Eventually, some chappie arrived and the priest of the temple showed up as well and there was no getting away without a darshanam. 

The Grand Lady of Music and the Young

On a gray, rainy afternoon in May 2017, I gave a talk in New York about what the legendary musician M.S. Subbulakshmi means to the young musicians of today. Here is the transcript of that talk. 

Good afternoon, and it’s such a pleasure being here today while the rain is pounding away outside. Sharing memories and talking about a legendary human being and musician, who I can safely say has left some sort of an impact on every one of us here : what better way can there be of spending an afternoon!

The Yatra Chronicles: An Almost Utsavam

The Karuna Swamy temple was located at the end of a small street in Karandai, just outside Thanjavur. Mr. Bhonsle had mentioned that it was a Chola era temple and so my interest was piqued. It is one of countless little temples that dot the villages and towns of the Kaveri delta, all of them rich in mythology and history, holding a special place in the lives and songs of the great Saivite saint-poets, the Nayanmars. Appar, one of the most renowned of the Nayanmars, sang of this temple in the 7th century, which meant that it has been around since at least then. Legend claims that one of the ancient Chola emperors from Sangam times, Karikala, was cured of his leprosy when he took a dip in the temple's tank. This gave the temple'a deity, Siva, his name, Karuna Swamy, the Compassionate Lord. Inside, the walls are rich with inscriptions from multiple later Chola kings of the 10th and 11th centuries, including Uttama Chola, the great Rajaraja's predecessor, Rajaraja himself, as well as his son Rajendra. Clearly, it was a temple of some note in those times.

A Millennium in the Life of Uthiramerur

Let me follow in the footsteps of that delightful gentleman the Mad Hatter who asked Alice, “why is a raven like a writing desk?”, and pose a question of my own: “what is the connection between the Cholas and cows?”. Being of a somewhat saner disposition than the Mad Hatter (although there are many who will dispute that), I will provide a perfectly rational answer and spare you the vexation of thinking up a response. It is very simple, actually: of late, both of them  - Cholas and cows - have been jostling about in the upper reaches of my cerebral cortex (if indeed such a region exists). Cholas, because they are my current obsession; and cows, as I have been reading about TM Krishna’s latest book Sebastian and Sons, which is an account of the lives of the people who make the south Indian percussion instrument, the mridangam, portions of which are fashioned out of cow skin. Recently, the two - Cholas and cows - came together in the course of a most delightful day.

The Yatra Chronicles: Marathas in the Thanjavur Court

The same awful nadaswaram cacophony was wailing away in the lobby this morning. And in the dining room, the same lip-smacking breakfast buffet. Today’s morning plan was to go to the Saraswathi Mahal complex and look around there. I had gone there on my last visit a few years back, but it’s always nice to visit again, to compare impressions, to consolidate memories, to see things afresh.

Changes have been made at Saraswathi Mahal. The last time we were there, the museum was in a room to the right as soon as you entered the verandah. There was a beautiful picture - of Saraswathi, if memory serves me right - in the front; that area has now been made into a spanking new, teeth-chatteringly cold air conditioned theatre where we watched a heavily photoshopped (where was the traffic? the crowds? the noisy chaos?) movie on Thanjavur, its history and environs. There was a lot of aerial photography (one way to not show all those pesky people and vehicles) and commentary made in portentous tones. Quite well done.

The Yatra Chronicles: A Treasure Hunt and More

Continued from here: Arrival

My first full day here! And so much to write about!

Woke up at 6.15, got ready and came down to the lobby to write. Sumati was still asleep, so I think this will be a good arrangement. I hope I can keep this up - writing the previous day’s events early in the morning. Gnanam’s morning music seems to be a nadaswaram cacophony that leads to Sabapathikku Veyra Deivam. I have to say though that my appreciation for this instrument has grown as I have grown (in years and size!).

Breakfast is buffet-style: sweet paniyarams (which I resisted successfully), papaya and pineapple, juices, idli, uppuma, pongal, uttappam, toast, cereals, tea and coffee. And a bowl of sprouted peanuts and sprouted moong dal. The sprouted peanuts were yum.

The Yatra Chronicles: Arrival

A couple of years ago I spent a blissful couple of weeks in and around Thanjavur and Chidambaram, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. I was part of a small group organized and led by someone I had long admired from afar, Saskia Kersenboom. I had read her deeply researched, ground-breaking and brilliant book Nityasumangali, about the Devadasis who lived and worked in the Kaveri Delta region. Her Yatra residency brought us, a group of dancers and me, together, as we visited people, towns, villages, temples and so much more, that were in some way or the other part of the Devadasi world and its heritage. I was there to soak up the ambiance and learn everything I could, particularly as it related to the Cholas, a remarkable dynasty that ruled those parts a thousand years ago.

It was a marvelous experience. Best of all, I got to know Saskia and discovered what a delightful person she is with her sparkling laughter and indefatigable zest for life, in addition to witnessing in person her passion and enthusiasm, her unwavering dedication, to her work. And I made a brand new set of friends with my fellow Yatris who embraced me as one of them, even though I was old enough (and more!) to be a parent to them.

Every morning, before breakfast, I spent some time writing about the previous day, just so that I didn't forget. This is what I am sharing with you. As with many chronicles, it started off with full sentences and a lot of detail; as the days went by and the schedule got busier (and I got lazier!) the sentences fractured into bullet-points, the little details which are the first things to be forgotten vanished, but I did manage to put down something for nearly the entire trip.

Here is Day One, my arrival in Thanjavur.

A Royal Musical Feast

Allow me to take you to Trivandrum.  It is the capital of Kerala, the slender state that stands tall along India’s south-west coast. I love it for everything that my home, New York, is not. It is a world away from the grey skies and cold winds, the fast-paced life, the general over-sizedness of New York, where I live. Unlike so many Indian cities that seem to fizz and soar and sprout and sputter like an assortment of mutant firecrackers, Trivandrum has remained itself, largely unruffled by the winds of change gusting through its sister cities.

Just Another New York Sunday

I love New York City with a passion, but as happens in any love affair, there are times when I cannot stand the place and wonder why I continue to live in this maddening city with its myriad aggravations. Just the other day, I had occasion to visit friends in a nice clean suburban place that had nice broad roads on which everybody drove nicely, and nice orderly supermarkets with nice wide aisles and nice ample parking. How nice it would be to live here, I thought, stretching out in a nice big room that looked out over a nice empty street. By the end of the day I had had my fill of niceness and was ready to embrace my beloved, mad, messy, noisy, crazily chaotic New York all over again.

 

Kolly Goes Bolly

Some weeks back, thanks to a warm introduction from a friend, I was invited to write an article for Swarajya Magazine. I accepted eagerly; a little over eagerly, perhaps, because, after all, this was the present-day incarnation of the legendary weekly with a storied history. No less a person than the great C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), a man of soaring intellect and integrity, was deeply involved with and has written for this publication in India's heady post-Independence years. So it was only natural that I accepted the assignment with keen delight. Just give me the word, and I will write about anything you want me to, I said breezily, and the next day the word arrived.

And Now For Something A Bit Different

I love it when boundaries are blurred, worlds bleed into each other, stereotypes are shattered. This is life, as it should be - vibrant, dynamic, curious, seeking and journeying to new destinations, open, embracing. I suppose it is comforting to erect barriers, to pigeonhole identities, to surround ourselves with people whose ideas, ideals, interests and beliefs align with ours. But that is so boring, so limiting. And even if that is what we want, situations and events have a habit of finding and wandering down unusual pathways. Life likes to toss things around and mix them up and and then sits back and enjoys a quiet chuckle at the resulting spectacle.

A Seen Sequence

 Our paths had crossed more than 35 years ago, in that “I know who she is but she has no idea who I am” sort of a way. Malavika Sarukkai, a Bharata Natyam dancer of extraordinary grace and intelligence who has walked hand-in-hand for over four decades with this ancient dance on mesmerizing and exhilarating journeys through tradition and innovation.  And I.

 

Shopping for Liquid Gold

No, not that gold. Let me state outright that I loathe gold and jewelry. Apparently that makes me a deviant weirdo, but so be it. I do not wear - and never did - a thaali, the gold chain and special pendant that every self-respecting married Tamil Hindu woman is supposed to proudly adorn herself with. Having anything hanging around my neck makes me ill-tempered, I told my husband in the heady early days of our courtship, the ideal time to sneak in such notions; besides, I saw no reason why I should wear a symbol of being married while my husband was not similarly obliged.

Of Lost Wax and Found Beauty

I was a mere five hour drive away from Madras and yet I felt as if I had time-traveled into another world and era, to a place where South India, as I saw it in my mind’s eye, still survived, gentle, calm, awash in devotion and tradition. I was in and around Thanjavur and the Kaveri River delta, and why was it a surprise that I felt this way, because life here seems to belong to another age, to move to a different rhythm. This land, this river, this city, these environs, had, for several centuries, been the jewel in the crown of the great Chola Empire. The winds of history have tempered its eminence, and this region is now quietly content to lie in fame’s shadow, to surrender its position of celebrity to the younger, brasher, livelier, more prominent and influential seat of authority to the north, Madras.

Tales From My 'Hood

 

This post is going to seem pointless and meandering. Like a crazy summer bee, it will buzz around, dipping into the graphic arts, whizzing distractedly through what might be called, if one were inclined to be polite about it, a poem, humming alongside a few photographs, and then finally fizzling to a close in a thicket of prose and Shakespearean verse.

However, I assure you, that there is a message in the madness. A purpose to the perambulations. A reason for the rhymes, a goal for the graphics.

I’m sorry. I get absorbed by alliterations at times.

This is an ode to my home, Harlem. I know what you’re thinking. Harlem? She’s going to be shot dead any day! We knew she was crazy, but not so crazy as to live in the Crime Capital of the Universe!  She should just cut her losses and leave! To that I say, to borrow a byline from a bordering borough, Brooklyn (that will be the last of the alliterations, I promise),

 

Fuhgeddaboutit!!

So just relax, and allow me to take you  on a merry romp through psychology, history, literature and more; running through the narrative is a glittering thread that stitches together South India and Harlem.

 

A Salon Blossoms in Harlem

By day - and often also by night - they are mathematicians, doctors, scientists, researchers, engineers, bankers, students of an exhilarating array of disciplines that probe the vast arc of human interests and scholarship, from Sanskrit to creative writing to spinal cord regeneration to economic policy. And in the precious nooks and crannies, the cracks and crevices of their spare time, a whole other side blossoms into being: that of singers, dancers, writers, poets, actors and artists. They yearn for their yin to harmonize with their yang, for their right brain to achieve balance and symmetry with their left. They seek to synchronize their creative impulse with their logical and rational selves and send shoots and leaves and tendrils towards the heavens to capture the ethereal and elusive pleasures of sunshine and light while putting down roots that snuggle securely into the comfortable security of soil and earth.

Of Red Earth and Pouring Rain

It is after a lengthy break that I am back. I will not bore you with the many reasons for my absence, other than to assure you that many - most - of those reasons are irreproachable and would find a sympathetic ear with even the sternest of school teachers. Since I am far removed from the world of school teachers this fact is of no relevance whatsoever. What is of relevance, perhaps, is the blog post that follows. For those of you, if indeed you even exist, who greeted my return with euphoria, expecting to read one of my mad tales or music reviews or travelogues, I am afraid that I have to warn you to to be prepared to be hit on the head with a sledgehammer. What follows is a densely detailed account of the history and development of Tamil Literature.

No, I am not joking.

If you were wondering what the title of the post has to do with Tamil Literature, it is from a lovely poem from the Sangam-era work of poetry, the Kurontokai.  Here is A.K. Ramanujan's exquisitely evocative transalation:

What could my mother be to yours?

What kin is my father to yours anyway?

And how did you and I meet ever?

But in love our hearts are as red earth and pouring rain:

mingled beyond parting.

 

Meanwhile, in a Small Sliver of South India...

Last evening, my husband and I were at the Asia Society in New York, to attend a reading and performance by William Dalrymple and Vidya Shah and her orchestra. This event was arranged in conjunction with the Society’s current exhibit on Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857. The evening was, for the most part, interesting and entertaining. Dalrymple’s narrative, drawn largely from his book, The Last Mughal, was studded with entertaining anecdotes that brought his characters to life. Vidya Shah complemented and supplemented his stories with songs and poetry from the great and little-known poets and songsters of that era.

The Highway Poet

Somewhere down the serpentine labyrinth that is the organization chart of the National Highways Authority of India is a little box that is an offshoot of the Department of Highway Safety. This box is the proud bearer of the title “Couplets and Proverbs Division (L&T K-W)”. It has a single employee, a long-haired, dreamy-eyed, thickly bespectacled youth, the nephew of the Chairman of the Department of Highway Safety (S-India). This young lad, who had been a gentle, sweet-natured child, the kind parents pointed out to their boisterous offspring as a shining example of what they ought to be like, created a major commotion in his family when he declared that he wanted to study Literature in college. He displayed a firmness and refusal to budge from his position that were in complete contrast to the gentle, pliant nature of his early years. His family, peopled thus far exclusively with engineers and doctors, were just recovering from the shock of the renegade’s announcement when he sent them reeling afresh with a further declaration that it was his intention to become a Poet. He would kill himself, he threatened, if anybody tried to prevent him from achieving his goal.

A Tree in the Forest

I visit Madras from New York several times a year, to meet family, to reclaim my Indianness, to realign an off-kilter inner compass. While some things take more adjusting to than others, driving a car is not among them. I slip seamlessly from driving on the right side of the road to driving on the left side, from diligently following road signs and signals to regarding them as mere helpful suggestions, from dodging a crazed Chinese food delivery bicyclist pedalling maniacally in the wrong direction against a stream of outraged New Yorkers driving maniacally in the other direction to squeezing past a wall of sputtering auto-rickshaws  and rumbling buses and the assorted animals and birds who share the road with the craziest variety of vehicles I have seen.

The Poetic Landscapes of Tamil Nadu

Covering an area of over 130,000 square kilometers, India’s southern-most state has a variety of landscapes, terrains and habitats. There are beautiful, wave-lapped golden beaches and emerald green paddy fields; lush tropical forests and cool mountain ranges. There is a staggering variety of flowers, trees, birds, mammals, marine life, insects and reptiles, a nature-made counterpoint to the cultural and historical riches of the state. It is mineral-rich, with abundant reserves of lignite, quartz, feldspar, bauxite, limestone, graphite and granite. 

A Few Thousand Words

For Kanchipuram, City of a Thousand Temples.

Kailasanathar Temple

Flanked by its belt of defensive jungles is that city
Whose doors are never closed to those who seek the prize
Lovely like the pericarp of the many-petalled lotus
The navel of the dark-hued Lord.....

(From the Sangam poem Perumbanatruppadai, translated by N. Raghunathan)

 

Nurturing Nature

The state of Tamil Nadu rolls gently and smoothly south-westwards from Madras to Coimbatore. The terrain is mostly flat, save the occasional hills that rise and fall like soft sighs. The scenery is vintage South India: emerald green paddy fields, lush groves of banana and coconut, clumps of tall, dust-kissed trees. It is a landscape of timeless beauty, soothing and serene, and of all the beautiful places in the world, it is this that ignites a spark deep in my heart, that whispers to me, you are home.

From Court to Concert Hall: The Evolution of Carnatic Music Performance

Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth and strong,
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.
Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy

It is a well known fact that humans have a tendency to view the past through rose-tinted lenses. It is also well known that we dislike most change and are convinced that anything new, anything that is a radical departure from a tried-and-tested way of doing things, has to be treated with suspicion and derision. This is no less the case with Carnatic music, where we have convinced ourselves that its history and evolution from the days of the Sama Veda was one long, glorious golden period of old-fashioned courtesy and graciousness in which its composers and practitioners had but the noblest of intents, were motivated by the highest spiritual values, cared for nothing but the purest musical ideals. Thoughts of money - that crass, degrading, immoral commodity- never entered their minds. And then, alas, this ideal state of affairs crumbled to an ignominious end with the winds of change that gathered force and struck at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Infinite Beauty

On the last Tuesday of January 1913, on a clear, cold winter’s morning in Cambridge University in England, a 35 year old mathematician of rapidly growing fame and esteem opened a letter. The letter, thick and unwieldy, bore the grime and wear-and-tear of a long journey, and a ragged line of stamps, unfamiliar and exotic. It started with the words, “Dear Sir, I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras on a salary of only £20 per annum............”

Love Thy Neighbor

When you have been involved with something for most of your life, you come to recognize this: the longer the relationship, the more things there are that you realize you do not know. And also: you can meet some people every day, for years on end, share laughter, tears and memories with them, live right next door to them, but there are aspects and areas of their lives that remain complete mysteries to you, lived behind doors that only a select few people have the keys to. Let me explain. 

The Street Wall Journal

For as long as I can remember, the walls abutting the streets of my beloved Madras have been a canvas, a battleground, for all manner of posters, paintings and graffiti. Depending on my inclination and mood for the moment, I viewed those walls as riotously colorful, madly imaginative,often hilarious representations of the city's political and entertainment landscape, or as messy, garish, tasteless eyesores that defaced every inch of blank wall space. One look at those walls, and you got an instant picture - literally - of who was in power, and who was vying for it, with political party members and supporters falling over themselves to outdo one another in their fawning, often ridiculous depictions of their political leaders. Come election time, the poster madness rose to a fever-pitched frenzy, and they were often the only means by which many of the city's residents were made aware of who the candidates were, and what party they represented. Movie stars, gods and goddesses, mythological demons and revered, long-dead heroes of yore, all made their appearance on the walls of Madras, taking these already larger-than-life candidates into the glorified realms of the divine, the super-hero and the noble, or the vile, despicable and beastly. In America, television is the primary medium for election campaigning. In Madras, it was the walls.

A Junkie and a Monkey

Here is the Ramayana on drugs. It is a far cry from the black and white world of the evil Ravana and the squeaky-clean Rama, the pious Sita and loyal Hanuman. A Ramayana where a lustful Ravana, burned out on angel dust, kidnaps Sita, his mind clouded over by passion and desire. Where Rama and Lakshmana, wandering, frustrated and helpless up and down India looking for Sita, dull their pain with endless joints and pipes. And then Hanuman enters the story, a "hardcore ex-con tattooed" Hanuman who rallies his drugged-out monkey army with a big, happy substance abuse recovery-house reunion. What follows is a war - of monkeys and junkies, everybody high, everybody in a fog, in a fuddle, on cocaine, on LSD, a tangled disarray of tarnished minds and bodies. A war of relapsed junkies, and only Hanuman has the cure: the Sanjeevani herb.

The Lady of Many Smiles

When I was twelve years old, I came home from school one day and got the shock of my life. While getting out of the car, I saw, sitting on the veranda next to my mother, a white-clad lady who was grinning at me. That grin stopped me in my tracks. It was the sort of grin that might haunt you in a nightmare, a wolfish leer, a flash of over-sized, protruding teeth, sinister and chilling. A shiver ran down my spine.And then, as I stepped closer and saw who it was, I relaxed, and both of us started laughing. We laughed till tears ran down our cheeks, as we clutched at our sides and gasped for air. She cocked an eyebrow in inquiry, and I shook my head emphatically, no. 

Tales of the Seven Pagodas

Legions of giggling schoolchildren, high-spirited college students, trysting lovers, coy honeymooners, and tourists, both frivolous and serious, have traveled the 60 odd kilometers from Madras to Mamallapuram. I have made the trek, too, several times, in all these capacities, the first over four decades ago.

The Abode of the Virgin Goddess

The Call of the South: Part Three: Kanyakumari

 It is impossible to write a simple and straightforward account of anything in India. Say you want to write about a place. You start gathering your information, your memories, your thoughts. And you find you have stepped into Looking Glass Land, a mare’s nest of goddesses, demons and kings, ancient travelers, age-old feuds and modern politicians. The strangest of bedfellows clamor for your attention, and you cannot afford to ignore or dismiss any of them. You have mythology rubbing shoulders with history.  You have to consider politics, religion, culture, science and economics, each with its attendant brood of issues and points of contention. The past and the present are inseparably intertwined. You step back and view this lively patchwork, this teeming tapestry. And you say, wow.

The Call of the South - Part Two

National Highway 47 and Suchindram

The distance from Trivandrum to the temple town of Suchindram on the promisingly named National Highway 47 is barely 50 miles. This is the deep south of India. The land of gently swaying coconut palms and emerald green paddy fields, red earth and sea-misted air. 

The Call of the South

Part One: Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Trivandrum

How quickly one goes from complaining about the cold to complaining about the heat! It had been barely a few dozen hours earlier that we had moaned about the New York winter, unfolding with cruel frigidity and stretching endlessly ahead while our eyes gazed blearily at the bleak, wind-whipped, snow-swept landscape all around, draped in monotones of white, gray and brown.

The Science of the Kolam

 

 

Let me begin with a doff of the hat to the Math and Science Gene (MSG). He has marched tirelessly through countless generations of my family, far, far back into the cobwebbed recesses of ancestral lore and memory. He has worked hard, ceaselessly, relentlessly, without ever skipping a single progeny of my clan. To be sure, there were some dangerously close brushes with the Lunatic Gene (LG) (known in polite circles as the Quirky Gene), but the MSG always prevailed, always managed to nudge the LG, that over-ambitious and irreverent upstart, aside. In a daring attempt at a coup, the Slothful Gene once ventured to sabotage an entire sub-branch of my family, but the MSG pulled them out of that potential morass, that almost-blight on the family name, by sheer force of will.

Weaving a Tale: Of Istria and South India

Indulge me for a little while as I lay out for you a few threads of history. They will seem to have nothing to do with one another – for how can it be possible that little-known Istria, and the glamorous and lovely Venice, and ruthlessly cold-blooded Dalmatian pirates, and just-as-equally ruthless and cold-blooded merchants, and pepper, cloves, ginger and cinnamon, and South India, be connected in any way? Restrain your impatience, hold your sharp comments, and allow me to assure you that they are, as I pick up the threads and weave my story. I have to confess that since my own knowledge of the facts is a bit shaky I will avoid too many details which might maroon me in treacherous waters, and merely skim the surface to present to you – tada!! – the Istria-South India connection, as a preamble to my account of my time in Istria - Groznjan in particular - which will follow.

The Journey of Bharata Natyam

 

 
Nataraja, Musee Guimet,  Paris

Many, many years ago, in a world filled with bitterness, greed, jealousy and ugliness, the people of the earth yearned for something beautiful and enchanting, a thing of grace and wonder that would cut through the gloom and chaos and light up their world. In despair, they approached Brahma the Supreme Creator and begged him to create something that all the people could enjoy with all their senses, and that would take their minds off the wretchedness and misery of their lives.

On a Hot Day in August

A promise: this will be a brief (and hopefully painless) lesson in history. For those of you whose hearts start racing (for all the wrong reasons) and whose mouths go dry and who convulse in horror at the mere mention of history - don't worry, I understand. Memories of unendurably boring history classes are seared into my brain, to remain unerased by time or age. In school, our history "lesson" consisted of the teacher reading out, verbatim, as many pages from the history text book as she could cram into the lesson. For an entire hour, we were subjected to her low drone, completely devoid of any tonal variation. Those of us (which, on most days, was most of our small class of 12) who attempted to relieve the dreary tedium of the "lesson" by talking to our neighbors or falling asleep were made to stand on our desks for the remainder of the period. Perhaps you have similar memories of history class. So, if you fear that a short, heavily diluted (and very likely inaccurate) history lesson might do irreparable harm to your psyche, go ahead and scroll down to the pictures. I won't feel hurt.

(For a wonderful personal memoir and history of Madras, go here )

On a hot day in August (possibly July) 1639, Francis Day, an ambitious and industrious (and, some gossipy tongues maintain, a womanizing, alcoholic, gambling-addicted) employee of the English East India Company, set off on a voyage down the Coromandel Coast of India in search of a suitable piece of land for a textile factory. He went with the blessings and high hopes of his boss, Andrew Cogan, who was the Chief of the Machilipatnam factory.

A Matter of Taste

"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness": Pablo Picasso

The town of Suchindram is in the far south of Tamil Nadu, a mere blink of an eye from Kanyakumari, the Land’s End of India. It is a morning’s (or afternoon’s) drive from Kerala’s capital, Trivandrum, past the chaotic jumble of its outskirts, through dusty, potholed roads and bustling villages and sudden glimpses of a landscape of breathtaking beauty. All around Suchindram is the South India of one’s dreams: dense banana groves, swaying coconut trees, paddy fields ploughed by sloe-eyed oxen, the fertile land a glossy, emerald green as far as the eye can see.