Saturday, June 18, 2005

Polysyllabic unpronouncablity

The south of the country prefers long words. Far from the urban centres of Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur, the further you head south, the higher the possibility you can not pronounce the name of the town you are visiting. Mamallapuram, Chidabaram, Thiruvanathapuram. Today I am in Thiruchirapalli. But I can't say that.

Next there are the languages of the south. Tamil dominates, and it is beyond my understanding how anyone could master this tongue as a second language. Vanakkan (Hello) seems easy enough, but 'When does the next bus arrive' demands 'Eppozhutu atutta perunta varum.' I cannot memorise this. Who can?

To make things more interesting for the traveller, few signs are in English and few people speak the language of the colonisers well enough for more than very basic communication. However, Southerners are a particularly friendly bunch, and to make youself understood, you need but master one thing: the Indian head wobble.

While Australians - and the British are to blame for this - are as animated as a lump of plasticene, Indians have somehow inherited distinctly Mediterranean characteristics. They cannot whisper. They prefer to shout. They point profusely, wildly gesticulating like lunatics. When speaking, you must do the side-to-side head wobble and intermittently utter the nasal 'aah'. Try it for yourself.

With your neighbour, in your best Indian persona, ask for directions to a hotel. See, easy. I bet you even said something along the lines of 'Can you please be telling me ..' And it works. I've mastered it.

Long ago I dispensed with such verbal caresses as 'Excuse me' or 'Please'. They are as pointless and unproductive in India as waiting in a queue. Just as you need to push your way to the Information and Ticket-cum-Full Time Refund Counter [sic] at the train station to be served before late next year, a bullish approach to linguistic intercourse is mandatory.

Study the two examples below (between myself and shopkeeper at bus stand), noting subtle differences.

Case 1

'Where is the Hotel Diamond?'

'Ah'

'Hotel Diamond?'

'Ah' [Produces packet of Marlboro Lights]

'No. Hotel Diamond.'

'Ah'

Case 2

'Where is the Hotel Diamond?' [Head wobbling and left-handed palm-flipping action]

'Ah' [Enthusiastic wobbling of head]

'Hotel Diamond?'[Exaggerated head wobble]

'Ah' [Emphatic head wobble, displaying packet of Marlboro Lights]

'No. Hotel Diamond' [Involuntary jerking of entire cranium]

'Ah' [Single head wobble combined with outstretched arm pointing to mass of seething traffic]

The system is eons old and highly effective. It opens doors.

On my (forever hopeful) way to the (possibly imaginary) Hotel Diamond, I was lucky enough to step ankle-deep into an open sewer-cum-repulsive-collection of muck. Why I was wearing socks with my sandals that day was beyond me, but I kicked off whatever sludge clung to my right foot, and checked the rising bile in my throat.

After a few more moments of congratulating myself on another successful communication barrier broken by a former language student, I slumped into my room at the Hotel Anand.

Unfortunately, I've still no idea where the Hotel Diamond is located.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Touched

Pondy, as the locals call it, it a two hour bus journey from Mamallapuram, and a former French colony. Unlike other locales across Asia claiming Gallic ancestry, Pondicherry certainly looks the part. It boasts a Hôtel de Ville, a few Jesuit-inspired cathedrals, and tree-lined avenues with architecture that transports you to 'le Midi'. As a native of Adelaide, a carefully planned city of right angles and parks, I felt an immediate connection to the colonial planners of Pondy who saw fit to design their city that I might navigate it sans map. I was able to find my way around easily enough, acquiring a room for the night proved a little more irksome.

The Surya Swastika Guesthouse and a few others in the neighbourhood were booked out. The marriage of a prominent person was scheduled that evening, and with the Indian practice of inviting every man, and cow to partake of the festivities, lodging was going to be scarce.
Recognising my plight, I smoked a couple of ciggies and realised that only one creature could help me. The rickshaw driver. Omnipresent on the subcontinent, the rickshaw-wallah is perceived by me as a necessary evil used as seldom as possible. They sum up the least tolerable aspects of travelling. I long ago resigned myself to their cheating, lying and fraudulent business practices. They are good for only two things. The first is that as a lone male traveller, they can supply you with any manner and quantity of illicit substances. Secondly, some speak passable English - all know the phrase, 'You want hashish?' - and to be fair, they are the only people around who know exactly where to find you a vacant hotel room. My driver whisked me off through the streets to the Park Guest House for a hefty sum. I threw in a generous tip for not offering me drugs.

The Hotel is part of the Sri Aurobindo ashram. No smoking, no drinking of alcohol. No eating of meat. The gates close at 10:30 pm. The room was vast, clean, and from the balcony I could see small waves crashing onto the shore lined with coconut palms. A quick shower and I went out for a look around. A promenade along the foreshore, I turned inland and marvelled at the number of bookshops. Temptation was too great.

I purchased four new books, and wondered how I was going to pack them into my luggage along with the thirteen currently in my possession. I obviously have issues with books, and can rarely bring myself to discard them. The usual practice is to swap tomes with other travellers. But there are no other travellers in the south of India, or at least, it's been some time since I crossed one. The only Westerner I've spoken with of late was a fellow Australian who boasted that he hadn't read a book in ten years. I think it was more likely ten years since his last trip to a dentist, but I kept my mouth shut.

Excited with my new purchases, I put the groaning backpack out of my mind and strolled into the building next door. Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Mass was about to commence. I took my place in the pew and hoped that I didn't stand out as a Protestant heretic.
Mass was off to a riveting start. Some taped music wafted through loudspeakers, fans hummed above my head. The church was a huge affair. Built in the medieval French style, the Indians have added a dash of colour. From the cupola hang enormous swathes of gold and white ribbon. A multi-coloured heraldic banner lined the nave and transept, and to the right of the altar sits a massive Byzantine icon of Virgin Mary with Jesus, in vivid poster paint.

A splash of gold. A lot of emerald green. A lot of chartreuse. Mountains of pink and blue tulle adorned statues of the saints. Perhaps not subtle, but considerably more inviting than the stark beige brick edifice I worshipped in as a child. Catholicism has a touch of frivolous glamour, at least to us puritans. I also like that fact that Mass includes vigorous exercise. As a youngster in church, I used to fall asleep either pondering the possibilities of Lego or novel ways to taunt my sisters, but here my time was more profitably used. Sitting, standing, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting. No time for idle thoughts, and quite a good cardio-vascular workout. The service was conducted entirely in Tamil (except for the words 'empower me' uttered sporadically by the Father). I hummed along merrily to hymns, and hoped that, should the organist break in to 'When the Saints Go Marching In', I would outdo them all. It wasn't to be, but after Mass finished and the crowd filtered out the church, the priest came over for a chat.

'Are you Christian?'

'Yes, Father.'

'You had your hat on during Mass.'

Bugger.

'Sorry, I forgot. You see, it's always ...'

'Who is your patron saint?'

Thinking caps on ...

'Christopher. Patron saint of travellers.'

'Do you want to go to confession?'

The crunch. Confession is not something I've ever done. It didn't exist at the suburban Church of Christ I knew as a child, and my only understanding I have of it comes from observing tele-movies about the impoverished bog Irish.

'Yes.'

At least I knew how to start.

'Forgive me father for I have sinned.'

'Yes'

The floodgates opened. I don't by any measure consider myself a bad person, but what a relief to unload a whole bunch of stuff onto a complete stranger. Of course, I'm not going to detail them all here, but Father Peter took them all in his stride, and seemed to agree with me that rickshaw drivers, on the whole, are heretics doomed to the eternal fires of Hell.

Given enough time, it's amazing what you can dig up. I told him how badly I used to treat my sisters, charging them money to borrow my tape-recorder. I'm fairly sure I didn't share my Lego with them either. And I used to cheat at Monopoly when playing with my then six year old younger sister. I'm not sure he realized that these sins were twenty-five years in the past, but he seemed to think also that Lego was a marvellous invention.

We slid from confession to therapy. I recounted a few appalling things I did in my twenties, exorcised some long held thoughts about my own father (small 'f'), and rattled on about my inexplicable enmity toward junk food and indolence. I finished with a small tirade about my inability to express emotion - he disagreed and thought I had plenty of interesting emotions.
He doled out some homework and sent me back to the altar, where, for the first time in living memory, I kneeled down and prayed. Not sure I how got myself in this position (not the kneeling, that was easy enough), but it actually felt very good. I prayed for half an hour and in some way felt a lot lighter when I stood up.

I wandered back to the ashram and sat on the balcony. On the lawn below, a twenty-something neophyte of Sri Aurobindo dressed in flowing white cottons entertained me with an eclectic mix of jazz ballet, chanting, and violent aerobic movements. As a lapsed Protestant sitting in an ashram after attending Catholic mass, I smile beatifically.

India is a marvellous place. They might stare at you for wearing shorts, but you can believe in whatever you want. As long as you possess faith in something, you'll fit in quite nicely.

Monday, June 06, 2005

De profundis

India, combined with my abundant stupidity, can make for an interesting day.

After a couple of hours scrawling postcards and aerogrammes for family and friends, I headed out into the scorching heat of Mamallapuram in search of shade, sea breeze, a quiet spot to finish my novel. My path took me through seventh century carvings of the Pallava dynasty to a tranquil, deserted temple cut into a towering monolith of granite. Hanuman monkeys were my only companions, going about their business in the branches of enormous neem trees. Few people passed my way, and I was left to enjoy the final chapters of my book, now and then pausing to look up and exchange a few words with various characters - sellers of cucumbers, mangoes, beads and trinkets.

Novel finished, I walked slowly down the sloping rockface and headed towards the bus stand, stopping at a drink stall-cum-stationery shop to purchase new pens. Here I made the error of placing my notebook and digital camera on a pile of books to my right while browsing among journals and text pads. Transaction completed, and of course, camera no-where to be seen.
Disappointed? Yes. Four hundred irreplaceable shots from the previous 1200 kilometres of towns and cities: the beaches of Goa, the teeming crowds of Bangalore, markets in Chennai and the numerous temples, carvings and people of Mamallapuram. Gone.

I sighed. It was 40 degrees. Under my synthetic shirt a sweat-soaked singlet clung to my skin. Flying insects were at their most manic and dust clogged my mouth, nose, nostrils. Judging the looks of those around me, I believe I entered a type of trance - foaming at the mouth, incoherent babbling, eyes rolled back until only whites showed in the sockets. Possessed by neither demon nor deity, indeed, possessing only the maximum amount of idiocy ever doled out to an individual, I couldn't accept that I had allowed Robbery No. 2 on this journey to take place.

I have travelled enough to avoid this kind of thing. My ineptitude today was suddenly making the contestants of Big Brother appear as interesting, sentient beings.

I expelled the demons and tried to make it clear to the concerned onlookers I blamed no-one for the incident. This is a very small neighbourhood and many of the town's inhabitants know me either by sight or name, in particular those with businesses around the vicinity of the bus stand. My thrice daily glass of rose milk and cigarette purchases are with Krishna on the southern end of the square, I drink chai with Praveen and his avuncular mates next door, eat my daily fill from the inappropriately named Hotel Deluxe. Rickshaw drivers have established a love-hate relationship with me, and from between their parked vehicles I buy luscious diesel-infused mangoes from a toothless sari-clad crone each morning.

Until now, I was certain the only thing they knew about me was my age and my unmarried status. It wouldn't take long until they knew the story of the disappearing camera. I didn't want them to think me mid-thirties, unmarried ... and stupid. And I have no intention of reversing my hereto successful integration programme. I was relieved when the shop owner himself suggested I take my grievance to the police.

Law enforcement officers of the third world are reputed to be corrupt and ineffectual, brutally wielding their batons over the impoverished mass. I wasn't quite ready to face Indian bureaucracy at this hour and so sat under the rattling ceiling fans of the Hotel Deluxe and ate my biryani silently. A masochist at heart, I spent twenty minutes ruminating over the sad collection of chapters that constitute the book of my life. Eventually aroused from this unproductive self-indulgence by a goat, I paused to wonder if he would be on the tomorrow's menu, paid for lunch, and headed 500 metres north.

A large man with a respectfully sized paunch interrupted his text message to inquire. I briefly recounted a few facts; he wobbled his head from side to side in the Indian manner, and after a pregnant pause, instructed me to enter the building.

The station was dark and cavernous. It took a few moments to adjust my eyes. A blackboard attached to the wall of the entrance hall enumerated the yearly failures and successes of the Mamallapuram District Police Force. Murder on the wane since 1996, traffic infringements increasing. Armed robbery seems frightfully common in such a small, peaceful district. It was only as I scanned the 'Percentage of Stolen Goods Recovered' column that I came to the notice of a man laying on a wooden bench, his enormous bushy moustache meeting his thick black glass frames - think Mr Pickwick cross-dressing with Buddy Holly.

'Yes?'

'I need to report a stolen camera.'

'Why?'

I explained what I could without breaking into broken English. During the story he lay there, silent and immobile. Like a parent recounting a Grimm Brothers' tale, I wondered whether the layabout had actually gone to sleep. Still now I remain unsure, as it was another voice from behind the desk who commanded, 'Sit.'

Where? There were no other chairs around except that in the lock-up cell, presumably locked. I didn't fancy sharing the bench with Slumbering Walrus Man. I did, however, think about sitting on his head. Resigned to standing, I gave full attention to a man who seemed rather too occupied for my liking with carbon paper and small red rubber bands. I watched forlornly as trickles of sweat raced down Mr Perumal's temples, seeping into the dampness of his grimy shirt collar.
Grime was the theme of the station's inner sanctum. Walls were lined with rusty metal and shabbily-fabricated wooden shelves, brackets and joints straining under the weight of bulky, tattered ledgers. Spines and covers frayed and darkened by the handling of countless grubby hands. The concrete floor was home to burgeoning flotsam and jetsam left behind by ten thousand footsteps. Skirting boards black, and dirt working its way up, lighter now, until meeting the chipped and flaking whitewash of the walls. A collection of ham radios, amplifiers and tuners nestled beneath a bird's nest of wiring and slurry of dust.

'I need to report a stolen camera.'

'Come back 5:30. You see Inspector.'

And at 5:30,

'Come back 6:30. Inspector not here. Too much troubles today.'

At 6:45 the Inspector of Police was barking down his mobile. He was a tall imposing man with dyed hair, a toothbrush moustache and too many gold rings on sausage fingers. He didn't look like the south Indian type - his skin was too light and he seemed too arrogant. He tapped his enormous paunch while looking over his frameless spectacles and down his nose at me. I decided to hate him straight away; I thought it would save time.

He barked, 'Inside.'

He followed and directed me to his office, brightly over-lit by fluorescence that turned the space into a sea of pastel. In the luminosity his skin took on the hue of damp mushroom. His face was slightly marked from the pox and a line of sweat beads danced on his moustache which now looked pencilled on. He was the archetype Indian police officer, and I'd already encountered him in a hundred Bollywood movies while being shunted around the country on night buses.
'If you lose your camera, you should not leave it around.' His wisdom had me enthralled. I decided not to comment on his abuses of conditional phrases in the English language, and waited for him to continue. He didn't seem to be awaiting a response from me.

And I got Hamlet's Polonius.

On and on he went, a great rambling monologue. In a life absent of positive male role models, this was not one of the species I would be looking up to either. From the obvious 'You should not be leaving your items alone', to the more surreal 'If not coming from the thief, then where?', to the ridiculous 'I am thinking you not having the camera here', my mouth was agape.
He had received the story of my woes second-hand from a flunkey, but I hadn't been allowed to speak.

I wanted to yell,' Listen here you trumped-up, pig-eyed sack of shit. You might think yourself important among this band of illiterate ill-kempt subordinates who undoubtedly grovel at your feet each time you bellow some preposterously ludicrous turn of phrase, but personally, I couldn't give a flying turd.'

But managed to utter that I needed a report.

He shouted something in Tamil and a young, smartly dressed officer appeared.

'Go.' Our conversation had come to a close.

Out in the street, I discovered that Detective Rajuman spoke little English. With my complete lack of Tamil, we headed in silence to the scene of the crime. Towards the end of Raja St, I pointed out the shop where my camera had disappeared.

I felt bad. I didn't want the Detective to interrogate innocent people. I just wanted a report to make a valid insurance claim. He interviewed every one at the scene, even those absent at three thirty that afternoon. The shopkeeper, salesman, neighbouring shopkeeper and a suspicious, malodorous herd of goats were all questioned in turn. Voices rose and fell. I floundered. Not once was I asked to speak, and in true Indian fashion, a crowd formed, faces turning sporadically to impress upon me the disturbance I had created.

I had given my contact details to the shop owner as soon as I learnt of the camera's disappearance. This was now produced for examination. The crowd regrouped, more tightly this time, and I imagined amongst the throng a graphologist had metamorphosed and my poor handwriting was betraying me as a lying upstart. Nope. After roughing up the sales boy, the Detective had had enough. We returned to the station.

I sat in the Inspector's office waiting for more illuminating tripe to spew forth.

'The shopkeeper is telling me that you didn't have a camera.' [Quelle goddamn surprise]

'Yes I am having one.'

'You will petition me...' [wait for it] '... You are writing all facts, camera, name, details. You write that you leave shop. When you coming back, camera is gone.'

'Petition me.' Who do you think you are? The Mughal Emperor?

Truth. Justice. The Indian Way.

Sadly, this is not a joke. As the possibility of a valid insurance claim leapt to its untimely death, I adopted my role in the farce and fled to an Internet cafe, set upon writing the truth imbued with a massive fat lie. At least the Inspector could now downgrade the incident from one of 'stolen property' to 'valuables left unattended in a public place'. I wondered briefly if the shop owner was in cahoots with the pigs, but know now through our learned friends of 'The monk who sold his Ferrari' that I cannot allow myself even just one negative thought. It would take napalm to eradicate these ones ...

Presently I returned, and at some unforeseen moment passed from the natural, ordered world into the nebulous ether of illogical malevolence and mystical nonsense. I played the role avec brillo.

The Inspector was done with me. I shunted Sleeping Walrus from the bench. He awoke with a start, saw the wild look in the crazy foreigner's eye, and slunk away, deprived of his government-sanctioned sleep. In his place came another menial, toothless and in homespun cotton. He took my statement, and for fifteen minutes was a captive audience to my six lines of skillfully composed English, no doubt admiring gravity of tone and clarity of thought. At least someone appreciates my writing.

I looked about. All this paper. IT files, GC.K.CD files. Arms and Records Register, the Duty Register. The Village Roster and Government Property Register. Group Office and Visiting and Inspection Book. Gun License and Registration Books, Arms Deposit Ledger. Arms Distribution Ledger. The paperless office in the subcontinent is still some years away. As is a society without guns.

Then solemnly, 'Your good name?'

'What?'

'Your good name?'

My good name is twice written on the paper you hold now, the very one which I am about to snatch from your good hands and cram into your goddamn throat until you meet your next reincarnation, buddy.

'James Heywood.'

'Your country?'

And on it went. The following minutes were tinged with violent thoughts, primarily because I had long ago met Blind Rage and was now glancing flirtatiously at her cousin, Psychotic Behaviour. I lost myself in this hot, stinking, filthy place, let it engulf me. I immersed in the subcontinental concoction of the absurd, the illogical, the meaninglessness of it all.
Question and answer time over, Mr No Teeth & White Pants handed me form number 23 stamped by the Sub Inspector of Police, E1 Mamallapuram P.S. I have to return tomorrow to collect the official certificate.

As I walked back to the entrance I took a parting glance at the blackboard brimming with statistics. The percentage of 'Recovered Stolen Property' was low in any given year. And the chance of leaving this country with my sanity appeared slimmer yet.
I exited the building and passed Inspector and Detective Rajuman smoking in the dusty courtyard.

'Thanks for your help, guys' I uttered without a second thought.

I moved slowly back to my hotel room, shuffling in my ill-fitting sandals, hoping to regain my sanity.

Unfortunately, along with my camera, it appears to have absconded permanently.