Silva rerum is a Latin term R. Kapuscinski liked to use. It means “the forest of things.” India is a vast forest of things, and people.
Timeline:
2000 BC – Indus Valley Civ
1500 BC – Vedic/Aryan civ, beginning of castes
400 BC – Alexander the Great invades Himchal Pradesh
500 AD – Pallavas rise in south; Cholas colonize Sumatra
1200 AD – Muslims invade Delhi
1550 AD – Portugese begin era or Euro colonization
In Bombay, I saw an Indian humor mag on the stands with the coverline “Marilyn Monroe Comes Back as a Lettuce” The Photoshopped illustration showed that famous torso capped by a head of Romaine.
Brief Indian Lexicon:
babu – bureaucrat
banyan – indian fig tree
tiffin – tucker, food
charas – hash
crore – 10 million
lahk – 100,000
foo-foo band – loud brass band at weddings
ghat – steps or a range of hills
ji – honorofic suffix, e.g., Maharishiji
lungi – Tamil sarong
namaste – hindi for hello/goodbye
wallah – man, e.g., taxi-wallah
yatra – pilgrimmage
dharma – duty, hindu/buddhist moral code of behavior
karma – hindu/buddhist principle of opayment for past deeds
Lakshmi – Vishnu’s consort, the hindu goddess of wealth who sprang from the sea holding a lotus
moksha – salvation
puja – offerring at temple
Radha – mistress of Krishna
Vedas – Hindu sacred texts, written in pre-sanskrit, includes the Upanishads
Indra – rain god
Surya – sun god
WEATHER: The hot season begins on the plains of northern India in February and last through May. The monsoon begins by June 1 in the south and sweeps to the north by early July. That primary monsoon comes from the SW, the Arabian sea. A secondary monsoon comes from the Bay of Bengal in the NE, bringing rain from mid October to mid December.
In 1970 there were less than 2 million motor vehicles in India; now there are over 25 million, 70% of which are two-stroke scooters and auto-rickshaws.
Agriculture accounts for almost 30% of the GNP and employs 64% of the workers. The government subsidizes ag heavily.
India has close to a billion inhabitants; 50 million of whom are Adivasis, or tribals.
The state of Tamil Nadu is the cradle of Dravidian culture. See www.tamilnadutourism.com
In Tamil Nadu doorways are marked with chalk or flour mandalas, or Kolams, drawn on the ground. Traditionally, women redraw the designs each morning each morning at dawn to please the gods and attract good luck.
Tamil toast: “tota-koh” means ‘cheers’
Only in the Christian south do you see graveyards. Hindus cremate their dead.
Mamallapuram – is a town of about 14,000 with spectacular shore temples and great stone carvers. Arjuna’s Penance is the spectacular relief carved in a basalt hillside on the town’s western edge. Some OK beachbreaks in filthy brown water (probably teeming with bull sharks). Archana, who is from Madras, used to vacation there. Wade, Nade’s old roommate, had his sculpture fabricated there.
The Grand Trunk Road runs from Pakistan to Calcutta across India’s heartland.
The land border between Assam, in India’s far northeast, and Myanmar (Burma) is closed.
Mumbai, or Bombay (from the Portugese for “good port”) is India’s largest and most cosmopolitan city. It was originally seven islands, which the British joined in the 1700s. Maranthi is spoken by 40% of Bombinos. Elephant Island, a 45-minute ferry ride from the Taj, is not to be missed.
The suburban train network is the best way to get around Madras. The airport stop is Tirusulam; air cargo is Minamubakkam; Chennai Central RR station is a short walk from the Park stop. Trains run from 4 am to 11:30 pm with top fare at about 6 rupes.
TRAINS:
The Indian Railways is the world’s fourth largest rail network. Every day it moves 10 million people. It’s also the world’s largest single employer with 1.6 million workers.
www.trainweb.com/indiarail.htm
The only difference between first and second-class sleepers is that the benches are better upholstered in first and blankets and pillows are supplied; second-class is usually much cheaper.
Buy a copy of Trains at a Glance, if you plan on riding a lot; for 25RS it covers every train in India. It’s available from newsagents in the big stations
Leave plenty of time between connections; IR doesn’t hold to any schedule
Bigger luggare — bikes and surfboards — can be booked on trains at the station’s luggage office.
Ganeesh is the lord of beginnings, remover of obstacles and patron of scribes and scholars.
THE CASTES: Brahmins are priests, the highest caste; Kshatriyas are warriors; Vaishyas are merchants; Shudras are serfs; and Untouchables or Dalits are outside the hierarchy, beneath consideration.
While I was in India, i read several accounts of inter-caste violence caused by the increasing prosperity of the Dalits.
Buddha disdained the caste system, saying that Brahmins are created by deeds, not birth. Gahndi also tried to reform the system, without much success. Today, India practices a type of affirmative action by reserving government jobs for scheduled castes (mostly Dalits).
BEACHES in India are said to be best at Kovalum in Kerala, Goa, and Diu in Gujurat. Mamallapuram and Gopalpur on the Bay of Bengal side were OK, but the water is brown.
India requires a visa for entry. A 1-year visa costs abt. $75 US. Sri Lanka does not require a visa. Nepal issues visas at the border.
FOOD: Thalis, a tray of sample dips and bread, were my favorite in Bombay. Pakoras and Samosas — fried vege dumplings — were also good. Paan is a betel-nut concoction sold in condom packets and chewed like tobacco.
Cheap flights:
Madras to Colombo, Sri Lanka – $200 US RT
Trivandrum to Male in the Maldives – $70 OW and even cheaper from Colombo
RT from Chennai to Port Blair is $400 US; the boat fare (if you can get it) is $60 US RT
Enfield motorcycles are the cool way to get around. You can get a 3-year-old Enfield 500 cc from a mechanic for abt. $1000 US; perhaps less from another traveler.
