Surfing in India, Part One: Tamil Nadu

By Jon Bowen

Day 1
Got into Madras, or Chennai as it's called now, at about 5.30am. We had a slight hitch getting through immigration, as they insisted on knowing where we were going to stay. We had no idea where we going to stay, so we'd left that part on the form they gave us blank. The immigration officer told us firmly that we going to be staying at The Meridian Hotel, and after putting that on the form, we sailed through. The usual anxious wait for our luggage followed, and predictably our stuff was the last to come out onto the creaky, constantly breaking down conveyor. Welcome to India.

We decided to get out of the mayhem of Chennai, and go straight down to Mamallapuram, about 60kms south down the coast, and got into one of the generic Ambassador taxis. The taxi ride out of the city was a lot of fun. On getting into the taxi I instinctively reached for the seat belt, and of course there wasn't one. Stuart, who'd been to India before, told me that we're in for a fun ride, and it was a bit of an eye opener.

The Indians aren't exactly bad drivers, in fact, I was quite impressed by the anticipation of them. The driver would be backing off the accelerator (though never braking), and I'd be wondering why, only to notice the developing traffic incident he'd was already reacting to about 10 seconds too late. They're good drivers but incredibly reckless.

Overtaking on blind corners seems to be the favourite sport, and overtaking someone who is currently overtaking somebody else is normal. Everybody seems to prefer to drive in the middle of the road, straddling the white line, presumably to give more room to maneuver, and the rule to drive on the left is more a rule to make sure that when you're in a head-on situation that both drivers are going to swerve the same way to avoid each other. Why India is yet to produce a world-class rally driver is a mystery.

The road we were hurtling along was about as busy as a western motorway would be, and of surprising good quality, probably better than a comparable road in the UK. We were overtaking entire families crammed onto a single motorbike, or a dozen people squashed into a rickshaw, with old men casually cycling through the mayhem. Everybody constantly uses their horns as they slalom through the cows nonchalantly wandering across the road. I was a little overwhelmed by everything I was seeing, the traffic, the mud and straw huts at the side of the road, with the owners brushing their teeth outside in the street, and the dark alleys snaking off into the city.

We had heard from a number of people about an old hippy, who lived somewhere on the east coast, who surfed.

The smell of the river was incredibly bad, and it was a bit troubling to see the feeble little huts over the stagnant water that people were living in. I was having trouble taking all this in, so I was a bit lost for words when I turned around in my seat to find Stuart filming me, and asking me what I thought of it all.

When we got to Mamallapuram, I wasn't looking at something that I'd normally recognise as a town. I was actually quite scared of the place, as it looked like some lawless mad-max style temporary town to me, and I was definitely a little concerned when I realised that this was the place we were going to stay. The streets are all dusty and dirty, with piles of rubbish at the side of the road and on the broken pavements, with the by-now-normal crush of traffic swerving all over the place. Of course, this was just a normal Indian town, actually one of the cleaner places, but it was a bit of a culture shock.

After a bit of wandering around, and trying to ditch the taxi driver who was trying to blag commissions off the guest house owners for taking us there, we found a clean little guest house, and unloaded all our stuff. We'd been traveling for 21 hours, so like surfers everywhere, the first thing we did was go down the beach and check out if there was any swell.

Before we went to India, we had heard from a number of people about an old hippy, who lived somewhere on the east coast, and who surfed. As we were making a film about the trip, we had a half-formed idea about making the 'story' of the film around a bit of a quest to try to find this hippy. We didn't expect to find him, but it would be a bit of a 'point' to the film to try. His name is Patrick, and he's French. We'd been in Mamallapuram about 20 minutes, when we met a french surfer walking back up the beach.
'Are you Patrick, by any chance?'
'Yes'.

So much for our epic quest to find him, he was pretty much the first person we met in India.

Patrick had been in the water, so we knew there were waves, and we ran down to check it out.

Mammallapuram is famous for it's rock carvings, and especially it's Shore Temple. The Shore Temple is a very impressive Dravidian temple on a small headland, carved out of the solid rock in the 6th century. Very spectacular and very pretty, but even better was the hollow, sucky, 3ft semi-point break peeling off that same little headland.

We hadn't been sure if we were going to find any waves at all in India, and we'd scored some wonderful little waves on the very first day, in the very first place we'd checked. We suddenly weren't tired any more, and we broke out the boards, and headed into the 30-degree water, pulling into two or even three separate barrels on each wave. A very easy wave to ride, the offshore wind holding it up into a lovely fast peeling tube, that just sets up perfectly. The only catch was the big rock in the exact point you would expect to come out of the barrel, which added a little bit of excitement to the wave.

Patrick came back out, and we all began talking. Very interesting guy. He's lived in the commune at Auroville since 1973, and first surfed at M'puram in the 60's, when he was actually living in the Shore Temple. He's traveled all over the place in his life, and mentioned about a story he'd read in a surfing magazine about a trip someone did to the Makran desert in Pakistan, which of course, was written by Stuart.

Patrick doesn't like work, and quite cheerfully admits that he now lives a life of complete leisure, and it was a bit of a surprise to find out that, although he looks like a weathered 30-something surfer, he was actually in his 60's. I guess there must be something in all that clean living and yoga after all. A fascinating bloke, and he invited us down to have a look around the ashram at Auroville when we got down that way.

We got out of the water, had a bite to eat, and then headed back into the waves again. Such a fun spot, we forgot our jet lag and tiredness, and just kept surfing.
Finally it got dark, and after a good 5 hours of surfing, 12,000 miles of traveling, and pushing 36 hours without sleep, we finally crashed out at the guesthouse.

We were passing speed limit signs saying that we should be doing 40kph, at a casual 120kph.

We had a bite to eat in the afternoon, and chatted to the owner. They're were quite a few apparent '60s leftover hippies wandering around the place, and we asked the owner what ordinary Indians thought of them. He wasn't sure of our opinion on the subject, and obviously didn't want to offend us, but he couldn't stop a big grin spreading across his face. When he was sure we thought they were weird too, he chuckled that 'they're not like us' and that most Indians make fun of them. I wonder how many hippies who have convinced themselves that 'they really connected' have the slightest idea how much of a joke they are to those they patronise.

As the day went on, the swell dropped off a bit and the wind swapped round. We had to go back into Chennai to pick up the other participants in the trip, the Italians. We rented a big land rover taxi thing, and headed up the coast.

We mentioned to our driver that we had to be at the airport at a certain time, and he took this as a personal challenge to get us there. We were passing speed limit signs saying that we should be doing 40kph, at a casual 120kph. We passed a big lorry crammed full of people, who were cheering everything they overtook, and everyone who overtook them. Asking the driver what was going on revealed it was a wedding party, which led to a long conversation about marriage in India.

Our driver told us about his arranged marriage, and how he and his wife were so shy, that they hadn't said a single word to each other until after they were married. 'It was great comedy' he said. His sisters had chosen his bride for him, but not until after he had briefed them to make sure they chose a village girl, and not a girl from the city. When we asked why, he told us it was because the city girls 'have ideas' and 'are far too much trouble.' We agreed wholeheartedly.

When we arrived at the airport, we found the Italians; the two Emi's, Emi M and Emi C,and Alessandro. They were surrounded by taxi and rickshaw drivers pestering them to hire them, and they were looking a little panicked. They were utterly relieved to see us, and we pulled them off to our car and headed through the excitement of the Chennai traffic. Chennai has some of the biggest billboards I have ever seen, actually too big to see without sticking your head out the window of the car. They are something like 12 stories high.

We got back to M'puram, and we discovered that Emi C could be in trouble with the food. He had sweat pouring off him on a very mild curry, and here even the chips are spicy...
Curry is a staple food in the UK, and it's considered something of the extreme sport of gastronomy, in that the hotter the curry, the better, preferably washed down with half a dozen lagers, so I was quite surprised at how mild the food in India was, though it was all prepared from scratch to order, and tasted wonderful.

Day 3
Next morning, 6.30, and the Italians are banging on our door, desperate to get into the sea. The Italians, probably because of the lack of quality surf they get at home, are in a permanent state of grommethood, utterly keen to spend every second of daylight in the ocean regardless of the conditions.

Us lazy Englishmen on the other hand, needed coffee. When we finally dragged ourselves down to the beach, it was disappointing to see that it wasn't a patch on the previous day's surf, but the Italians were beside themselves, jumping up and down, and sprinting back to their rooms to get their boards.

Because of the tide, the spot had gone very rippy, dragging you down the beach. It was a little crumbly compared to the previous day, and I wasn't really in the mood for paddling, and got bored after a couple of hours, and went for breakfast.

At about 12, after nearly 6 hours nonstop surfing, the Italians got out, and went for food. It was very hot at about 40C+ (110F), even the locals were commenting on the heat, So, like the song says, us Englishmen went out in the midday sun and, walking past the mad dogs, headed back out into the line up.
The Italians had all gone to sleep for a bit, but after a while they crept back into the sea. The waves had improved loads, and was back to quality of the previous few days, and Emi M and Stuart were filming the rest of us getting pitted. By the end of the day, Emi C and Ale had been surfing for 10 hours, and were still jumping up and down in their stokeness. My body was aching and I was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to keep up with them for two and half weeks...

Later, we had a walk around all the temples, carved out of the solid cliff faces behind the town. It must have taken years of patient work to produce the shrines carved out to produce rooms in the granite rock, which, storing the heat of the day, was eerily warm to the touch.

By the evening, the inevitable happened, and was I was feeling very unwell. I forced down a little food at dinner, but felt sick and ill, and it was a relief to get to bed. Watching the Italians shoveling down huge amounts of food didn't help either, and I was utterly knackered, my eyes closing at the table.

Day 4
6.30am next morning, and banging on our door woke us up. It was Emi C, with board, about to go surfing again. Me and Stu groaned, told him we'd be down in a bit, and went back to sleep. The Italians are super-fit, and I was feeling a bit crap.

Finally wandering down to the restaurant on the beach for breakfast, a parade of local teenagers went past with a big pink papier mache elephant. It was the last day of the festival of Ganesh, the elephant god, and on the last day each family parades down to the sea with their Ganesh, and chuck him in the sea. They launched him in, with lots of shouting and laughing, and then prostrated themselves in front of him. Formalities over, they jumped in the water, smashed him up, and then threw bits of soggy pink elephant at each other. After the exuberance of the kids, it seemed bit sad to see a middle-aged women quietly walking down to the beach on her own, with a tiny little Ganesh.

We planned to go up the coast in the afternoon to see if we could find some more surf spots, but I bailed out, feeling ill. An afternoon just dozing and chilling out sorted me right out.

Day 5
Feeling better, we all went up the coast to Kovalam today, or Fisherman's Cove, where the others had been yesterday. It's a little fishing village, very quiet, with a huge beach stretching up and down the coast, with a few rocks scattered in the shorebreak, and dozens of the local 'ketamaran' fishing boats strewn on the shore.

These ketamarans are just five logs lashed together, with a outboard motor strapped on the back. It was very hot, and the swell seemed to have gone, leaving a couple of foot breaking on the beach. There was a fisherman's shrine on the beach, with a brightly painted verandah, under which the fisherman themselves were sleeping in the shade, after their night's work. The small surf was frustrating. The surfers were managing to get on the end of them, but i was struggling to get a wave on my sponge, it was just too small and weak to get me planing. We stayed in the water just to keep cool cos it was so hot.

I got out and sat in the shade, chatting to our driver. He was sure that we must be famous because of all our camera equipment. The little village was strangely full of anachronisms, in that all the houses were made of mud and straw, with a tiny shop selling everything under the sun. But when I walked over to get a drink, the little hut of a shop had a television and (thank god) a fridge, and telephones could be heard ringing in the little houses. It seemed all a little surreal.

That evening, we had decided to go back into Chennai. On the outskirts we passed a fish market, selling salted fish. The whole place was under a thick blanket of flies, swarming in amorphous clouds when the women tried to swat them away. The place smelt of old fish, and I can't imagine standing there, let alone shopping, and then eating!

We got to Chennai just in time for rush hour, which was just ridiculous. Traffic priority seems to be based on a strict hierarchy of vehicles, with trucks and buses at the top, followed by cars, rickshaws and then motorcycles and bicycles. If you're at the bottom of this food chain, you effectively don't exist for other road users, and we casually cut up and pulled in on motorbikes in all directions. The bikes have big steel bars attached to the frame, so they can push off other vehicles with out crashing.

At one junction we were turning right, while the two lanes of traffic next to us went straight. The lights changed, and we waited while the straight-on traffic stampeded past us in a roar of noise and dust and exhaust. It was like watching the start of a grand prix, with everyone weaving and jockeying for position as they went past us, watching open-mouthed. Later, we had a rickshaw driver, with a backseat crammed with passengers, hurtling along next to us and he was attempting to have a conversation with us while he veered through the traffic. We told him we were English, and he spent the next few minutes giving us the latest cricket scores, shouting over the carnage . England are 43 not out, apparently.

We saw a bus at a silly angle, looking like it was going to tip over. When we drove around to the other side of it we could see why. There were people hanging on to the OUTSIDE of the bus, suspended from the bars on the windows. Their legs just were just dangling in space above the tarmac, oblivious to the traffic.

We went to Spencer Plaza, a big western-style mall, and did some shopping. We could have been anywhere in Europe, and it made a bit of a joke of the 'travelers' who insist on finding the 'real' India. This was as real an example of modern India as any shrine or temple, crammed full of high tech electrical goods, and affluent young Indians in western dress.

After our shopping extravaganza, we found a sort of vegetarian food Indian answer to McDonalds. This was a large food hall, in a reasonable copy of a western fast food restaurant, except with waiters, and a huge menu. When you go to an Indian restaurant in the UK, you inevitably order about 5 times more food than you could possibly eat, and we kept that tradition going here. The waiters were chuckling as we began to run out of space on our table, and whatever version of English they were speaking, it wasn't one that me or Stuart could understand. The Italians, bizarrely, could understand perfectly. We finished our meal with Emi C trying to drown himself with Pepsi in an attempt to dilute the spices. He got through 7 cans of the stuff, as Indians just cannot get their heads around the concept of 'absolutely no spice at all.'

Emi C met a bloke in the street who asked him and a French girl to be in a Tamil movie, as extras.

Day 6
6.30am brought the usual banging on the door, and we headed out for a surf. Another lovely offshore barrel fest, though I was beginning to crave some left handers, being a DK goofy foot. We were planning to start a move down the coast today, but Emi C met a bloke in the street who asked him and a French girl to be in a Tamil movie, as extras. That sounded like fun, so he agreed, and we headed off in a taxi in the direction of Chennai to watch.

We asked the chap, who claimed to be the director, if anyone famous was in the film, and he said that the cameraman was very famous, and had worked in Hollywood. We ended up in a mansion on the outskirts of Chennai, and got fed food and drink. We joked with Emi that he was gonna end up in a porn film, and we settled down to watch. In the event, Ale and Stuart also ended up in shot, hanging around a pool in the heat, while the action went on in the background. Me and Emi M took surreptitious photographs of what was happening, as we were obviously too ugly to be on camera. (Though it could have been with our dark hair,brown eyes and tans, we didn't look as obviously western as the other three blond surf nazis we were with.) While they were filming, I chatted with the real producer, (the chap who'd claimed to be the director was actually his brother), and talked about the film.

He was very excited about us, and asked us if we were available for a four-day shoot in the south, on a ship, all expenses paid. He also was keen to know if any of us knew how to fight for the action scenes. I told him Stuart could (he can't) but we couldn't really take him up on his offer, as we didn't have enough time to do that, and do our own filming as well. He gave us his mobile number, and begged us to ring him if we changed our minds. The mansion where we were filming seemed to be only used as a film set, as it looked amazing on the outside, but was strangely empty inside. I asked about the film, and it's called 'Bala', and it will be released on video in the UK for the Tamils living here. I'll be buying that then.

Had a interesting chat with one of the actresses there. It was telling how far from home we were, when she asked where we were all from. When we said we were from Italy, England and France she asked if they were all in Europe, which she seemed to consider a single country. She was also amazed by Ale sending a text message on his mobile back to Italy, (which IS pretty amazing), and when he showed her the message he was sending, she asked if it was the Italian language.

That evening, we all went up to the rocks behind the town at Mammalapuram and filmed the sunset. It would have been very chilled and relaxing, if it hadn't been for the annoying Indian who followed us up there trying to sell us stuff, who just wouldn't shut up about how relaxing the sunset was, and would we like to see his carvings?

Day 7
We left M'puram today, and headed south to Pondicherry. On the way, we checked out the wave potential at a little fishing village, and became instant celebrities. They can't get a lot of visitors, because we were mobbed by what seemed the entire population, asking us questions and pulling at our clothes. They seemed very pleased to see us, and I had to turn down a fisherman's insistent offer of going out on his boat with him.

I asked about waves, and he said that sometimes they get 'very round'. But not that day, unfortunately. Everybody was desperate to have their photo taken by us, and the usual Indian lack of reserve led us to being bombarded with personal questions, like where are you from, are we married, why weren't we married, what was our jobs, how much did we earn, how much was that camera, and can I have your watch? The asking about how things cost was a little embarrassing, in that according to Stuart's guidebook, most Indians still earn less than 10rupees a day. Considering that, our camera equipment cost more than they were ever likely to earn in a lifetime. It made me feel a little awkward in our relative wealth, but perhaps that's just the communist in me.

Dealing with the hordes and the heat was hard work, and it was a bit of a relief to leave, and we left with a crowd of kids chasing us up the road.

We stopped again on leaving the village to call Patrick, as he'd invited. He said he couldn't meet us that day, and he was in the middle of three days of intensive meditation. We hoped he was meditating on getting some new swell in, and he gave us an address of a guesthouse to stay in, run by the ashram.

We got to Pondicherry, and found the guest house Patrick recommended. The place is big and very nice, but a little bit creepy. The ashram, who owns the guest house, was founded by a French woman back in the '30s, who was known as 'The Mother'.

She seems to be treated as some sort of god now, and her framed writings were all over the walls. For someone with so much influence, her comments are incredibly trite, like 'Look at the fish to relax'. Well, duh. Her portrait is everywhere, and it's all a bit Big Brother. Every room in the guesthouse has a 'meaningful' name, like 'Charity' or 'Generosity.' Our room was 'Humility' and it was all a bit like staying in a self-help book. I found all the homilies somewhat irritating. There was also a big list of rules, like about when we had to be home, and that we weren't allowed drink or drugs in our room.

Pondicherry itself is an old French colony, and it really shows, or at least I though so. Stuart, who actually lives in France, didn't think so at all, so maybe it's actually like some idealised French town, which thinking about it, is exactly what it is. The town reminded me quite a bit of Hendaye, with a long promenade over the beach, and shuttered houses looking over the sea. Even the police wear kepis, and where everywhere else we visited the people spoke English, here they seemed to speak French. The tides here seem to be permanently high, and although there was swell, the wind and the backwash made it unsurfable.

It was Pondicherry's turn for the Ganesh festival today, and the streets were packed with carts with giant pink elephants on board. They took them down to the local jetty, and dropped them off the end, to fall 30ft into the sea. There was lots of cheering as the pink elephants sank. Seems a strange way to treat a God, but it looked a lot more fun than Holy Communion. It would be great if instead of that we made giant papier mache Jesus's, and then dropped him off a cliff.

In the evening, we visited the ashram, and saw the tomb with 'The Mother' inside. I found it very creepy, with no talking and people prostrate in front of the tomb. There seemed to be a low frequency hum in the air, which made me feel a little dreamy. I'm not sure if it was my imagination, but it gave the whole place a very strange air. My favourite thing though, was the bloke standing behind the grave with a big stick. He held the stick in the air, pointing into the tree overhanging the tomb. When we asked what he was doing, thinking it was some sort of ritual, we were told that his job was to prevent the crows from shitting on The Mother's tomb!

After a while, it started to rain, which really broke the spell of the place, and masked the sound of that mysterious humming. Everybody ran under cover next to the tomb, and the enforced silence was quickly forgotten, and everybody started chatting normally, and laughing and joking. We were struck by how many Indian people were there, as we expected the place to be rammed full of impressionable westerners.

Heading back to the guesthouse was very exciting. We took a rickshaw, parked on the wrong side of the road. Just as we were about to get in, a moped hurtled out of the darkness and bounced off the front of it. The rickshaw driver checked there was no dents, and then, ignoring the shaken moped rider, gestured for us to get in. This driver obviously loves it when it's wet, and was throwing the three-wheeler down the street, powersliding his way round the corners with full opposite lock. We hung on for grim death in the back.

Day 8
We booked our train tickets for the next stage of our trip today. We're taking the sleeper train to Madurai, which is inland. After that, we met up with Patrick, and interviewed him for the film. Very easy to do, as you ask him a simple question and he'll chat away for 30 minutes. He took us to show us around the commune at Auroville where he lives.

A very difficult place to get your head around, as it's not really a commune at all, and Patrick himself said he prefers to call it an 'experiment in living.' The idea is, as far as we could gather, is it's a place to live well, and better yourself through hard work. Cynics that we are, it looked to us as more of a place where westerners can take advantage of their relative wealth to live well at the expense of the Indians they employ.

We passed a construction site, where a new apartment block was being built. Despite the crowds of white Aurovillians we passed, not a single one seemed to be 'working hard' building this block: it was all Indians. Patrick wanted to show us the centrepiece of Auroville, which is a huge golden ball. It looks something like the EPCOT one at Disney World, except golden.

Personally, I was distinctly unimpressed. The ball is actually elliptical, which while that might be intentional, it makes it look as if the dome is sagging under it's own weight. The surface is covered with dishes of material that are made up of tiny glass blocks with gold leaf embedded inside each one. It just looks like a very 1960's vision of the future, and to me it seemed dated and tired, although Patrick obviously expected us to be very impressed, so we made all the right noises.

Patrick took us to his house, and introduced us to his wife, who he'd met on the Istanbul to Tehran train in the early 70's. His house was a beautiful two-story building in an orchard of Banyan trees. He has a couple of cows, which he milks, even though he doesn't actually drink it, and he laughingly admitted it was just for effect. He also has peacocks wandering about, who's calls gave a suitable Indian atmosphere to the place.

It was difficult to understand how he supported himself, we could only guess that Auroville looks after him. He is something of an anarchist, and jokes about how he hates all the rules imposed on him, and how he tears up the official Auroville paperwork they expect him to fill in.

Presumably, he's been there long enough to get away with it. He obviously has beliefs in The Mother and had her picture on his walls, and her books on his tables, though he was certainly not evangelical in his convictions. He wouldn't talk about his beliefs unless we specifically asked him. He told us though, how much he loves to meet people, and he showed us his guestroom, and left us with an open invitation to return, or to pass his email on to anyone who wished to visit, so if anyone is heading that way, let me know.

We had to run, as we had to catch the sleeper train to Madurai....

... continue on to part two of Surfing in India