We're On the Road to Nowhere

Sign in the Blavatsky Gardens, Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai

I visited the rather non-descript, sprawling metropolis of Chennai, formerly known as Madras under the Raj, and for better and worse, it shows that India is indeed on the cusp of breaking onto the list of “developed” countries. However, this is not necessarily a good thing, culturally speaking, but that opens up quite another debate. For now, Chennai shows that India can do what all developed countries have done all too well: that is, it can make a very impersonal, generic urban spread, which has very little character and appeal on the grand-scale level, but is highly functioning with all of the prerequisites to find itself amongst the list of large, global cities. In short, besides being highly, and densely populated with Indians (population statistics vary greatly with Chennai (and the rest of India), from 6-12 million, so statistics are rather worthless when speaking of India), it is just a big, ugly generic city with cultural pockets that are interesting to visit, but I certainly wouldn’t want to live there. 

Ostensibly I went to Chennai because Gitesh, one of the other volunteers on the program, had acquired tickets for the big Mumbai Indians versus the Chennai Super Kings for the Champions League Twenty Cricket series. As Chennai is emerging as one of India’s top 3 cities, and its film industry is actually even more prolific than Bollywood’s, though hampered in audience numbers by the significantly smaller Tamil-speaking population, this was a game of local and regional pride and the fans of the Super Kings were raring to go.

As far as Cricket matches go, this one was indeed extremely exciting, coming down to the final two plays of the game. Sadly enough for the home team, Mumbai rallied in the final over, despite being down 7 wickets, to dash the hopes of the Super Kings fans with a score of 158-159 at 19.5 overs. I must say, despite being rather unimpressed by Chennai the city, I was rooting for the Tamil underdogs, so was sad to see this result. Another point of interest about going to a major sporting event in India is that there are no alcohol sales, all of the food was vegetarian, the athletes were warming up with yoga stretches on the field, and the coolest Indian music was blaring through the loudspeakers in between overs and after 4’s and 6’s were scored. They even had quite modestly clad cheerleaders, though not that the crowd needed much to be extremely fired up to play Mumbai.

Cricket matches aside, I agreed to go to Chennai for an ulterior reason as well, that being to visit the grounds of the Theosophical Society, where Krishnamurti was culled from the local boys and groomed and courted to be the emerging World Teacher.

In addition to Krishnamurti’s involvement, I have been intrigued by the Society for many years because of the link to James Joyce and Finnegans Wake. While writing his final opus, Joyce famously and infamously used and abused information from the Society’s “bible,” which was Madame Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled. In it, the very odd and eccentric Russian mystic explores the realms of, inter alia, astral planes, super-consciousness, universal souls, and the correspondences amongst the major world religions. The TS’s core mission was to create a new Theosophy based upon the rather more occult angles of the religions and to try to find the similarities rather than the differences.

The TS suffered a monumental blow to its existence when Krishnamurthi announced  that he was disbanding the movement and declared quite famously and infamously that “Truth is a pathless land...you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.” I rather agree with him, though whenever I say that it sets off bells and whistles of “you don’t like organized religion” and other tired chestnuts that really don’t add to the discussion but continue to say the same old thing. I don’t think that organized religion has any fear of my meager criticisms of it...

In going along with Krishnamurti, however, I am wont to believe that “Truth” is quite alive and kicking, but it is an organic process that continues to grow, that the path continues to be cut through the wandering dark woods, and at times, much akin to Heidegger’s concept of wood paths, we venture upon clearings of insight and meadows of clarity, which may have been made by others before us, by hook and crook, luck, or our own doing. Yet, resting upon the laurel leaves from the trees that have fallen before us and smelling the flowers after they have withered is in fact counterproductive. At times, we need to pull up camp, return to the woods, clear new pathways, meeting other travelers along the way, exchanging stories and experiences, though, ultimately, it comes down to us, and us alone.

People can tell each other “personal truths” till the Holy Cows come home, but we still must engage in the experiences of spiritual, mental, and physical development as individuals, seeking to indeed “know thyself.” Does this mean that organized religions are wrong? Absolutely not, but they may rather being serving as weigh stations for like-minded individuals who have found a similar “personal truth” that works in life. I am very hard-pressed, however, after all of my travels and encounters with people from around the world to believe that there is indeed one, single, correct path. In my mind, that just smacks of incredible human-based arrogance, control issues, and narrow-mindedness.

Is this a call for spiritual anarchy? Far from it. Do I think that no religion has tapped into the “Truth?” Again, far from it. However, I believe that we are still cobbling it together from the collective experience of personal truths, perhaps approaching the calculus of understanding, but again, along with Krishnamurti, Kant, Nietzsche, and Socrates, I believe that the true communion with the Universal Spirit, Oversoul, Godhead, Higher Power, Supreme Being, Prime Mover, God, or whatever you choose to call it, is beyond human reason and beyond human time, and beyond human concepts of the physical world.

I, for one, am pretty happy with the path that I am clearing, even if to others it appears to be going nowhere at times, as well as when I am sitting in a meadow that I have come across and sit, smelling the sweet flowers, seemingly allowing the world to speed by, not really caring that it might “leave me behind,” or even during those dark nights of the soul that challenge us so and put our true spiritual mettle to the fiery tests of confusion and delusions of ego and control, and in all of these, I believe that these comprise the collection of experience that I am able to carry along with me in my mental, spiritual, and physical backpack to make the journey more visceral, authentic, and informed.

Walking alone through the overgrown grounds of the Theosophical Society, which are on an enormous rambling, and for the most part, vacated tract of land to the southeast of Chennai, it was as though I was walking through a veritable ghost land, devoid of the eclectic activity that once flourished there, and seeing the enormous banyan tree that Krishnamurti was wont to speak under, I was glad that I had found this stopover and clearing made by others in my journey, but was happy to move on, and to then leave the masses of Chennai behind, returning to Madurai’s frenetic, though now propitiating anarchy of the senses and to its welcoming individual character, like coming back to see an old, strange friend.

See, Believe, Do

Rule Number One (and only) for India: Never say, “It can’t get more surreal than this,” because, guaranteed, within five minutes of uttering that statement, India will prove you wrong, every time.

Via via my host family, I was asked on Monday evening if I would be interested in helping out with a documentary film about the life of Edward Sargent, who was a prominent figure in the Christian missionaries of Tamil Nadu. His primary concern was education and he was highly instrumental in developing schools for the children and specifically initiated one of the first girls’ schools in the area. Currently, there are several schools named after him, including a Teachers Training school and a school for the mentally handicapped in Tirunelveli.

Although I am not a practicing Christian, I fully support its core tenets of faith, hope, and charity. I am more in line with the Vaishnavites concept that Jesus was one of the Avatars of the concept of Vishnu, the Cosmic Preserver, rather than the solitary incarnation of God. Along with Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, and other important spiritual teachers are often considered to be such avatars of this theological ideal.

Having had Sargent’s message and dedication to education explained to me, and thus knowing that he was indeed not like many of the Portuguese Missionaries in Goa, who had precipitated a nearly four-century long era of virtual prolonged inquisition and persecution, I was quite happy to join the crew. And, so the fun began.

Caroline, who is a rather well-known director, especially amongst the southern Indian Christians, is the driving force behind the project. She has filmed documentaries on various personalities ranging from prominent Indian and Sri Lankan athletes to the Christian missionaries such as Sargent. Another one of her subjects was Bishop Caldwell, who actual was the first person to compose grammar books on Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu. Caldwell, a linguistic genius to begin with, did the most obvious, yet brilliant thing. He learned these languages from the local children of the area and constructed the grammar books upon his living experiences.

Caroline and her son, Handel (the chief camera operator), both from the Palayamkottai/Tirunelveli area had a highly successful children’s show for many years that garnered up to 7 million viewers at its zenith. Glad I didn’t know those kind of numbers when I signed on!

So, Caroline and Handel were in search of “white people,” and they heard rumors about a yeti-like sighting in Madurai of a middle-aged white guy, being me, who was lurking around the highways and by-ways of the city and environs. They came to Pradeep’s house, explained the project and after a while, we shook hands and it was a go. Then on Wednesday, I was picked up by Caroline’s brother-in-law Cecil (amongst the Christian community, anlgo names are obviously more common) and his wife Asha and we drove down to the Tirunelveli area for two days of shooting.

While getting coffee on the outskirts of Madurai before our short trek southwards, Cecil was asking me about my Indian experience. I told him how incredible it has been and what an eye-opener spending time here can be. In rather typical Indian fashion, this delighted Cecil. Indians, from what I have seen, love to revel in the Chaos that is India and to by no means diminish it for foreigners, but rather to relish in its exaggeration. For them, it is just as much Chaos, but nearly it is more like a sense of national pride. The approach is so refreshing in that any pre-conceived idea of control that you may have is thrown out the window the second you step foot in India. The harder you try to resist, the more ludicrous you will become. Frustrated and annoyed, you may leave and never wish to come back.

However, Cecil’s attitude is more par for the course for Indians and one that I have tried to adopt since my arrival in Mumbai nearly five weeks ago. With a generous stroke, he summed up India as, “See, Believe, Do.”

In other words, you may hear something from someone else, such as the directions are to go South, but in reality, you are to go North. So, you need to see that for yourself. But, seeing is not enough as a government-issued signpost may tell you to go South, when you really do need to go North. So, at some point, you will need to come to a decision for yourself, and when you have Seen, then Believed which direction it is you should go, then you Do. Works for me. That pretty much ties it up in a neat package from what I have seen.

On the set, it was quite a See, Believe, Do situation. I don’t think that this deviated much from a normal movie set as I have heard plenty of such crazy stories from my sister who is in film, but everything still always has that quirky Indian twist here.

In addition then to rendering dialogues in Tamil and English, I was asked out of the blue on Wednesday, “How do you feel about horses?” “Fine, why?” Well, apparently Bishop Sargent road everywhere on a horse, so within minutes we piled back into the “I Belong to Jesus” bus, which was our transportaion, and leaving the school where we had been filming, we went to a farm outside of town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Western Ghats and in a banana grove that had been burned down (I  imagine after harvesting? Need to find out that one...), I found myself in a small derby hat, bow tie, ruffled shirt being led around on a white horse for stock footage as a couple dozen Indians looked on with great amusement as wild turkeys, goats, and chickens fluttered and frolicked around. But, then, we needed to go another Palm grove, which was down the street, so we (the horse and I, and the trainer) left the farm and went walking down the main street that runs out of town.

Well, considering I literally doubled the white population that day of the entire region. Tess, Handel’s friend from the UK who is helping on the movie, had been the only white person that she had seen there for the few weeks she has been here. As such, seeing me, perched upon a white horse in period costume, well, let’s just say it was my turn to see the Indians’ nearly drive off the road. Finally, I found something that could fluster the Indians!

I won’t lie, it was flat-out hilarious to see the faces peering out from the mini-vans filled with school children or of couples and families on motorcycles, literally craning their necks in double-takes to see if they had really just seen a big white guy on a white horse in a bow tie and a derby prancing down the street. This is the stuff of urban legends. Children two generations from now will hear about this curious apparition that nearly caused a major traffic jam as he road off into the twilight of the palm groves at the foothills of the Ghats.

In addition to the horse riding, I had to do a very ill and near-death scene, which you can see the process for below.

I would say, “it doesn’t get more surreal than that,” but, if I do, I know that India will inevitably give me another dose of reality, which is always waiting just around the corner...

The Past is Dead

Both from teaching young Madurai children about the nuances of the English language’s usage of tenses and from my own studies in Tamil since I have been here, my awareness of Time has been even more on my mind than usual. One of the quirks I “pride myself on” is that for the past thirty years or so I have not worn a watch and that with a fairly high degree of accuracy I can tell you the time within a few minutes. However, it is not necessarily that sense or tense of Time that has been on my mind, but rather the concept of beyond Time, or Infinity.

For the seventh graders we have been reviewing the Non-Finite Verbs in specific and the concept that they can be considered non-limited action with regards to person and Time. In other words, they don’t change with respect to when the action actually occurs, and as such, they are indeed beyond Time, most noticeably the Infinitive, hence the name.

English has numerous moments of intrigue when teaching it, especially when considering the native language of those who are learning it. In this case, these students are all native Tamil speakers. When I was explaining the “perfect” past participle, they seemed to have a strong curiosity about how it functions in Time. I told them that Per-fect(io) in grammar is not the same as perfect, the adjective. Rather, it is made, through and through, done. In fact, it is semantically exactly the same as Sam-skrita, or Sanskrit, which meant the language that was “done,” or perfected. This is a quantitative, rather than qualitative sense.

I further said that the perfect could not be altered, and was done, done. They seemed to get it when I made it so definitive. Today, perhaps I may have realized why. With my Tamil tutor today we studied tenses, or kãlam. When it came to the past, the Yiranthakãlam, he told me that Yirantha means “dead.” In other words, the past is completely done and is that which cannot be altered as it is dead. When he told me that, I remembered the looks on my students’ faces when I was trying to explain the definitive nature of the perfect.

In a coincidence that seems to be too common here in India, within minutes of our discussion, I heard a solemn, solitary bell being rung at a very deliberate interval, and it appeared to be approaching. As it drew closer, I looked out to the street and saw a wooden cart with a canopy above it, passing within feet of his porch we were sitting on. The cart was covered with thousands of brilliant vermillion, golden, white and saffron-colored flowers. About the same time that I saw what was “seated” in the middle of the cart, Pandian said, “that’s a coffin cart” and I saw the corpse. It was a very small, withered old body. The procession passed by and the friends and relatives walked by in the coming twilight, silently and solemnly.

Dead. Passed. Past. Done.

I have only seen two corpses that close, the first was the embalmed body of my father several years ago, and now this one--a stranger, draped in flowers, being carted through the streets of the neighborhood in the same way that the man goes through the streets here selling ice creams or fruit.

We finished our lesson and then Pandian took me on his scooter back to Pradeep’s though we had to first travel through a carpet of the strewn flowers on the road in front of his home, the remnants of the procession. We rode back into the frenzy of the present of the bustling streets of Madurai, though having seen the petals being ground into the road, the definitiveness of Yiranthakãlam was crystal clear.

Welcome to Temple City

Madurai is known as “The Temple City,” and for good cause. It is one of the most important Hindu sites in India, specifically for the entire region of southern India’s large Shaivite population.

The main temple complex is named after Meenakshi (meaning oblong or fish-eyed), one of Shiva’s consorts, is the center of an enormous Mandala design upon which the city is planned, dating back a couple of thousand years ago, making Madurai one of the longest-continuously inhabited city on the planet. Meenakshi holds an unusual place of prestige then as she is the female consort, who is usually secondary to the main deity, in this case Shiva.

 As such, the temple of Meenakshi has a large fertility cult following, but moreover, because of the passionate bonding of Meenakshi and Shiva as the King and Queen of the Pandyas, their story is unique in that it is the only one involving Shiva in which he remains faithful to his consort. Like the Greek Gods of Olympus, the Hindu deities were not known for their fidelity.

The large temple complex is squared by one of four towering pyramidal structures known as gopuras on each of the four cardinal points, enhanced by eight more, though smaller gopuras, interspersed amongst them. The effect while in the inner courtyard is quite dramatic as each of the gopura constructions is literally inundated with thousands and thousands of highly ornate and colorful, complicated sculptures within sculptures that are dizzying to look at, to say the least. It is estimated that there are 30 million discreet sculptures in the entire complex, and before going there last evening, I had believed that this was mere tourist-jargon hyperbole. Hardly. It is truly impossible to focus one’s gaze while in the temple complex, and being non-Hindu, I was also not allowed to enter the most elaborately decorated portions of the sancta sanctorum, something I actually cannot fathom having seen the mere build-up to it in the hallways.

Again, as in Rameshwaram, it is not a quiet experience. The stone-cut hallways are buzzing and echoing with prayers, chants, music, and the mere chit-chat from the hoards of families going around the temple complex. Paying your respect and devotion at a Hindu temple is very much a family activity, in addition to the various mendicant, solitary monks and ascetic sadhus that also pepper the galleys. The halls, already brilliant with colors everywhere on the painted statues and electrifying mandalas on the ceilings, were furthermore resplendent with thousands and thousands of saris and dazzling children’s clothing of every conceivable color on the visible spectrum. Incense, candles, and the constant jingle-jangling of bangles and anklets of the women and small children who were racing around through the dense forest of stone pillars took the sensory experience once again to a new level. I had thought having been in India for a month that I had become more used to the tsunami of sensory input, but I was once again proven to be mistaken. I was just as dazzled by the immensity of it all as I had been the first day I set foot in Madurai’s frenetic cacophony symphony of sights, sounds, smells , tastes, and textures .

Last evening, I spent about 2-3 hours in various locations of the temple, at least the places where I was allowed and it was a pure pageantry of images, sounds, and smells that I will not soon forget.  I am glad that I waited to go the Meenakshi Temple for the first month as otherwise it may have just been a sensory overload, but now, having been here long enough to absorb more, it was truly a moving experience and was a testament to the highly reputed devotion, or bhakti, that the Tamil Nadu citizens have for Shiva and Meenakshi.

Road Tripping

Yesterday was a long day, but it was good to get out of the hustle and bustle of Madurai for a while. One of the other volunteers here, Gitesh, is also Indian, but he lives in England, so he is excited to see many of the Hindu sites here. Next to Madurai, Rameshwaram is one of the most important Hindu sites in Southern India. Literally it means the place of “Lord Rama,” it is a rather non-assuming small town on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, due East of Madurai. It is purported to be the temple which houses a linga that Sita fashioned for Rama and to observe the Darshan, or viewing of oblations on it is highly significant.

Rama is the protagonist of one of the primary Hindu epics, the Ramayana. Every Sanskrit primer will have such sentences as, “Why did Rama go to the forest?” referring to his exile into the forest and the pursuit of the Monkey God, Hanuman, and the ire of the Demon King Ravana of Lanka. Rameshwaram is also significant for Hindus because it is one of the few temples in which Shaivites and Vaishnavites revere on an equal basis. Usually, as in Madurai, you will have predominantly Shaivites with horizontal lines of colored paste pressed onto their foreheads after a devotion (much like for Christians, the ashes on the forehead for Ash Wednesday), or a vertical stripe or two for Vishnaivites, who are predominately in the North, such as in Varanasi. However, in Rameswharam, because the site is highly regarded by both sects, you will see a mixture.

As I am not a Hindu, I was not able to go past the initial hallways leading up to the sancta sanctorum, so Alex (another volunteer who went with us from Wales and who is now the other “white guy” in South India) and I waited for Gitesh to go in alone. One of the signature events at the temple there is that there are 22 tirthams, or sacred bathing places located in a labyrinthine pathway around the inner sanctum. The tradition is to be doused with water in each one of these 22 stations, to remove the sins and debts of the pilgrims. The scene there is one that is quite to behold. Basically everyone does this fully clothed, most of them carrying a change of clothes for latter in a bag, but you see families complete with children and grandparents doing the rounds getting absolutely soaked in their nice clothes. This offers quite a twist to wearing your Sunday best. So, the hallways are filled with dripping sarees and dhoti-clad women and men chanting Om Namo Shivayah, echoing throughout the temple gangways. Indians are not quite in temples. There is quite a bit of talking, chanting, jingling, jangling, laughing, and singing. Not what I had expected, but it was indeed a pleasant surprise and change from the ghostly silences that you will encounter going into the cavernous cathedrals of Europe. Though, there of course, one may have the unexpected organ recital or Mass in full session as I was fortunate enough to see in Notre Dame in Paris once, so merely different, not better or worse I would say.

Although Gitesh did not do the rounds of the tirtham, he was in the Darshan long enough for me to get a pretty good feel for a Hindu visit to the temple, save for the ultimate of viewed the godhead. My Tamil teacher told me of how once a western scholar who had studied the Menaakshi Temple here in Madurai for her doctorate was not allowed to go in, so he smuggled her in, clad in a sari and with his wife’s mangalam, or wedding necklace, and claimed they were married, much to the consternation of the guards, but she was able to attend the viewing. I most likely will not be so fortunate, but it was an unforgettable experience yesterday nonetheless.

Another highlight was going to the thatched-hut village of Danushkodi, which rests on the peninsular formation, which separates the Bay of Bengal from the Indian Ocean. Having been on the crowded bus from Madurai for nearly five hours, it was quite a breath of fresh air to get out and walk along the gorgeous beach there. There, people were blowing conch shells in honor of Vishnu, again, a rarity in the South. Although we had wanted to go to the end of the peninsula, which is called Adam’s Bridge, we were not able to do so in the time we had. Very precarious jeep-like trucks with open-air beds were taking up to 30 people out there at a time, and our Tak-Tak driver told us it was a 3-hour roundtrip as there were no roads. I am not convinced that he was just talking us out of going as he had agreed to wait for us for a fee, but it was not worth it at the moment, thinking about our bus ride back. Adam’s Bridge, however, is a series of small islands that are legend to be the stepping stones that Hanuman used to cross from Sri Lanka to India in search of Sita, Rama’s wife, who had been abducted by Ravana.

So, all in all, it was quite a long journey, nearly 10 hours in the bus as well as various Tak-Tak rides and whatnot, but it was a good escape from the congestion of the city. 

Living on the Edge

When I was in college, my friend Justin gave me a copy of Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge” because he felt that I would be able to relate to it. Justin’s was a turbulent friendship, filled with heady discussions, arguments, and an intense respect for each other’s passion, mine for writing, his for botany. As friendships so intense may sometimes suffer great moments of upheaval, so did ours. Now a successful academic botanist, I have been in touch with Justin sporadically, but will always be grateful for the books that he suggested, greatest amongst them was Maugham’s. In the last couple of weeks before coming to India, I re-read the copy that he had given me before I had moved to Belgium for the first time nearly 20 years ago. In the interim I had read it again, but rather cursory in attention, and had seen the absolutely horrible film version in which Bill Murray misses the role of Larry completely, but it has always stuck in the back of my mind, percolating.

When I re-read it then, I was in for quite a surprise. The accidental protagonist of the book is Larry. Everyone is worried about Larry and how he should live his life, because he just “wants to loaf.” This being the 1920’s and Americans should be grabbing the world by the balls and making buckets of money, but Larry just doesn’t seem to get it. He ends up living in Paris for a while in an undisclosed, yet presumably low-rent apartment loafing and reading books, teaching himself Greek and thinking about life. Meanwhile, the world is racing by, apparently leaving him far behind. Americans in Paris are making buckets of money back home and enjoying the high life that Paris can offer in all its pomp and circumstance. Until 1929, that is and the stock market comes crashing.

Larry, who had not made money, had no money to lose, save for a sum that he had squirreled away for maintenance. Among other things he is attempting to learn Greek, French, and read as much as he can, all the while loafing, being a drop-out in life, much to the disgust, chagrin, and frustrations of those who know better for him.

What I had not taken note of, as it meant nothing to me and I had forgotten, was that Larry ends up in Madura, the former name of Madurai, where he has a philosophical epiphany of sorts with regards to his deep exposure to Advaita Vedanta , more specifically, the concept of what is beyond Good and Evil. Sitting there in Antwerp at my favorite jazz cafe, De Muze, reading this and having booked my tickets for Madurai, I looked around to see if the Men in Black were watching me, feeling rather like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.

Madurai has indeed challenged me on this front as well, and whether Justin was a prescient seer or if the book planted a dormant seed, or mere coincidence that I ended up here, for me is a mere curiosity. What I have found since I have been here is that the tenets of Advaita Vedanta Advaita Vedanta take on a rather different significance for me. One lives here on the edge of the razor, between an overload of the senses on one side and a resigned fatalism on the other. In Apocalypse Now,  Brando as Kurtz describes a dream that he has of a snail crawling along the edge of a razor, a straight razor’s edge. The frailty of the human condition against the backdrop of the indifference of Nature and Natural Law, for Kurtz is truly “the horror, the horror.” How does one live on this razor’s edge, on one side, Good, the other Evil, one side, Life, the other Death?

Teaching today about the concept of the non-Finite verbs to 11 and 12-year olds, I drew a timeline, indicating the past, present, and future and that these types of verbs were “out of time.” I saw their eyes widen with wonder at the concept of being “out of time,” which is actually quite prevalent in Indian philosophy as the idea of a “beginning, middle, or end” is pointless as time is even beyond Infinity, something akin to what Kant settles on in his Critique of Pure Reason. Pure Reason, with the precision of Occam’s Razor, is beyond our human capacity, beyond ever our capacity to conceive of it. It is the Face of God.

A Few Thousand Words

Gets Under Your Skin

Touch could quite very well be the least considered sense that we experience on a daily basis. This by no means makes it less important, but usually unless it is a extreme sensation on the spectrum of pleasure or pain, touch can easily be taken for granted I think. One of my favorite tactile sensations is the first moment of diving into a pool for a swim and my entire body is immersed in the water, suspending by the absence of physical impact. It is often a moment of bliss for me at times.

In Madurai, my sense of touch has been challenged, or at least engaged in a variety of new ways that I am quite aware of during the day.

A Typical Tamil Lunch

Perhaps the most immediate sensation is when eating to begin the day and every other meal. The tradition here is to eat with the fingers and it can be quite a messy affair while getting the hang of it. But, you “feel” your food before you taste it. Eating then is a new experience for certain dishes. Although growing up with Mexican food and of course the pizza and hamburger culture of America has not left me immune to dinner with my hands, I was not accustomed to eating sauces and rice and stewed vegetables inter alia with my fingers.

In addition to the hands, the feet take on a new role in India as you will often find yourself barefoot as that is the custom in most Indian houses and many public areas. For the temple grounds in Madurai, you must check your shoes and visit them. I have not been in the Meenakshi Temple yet as I want to spend several hours there as there are a reported 30 million individual sculptures within the compound, but I have been on the plaza grounds surrounding the temple. Today was extremely hot here, but the majority of the people are walking around barefoot regardless. I took off my sandals (shoes are merely a nuisance in India for the most part) for just a short while and could not believe how hot the surface was. Yet, you see little kids to grandmothers walking calmly over the baked clay streets, metal grates, and whatnot, never flinching. That is something that will take time for me to get used to, another reason I am postponing the temple visit till my soles are a bit more adjusted to the heat.

Though I have not actually "touched" the temple, it is no less a portion of the “sense” of touch because of the rich texture that one “feels” when looking at the exterior walls. You eyes literally have to feel their way across the images, again in a sort of synaesthetic juncture.

Near the temple complex is the Pudhumandapam, or Great Hall, which used to be part of the complex, and was at a time a museum, but now houses the tailor's market, a row of bookstores, and a bevy of brass works shops. I went in today to have some shirts made to order and I was allowed to step into the stall and “feel” all of the fabrics, choosing three extremely comfortable ones. When buying clothes, my priority for them is usually how they feel first, then if they actually fit nicely. So, this was a slice of sartorial heaven for me today.

Because of the heat, I chose cotton, rayon, and a light silk, but that also extends to personal toiletries that I have adapted to using since here. I found my favorite Sandalwood soap from “Chandrika,” which I now remember paying about four dollars for in Austin, but for about a quarter here. In addition, I am using sandalwood powder after a shower because deodorant will just not work here with the heat. In addition, I have found a “cooling” scalp massage to help alleviate the heat.

My "Cooling" Toiletries

Speaking of the heat and clothes, unlike living in the States, when it is this hot, you skin is not met with the blast of A/C at 65 degrees after coming in from 100, but rather you come into a stale room and turn on the fan, if there is one. Turn it on because everyone turns off all electricity here when you leave due to the frequent power surges and outages.

As such, if you are fortunate to have such a fan, then one of the feelings that you encounter is then the constant breeze from them. We had ceiling fans in Austin as well, but we also had A/C, so it is bit of a mental difference without the choice.

And, as you can see from my window, here is our dryer.  Sun-dried clothes also have a different feeling that tumble-dried with Bounce, to be sure. In Italy, most Italians do not have a dryer either, but in India, to have a washing machine is nearly unheard of outside of the major cities, and in that in higher-class neighborhoods. Seeing laundry constantly hanging is just part of the daily scene.

As such, literally from head to toes, I am experiencing a different tactile world here. Though I have experienced each of these elsewhere at some point in my life, it is again the mixture of the other senses all at once that make it such the visceral collage.