Lord, I Must Have Been Blind

Without a doubt, what one sees in India is a crucial part of the experience as any other. Similar to the  symphonic cacophony one hears on a daily basis, the visual melange is a tapestry of the most vivid hues and colors mixed indiscriminately with the dingiest, subdued earth tones on the spectrum. To use a rather trite comparison, it is a living “Where’s Waldo?” in which the picture is always changing and Waldo is often quite hard to find, even when you are staring right at him.

For example, take this everyday scene at the bus stop. This is on Shivaganga Road, on the North side of the Vaigai River, one of the more “modern” roads in Madurai and much less intriguing than the smaller, older streets south of the river. However, I was walking along this road, exploring a different part of town, and took this picture. Nothing special, mainly because “Waldo” doesn’t really stand out.

Amidst the crowd, which was quite large when I got there, so I didn’t even see “Waldo” til I nearly stepped on him as the crowd thinned on having just got on a bus that has departed from this scene moments before. Sleeping on the curb, in the middle of lunch-hour traffic, he is not easy to spot.

So, here is some help.

This is not meant to be a shock value photo, nor is this what Madurai is all about, but it is a part of India that is impossible to ignore, though I do think that one becomes immune to it rather quickly. One has to, because there is just too much. Like standing on the curb, overwhelmed by the physical five senses, you can become paralyzed in your emotion and not know what to do, and be stuck on the curbside forever. There is no way that one person can help billions of people. It is just a fact that you have to come to terms with pretty quickly here. Not only do the living outnumber the dead, so do the poor.

Madurai is easily the liveliest town that I have ever been in by far, though. Before this, I had thought that Naples was pretty “active,” but I have a feeling that if I went back there now, it would seem like a quiet, quaint little Italian fishing village. Istanbul was frenetic, but detached. I did not see the same deep interaction everywhere as I do here. In Istanbul there were many sections to be sure that were bustling with vivacious interaction on all levels, but also an ever-present aloofness to the world as well, and as I say, detached. I thoroughly enjoyed both cities, but would visit them now with a whole new pair of eyes, that much is certain.

One of the things that Madurai is best known for is its Shaivite Temples, which are recognized as some of the finest examples in India, and the world. The amazing thing about them is that until you are literally right upon them, you will not be able to find them on the streets surrounding the temple complex. They do not dominate the sky-line as the streets of Madurai are so narrow, that even two to three stories will obscure any vista you might have on the city to gain your bearings. So, finding the Temples themselves (trust me, having the Tamilnadu Tourism Complex-issued map will only help you so far) is again like finding “Waldo,” despite being very large and very colorful architectural structures. However, turning a corner in a dusty alley, suddenly one of them will appear.

Or, if you stumble upon a large, vibrantly pastel-colored bull, then you have found Nandi, Shiva’s consort and who is (or was at one time if he is missing) to be found at the entrance of Shaivite Temples. It is required that you see Nandi before you visit Shiva’s shrine from the main East Gate entrance. Yesterday while walking around, I found Nandi (know my way around now, so it was less of a challenge) and there was a small dedication being erected to Ganesha as today is an important day for the elephant-headed deity and guardian of thresholds. However, in the South, Ganesha plays a much more minor role than in say, Mumbai. I just saw on TV that there are queues of 2-3 kilometers of people standing in line to see the Ganesha shrine there. Though modest here in Madurai, I thought that they made a nice pair.

In addition to the sacred cows and bulls depicted in local sculpture, it is not uncommon to see more profane cows wandering placidly through intense traffic jams or just hanging out wherever they please as they are protected as sacred profanity. This one was doing her part in recycling some trash on the streets across from the Lady Doak Women’s College. Next to her, you will see a small carnival apparatus that are scattered about town for kids. 

In addition to the Vaigai River which bi-sects Madurai and is currently more marsh than river as the monsoons have not properly begun down here, there are various tributaries that run through the city and they are quite polluted, to put it mildly. The stench is truly not to be described, yet life is always bustling on both banks, kids playing, fruit stands with usually very good-looking produce, tak-taks idling, men playing carom, and various shops and stores buzzing with people and flies alike. This is taken from a rather quiet section of the river.

But, again, the devil is in the details. When I turned around from the same spot that I took this the picture, there is another one of those carnival contraptions, right next to the dumpster. During a busier time of day, it would not be uncommon to see several kids playing right here.

And, then there is just everyday life. Some of the things that caught my eye today. And when I say “caught my eye,” it only means that at a certain moment I chose to focus on something at the moment, rather than it actually standing out, quite the contrary in fact. Because, in all honesty, these are pretty mundane for what was going on around, but they were the supporting characters in a “Where’s Waldo,” rather than Waldo himself.

I found this elderly couple negotiating a tak-tak ride to be particularly striking.

This woman was selling fruit on one of the bridges crossing the “smelly river” as it is known. Below is another typical fruit stand around the corner of this busy bridge intersection.

Across the intersection, there were no less than four “businesses” in progress on the bridge. These sculptors had dredged some mud from the banks of the river, picking out the trash and fashioning embossed faces of Shiva as someone was painting the dried products for sale. This man would work out the clay until it was “clean” (though most likely comprised of at least 30% excrement at some level) and then had a mold that he would smash these balls of clayish mud into and pop out the face of Shiva to be painted and sold as a tourist token of devotion.

These pictures are quite banal given what one can see in Madurai on any given day, but they do give a brief glimpse into the sacred and profane that makes this city a fascinating visual display, also at it grittiest.