the people, yes, the people

The flight from Chennai back to Denver takes about 27 hours, including layovers. The Lufthansa flight left at 2:00 am on Thursday and, through the wonder of the earth's rotation, I arrived in Colorado at 4:00 pm that afternoon. "So who knows where the time goes," as Judy Collins once sang (well she undoubtedly sang it more than once." On the plane I was adding to my journal and reading over some of the entries remembering the people walking around the Golden Lotus tank at the temple to Meenakshi in Madurai. And then changing planes, other people (carrying more stuff but not necessarily more joy) likewise walking or jogging to their next destination. The same? Different? Seems to me much more the same than different. On my last night, I was invited to dinner by one of my son Tom's colleagues, Dorairaj, who works in Chennai. We had idly, chutney, and a number of dishes whose names I was only becoming familiary with. Dorairaj had spent some months working in Colorado...I can only hope our hospitality and welcome to those travelling among us is as full and generous as that of the people I met in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

High courts...last day in Chennai

So on this last day, I took a rickshaw to the High Court...the British temple to the law that was intended to rival the temples that previous empires had left over the landscape of Tamil Nadu. And like those temples, the high court was filled with people seeking justice, seeking favors, lawyers in black robes sipping coffee in the courtyards jammed with motocycles, judges sitting on high benches, scribes typing documents, messangers carrying bundles of papers from courtroom to advocates' offices. Above all the tall domes and the spires of the dark red brick buildings, their wide stairways and columns reaching above the trees. In contrast, the rickshaw driver's home (he invited me since we'd been together all day and we needed a break from the heat) was small, a few rooms on the bottom story of a very old house, his two boys, one girl, one nephew, wife, wife's father, wife's sister living in a configuration that was hard to discipher. Temples and people, warm, good hearted people, living on little...some impressions of a last day in India, at least for this time around.

and back to the city....

Took a flight this morning back to Chennai, a sprawling, fast paced world metropolis. Waiting to board the plane, I realized I was the only "non Indian" in the quiet waiting area. But one of my seatmates on the hour long trip was an Indian woman from South Africa. Her great grandfather had migrated from Tamil Nadu (she still speaks some Tamil) and she comes back to visit from time to time in part, she said, "because the shopping is so good." And my other seatnate (three abreast but we all liked to talk) was an Indian living in Malayasia whose grandfather had migrated from Kerala. He had come to spend some time with a friend who had "moved back" after a generation. A pilot for Malayasia Airlines, he commented critically on the bumpiness of our approach to the city. I was by far not the only "foreigner" on the flight...I just happened to look more Norweigan than most.

On the bus

So I start the journey back: to Fort Cochin, to Chennai, to Frankfort, to Detroit (Detroit??), to Denver, to Fort Collins. Several forts in there...part of the history of groups taking over land from other groups. I rode the bus back to Fort Cochin this morning, discovering a litle of how it works for a bus driver. One principle is "use al the road", that is, even though there are only two lanes, there is room for three vehicles or more abreast of one another. Two buses, for example, going the same or opposite directions plus a car or several rickshaws or multiple motorcycles. A second principle is "look for an opening" and head for it. This is about finding space for one's own vehicle, but also leaving just enough space for other vehicles to squeeze past (though they might have to give onto the side of the roadway (usually no "shoulder"). And another is "use the horn" for warning, for bringing notice to yourself, for letting someone know you are passing, about to pass or have just passed. And a fourth is "bulk," the bigger you are the more road you can command. When the road is clear, a bus or car will tend to drive down its center, allowing space for the motorcycles and rickshaws and bikes and people on foot on both sides. It is not blind obediance to some set of abstract government regulations, it is a kind of ballet of multiple players, a continual flow of movement and rhythm. Yet I have seen many fewer accidents than in Fort Collins in the space of these three weeks. It must have to do with focus...drivers are very focused on the dance. They are not sipping lattes and answering the phone...they watch the road carefully. And also as an Indian pointed out, "Don't worry, the finger of God is on it."

Colors

We came upon a wedding at a temple on our way to the snake temple. It was a midmorning break from the canals, the canoes, the ayurvedic massages and the black tea. We (an Italian traveller and myself) got there as the bride and groom were being arrayed with differing combinations of parents, siblings, cousins for the videographer. The bride's hair was full of flowers, white flowers, trailing down the back of her red sari, her gold bracelets, necklaces, hip necklaces, anklets, earings, shining brightly. The stone gods at the snake temple also bore the color of gold, but it was offerings of tumeric poured over each of them. Thousands of statues of shiva being protected by the snake, sometimes just the cobras themselves. They represent donations by persons cured of snake bite by doing puja at the temple or from women whose barreness was ended by a pilgrimage.