p.r.bullen - travelogue

Part 3: Kanchipuram & Madras

Kanchipuram is one of the seven sacred cities of India. I've already been to Varanasi (Benares), the most well known, so only 5 to go. The big thing here to see is temples, surprise surprise. The real surprise is their entrances. Like most temples in south India, you can't go all the way into the sanctum sanctorum, but you can get into the main compound. The gates, however, are unreal. They're in the Dravidian style, as described above, successively smaller layers of columns and platforms, all dripping with carvings, statues, etc. What is amazing is how many layers there are, and how high they go.

First we went to a couple on the way across town to see one in particular. They had the very high entrance gate. Inside, a large compound (generally with a water tank with steps all around it off to the side of the compound). The second really different thing with the temples here is the sanctuary: large platform about a yard or two high, on which are up to 100's of pillars holding up the roof, another 2-stories above that. Lots of cool shade, lots of pillars to hold holy carvings & statues. When we got to the first one, a big ceremony was just finishing, Brahmins (wearing their holy string) everywhere, pilgrims, locals, music on drums and some stringed instrument. The next was much the same, but less memorable, and then we made it to the temple that we'd particularly been interested in seeing.

By this point, the car had begun to make rather horrible noises every time we hit a bump (read: constantly), (this was no doubt due to the drivers "brakes are good but horn is better" attitude to traffic, pedestrians, bumps, cows, dogs, birds, dust, empty stretches of highway, pretty girls, busy villages, and anything else he encountered) but we insisted on getting to the temple.

Just as well, as it closed up just as we finished looking it over! A very small temple, not in any particular style that I can name, entirely enclosed in a fort-like wall (not too high) with cow statues on the top. The inside of the wall was made up of meditation chambers, small bare cells big enough to sit cross legged, set sideways so you'd be looking at the back of the next meditation cell. More than any others we saw, it seemed a complete whole. Nothing much of particular interest, other than what I've mentioned, but very quite & peaceful and a sense that it was as it should be, neither more nor less. Lovely.

As if to highlight the serenity and integrity of the temple, we spent the next hour and a half sitting around as they welded the undercarriage of the car back together and passing school children shouted "hello! one pen!" at us. That complete, we went to lunch.

After lunch, off to one last temple -- the biggest and best gate of any we'd seen so far. It was freshly painted white, and had 9 levels (not counting the 2-1/2 story high entrance gate) reaching up as high as an 8 to 10 story building. (is that right? 8 to 10 story? maybe.) The entire edifice was literally dripping, yes dripping, with statues. [I was just looking at the pictures; no there were MORE statues than I'd thought, now that I look at a close-up I took with a zoom lense!]

We were followed around by a very serious bespectacled little boy, about 14 years old. A tout claimed the place was closed. I asked the boy, who (carefully standing behind the tout) shook his head in disagreement to this claim. We went in. Sure enough, the central courtyard was closed to us (not to locals) but would open... for a price. Didn't pay, having seen enough through the gate, but walked around the outer courtyard, basically just agog at the size of the main entrance gate. The lad answered a few questions; I took his picture. Nice kid.

Now, off to Madras with our maniacal driver (actually, a recent university graduate in engineering, but unable to find work. His copilot & brother is a professional driver and was training our kamikaze-I-mean-chauffeur. See these white hairs?...) Checked into a nice hotel and had a dip in the pool.

The next day Aingeal had to visit another NGO. Afterwards, we lunched with the NGOs Director & her husband at the Madras Club, a Raj-era country club with waiters who have all been working there at least since the end of the Raj... A nice meal and interesting conversation. After lunch, off to the train station for another overnighter to Trivandrum (AKA Thiruvananthapuram), in Kerala.

Part 3: Kanchipuram & Madras