g_balanithu@yahoo.com, first flight couriers 2441714

Madhan and Geetha
V Raj Mohan (A) Madhan
Dharmuna Colony
Kotagiri Post
Nilgiri District
TN

G Subbain
166 Nadu Street
Mudaliyar Chattviam
Trichy-1
cell 98422 94797

Have at ye with my user pic for my Indian misadventures!

Breakfast today wasn’t so satisfactory: the restaurant bod seemed to indicated that he only had paratta ready and no samosas. Paratta and chai would have made a reasonable breakfast but somehow they came with a weak and indifferent vegetable curry.

Some blokes at the next table did get chai and samosas: waah!

GOING NATIVE
For men there seem to be two ‘uniforms’ here

• collared shirt and long dark trousers
• collared shirt and wrap-around skirt made from a single rectangular piece of cloth. If the skirt is check or coloured, it’s apparently called a lunghi. If it’s white, it’s called a dhoti. Quite often wearers fold them up so that they’re knee-length. I think they always wear shorts or underpants but I’m not making many enquiries…

I’ve been feeling a bit self-conscious in shorts. It’s too sunny to go far while exposed and until I had lunch just now, I’d been feeling tired and out-of-sorts. I thought I might cure the self-consciousness if I got into ‘native uniform’. So……

Of course, the looks a whitey in Indian uniform gets are even more intense! However, it feels much cooler and it’s quite nice to have a garment that doubles as a bed-sheet and towel. Yes, I am wearing socks: it’s either that or have my feet chafed by my sandals.

Most women here wear sarees – I’ve only seen a handful in shalwar khamise. Probably due to the sun, rather than religious affiliation, often the piece that loops over the left shoulder and down the back is arranged over their heads. I’ve also seen this piece used to cover all the back and then tucked in at the front. All styles look lovely and the material is so often beautiful. So tell me why they use the end as a towel or wash-cloth or sweat-cloth? It seems a sin to mank such lovely material. (Most men carry a towel or hanky for these purposes.)

RANT
While I’m in the mood to criticise my host country, here’s a few things I’d like to get off my chest:

• India is an environmentalist’s nightmare
  It’s not just the open sewers, it’s the fact that people will throw out anything anywhere, often blocking the sewers. On Colva beach I found a light-bulb. I picked it up to take it to a bin so that no-one could stand on it. I was firmly told to just throw it on the floor (in a place where many people walked barefoot) because this ‘is Indian culture’. As far as I’m concerned, this sucks, so I didn’t. The concept of ‘dustbin’ is known but not widely applied. Also, bottled ‘mineral’ (i.e. drinking) water is very common. I have to admit I’ve drank a lot myself. I do have a filter bottle (thanks Peter D!) but it doesn’t hold enough to last. Officially, you’re meant to crush the bottles so they can be recycled butI haven’t seen any plastic-collection places. Also, in Goan bus sations I’ve seen state government proclamations that plastic bags made from recycled material are dangerous and so shouldn’t be used. WTHF?
• Early marriage
  I’ve been told that the legal minimum age for marriage is something over twenty. Yet I’ve met quite a few women who were married before they were 16 – usually their husbands were around ten years older than them. One woman I’ve spoken with told me she had to get married at 16 because her father was dying and so she needed a man to fulfill important functions in this society. Fortunately she’s married to a man she loves and who loves her and it’s worked well for the past ten years. Also, she’s been able to carry on studying after her marriage (and despite having a young child). Quite a few people have suggested I remarry, usually to an Indian woman. (Only one has offered to procure a wife for me and he’s been told – by Indian friends – to back right off.)
• Personal space and privacy
  don’t expect them unless you lock yourself in your room! For example, I’ve had to explicitly ask folk several times to not look at stuff I’ve already said or implied (by saying ‘this is my personal banking details’ etc) is private. Also, last night I was sitting, on my own at a restaurant table, reviewing photos on my camera when someone came to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder at the camera display and then asked me where I’d taken the shots. Folk in Colva would often pick up my camera and without asking whether they could look, go through the shots. (Since many of the shots were of them, this wasn’t too unreasonable and I had no actual objection to them seeing anything I’d photographed.) On sleeper trains, your bunk is exposed to anyone who wants to look.
• Driving/traffic
  They’re all mad! No-one wears a helmet on a two-wheeler. (I’m now used to taking lifts on the back of bikes without a helmet but I was scared shitless the other day when my driver answered his cellphone without even slowing. Fortunately we were on a deserted road, late at night.) There’s no concept of lanes – each driver does his or her very best to advance , cutting up, down and round and round anyone else. Pedestrians have to dodge around this too as best they can. Bus drivers are suicidal: they’ll overtake through impossible-seeming gaps. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve thought I was about to become stawberry jam in a head-on collision between my bus and an oncoming HGV. To warn other drivers to get out of the way, bus drivers use incredibly powerful airhorns almost incessantly. I’ve been very near to telling drivers that if they use the thing again, they’ll end up wearing it internally.
• Train and bus decorum
  Train and bus doors are almost always open – I like this because otherwise they would be too hot and I wouldn’t be able to photograph the countryside I’m passing through. However, this enables passengers to alight and board as the train train or bus is moving. Many folk alight as the train is moving which seems both homicidal and suicidal. However, it may be better than waiting for the train to stop when passengers will barge on, pushing and stepping all over each other and without waiting for others to alight. I have no idea why boarders can’t see that there’s no room for them until other folk have alighted.Also busses and trains are almost always crowded beyond operational safety. For example, in my train to Ottapalam, there were 20 people in a space built for 10: folk perched on luggage-racks and sat two to a seat.
• Electricity dodginess
  In many cities there are regular powercuts. The most ironic was in Mettur Dam last week. This town has a bloody huge 1960s soviet-made and apparently well-maintained hydro-electric power station. (I got a guided tour because one of my hosts worked there.) Hydro-electricity is based, er, water. So why in the name of sanity was the power cut when it started to rain? (I did check: this wasn’t a coincidence.)
• Stomach dodginess
  I’ve managed to have both diarrhoea and constipation. I think I’m due a prize for the latter.
• Facial hair faux pasAround three-quarters of adult males wear moustauches. I don’t get it: if you’re going to shave the rest of your face, get rid of the hairy caterpillars on your top lips, PLEASE!

OK, so what are the good things about India?

• Incredible hosts
  giving me always what they see to be the best chair or bed, even to their discomfort. Total strangers will guide this random bozo where he wants to go and people who I’ve got to know quite well have given me a great time (with a few, ahem, misadventures along the way) without asking for anything in return other than if I see jobs in the UK that would suit them, to let them know and tell them how to apply.
• Fantastic food
  OK, not always vegan and I have had some indifferent meals (such as my evening meal yesterday and my breakfast today) but most of the time it’s amazing. I could live on iddly sambar and masala dosa for a long, long time. Onion uttapa (thick pancakes made of dosa batter and lavished with chopped raw onion) are also wonderful. Wada (doughnut-shaped deep-fried pieces of dosa flower) and dahl fry are hard to beat. I’ll have a hard job weaning myself off chai. And finally, the best possible dessert is a fresh juicy mango, available for tiny amounts of money just about everywhere I’ve been.
• Clothing
  Sarees and shalwar khamises are almost always made of beautiful material and really enhance the images of their wearers. Men are very, very rarely untidy: if they are it’s because they’re doing a manky job. Lunghis and dhotis are very cool, in my limited experience.
• Countryside
  fascinating to watch flow by from trains. Around the hill-stations, it’s beautiful and lush. At times I’ve been surrounded by rich nothingness and it’s been lovely.

I’m not really confident about wearing a lunghi without a belt. However, this is an advantage: I put on the lunghi, then put on the belt that carries my pouch and camera, then fold the lunghi to knee-length and tie it so it hides the camera and pouch.

I love the feeling of the breeze around my undies.

I’ve just bought some coat-hangers. There will be a wee prize for the author of the first comment which correctly says why I bought them.

I’ve been at a cyber-cafe all day, writing entries about last week. They’re still private: I want to review them before letting them anywhere near the public domain. In the meantime, here’s some Indian election flyers and political graffiti:

	MDMK(?) election flyer. On the right are Sonia Gandhi and her daughter Priyanka. Above them is (I believe) the head of Rajiv Ghandi, Sonia’s assasinated husband
	another Tamil Nadu election flyer
	polical graffiti in Ottapalam. Kerala is, I’m told, the only place to have elected a communist government.

I may have Mughals’ revenge again. I had to depart precipitately from the cybercafe. I got back to my room but didn’t reach my toilet in time. I’ve just spent a very unpleasant half-hour dealing with the aftermath.

Before the wedding, Suriya had told me she’d arranged for me to see the Nilgiri hills. Being a complete tea-head, I was very keen to go there, even though I was still distressed by what had happened on the night of the wedding. The following lj-cuts are very picture-heavy. Don’t bother if you don’t have broadband!

INCOMMUNICADO (WEDNESDAY 3RD MAY)
I was insistent that I needed to get a new cellphone before we moved on. Suriya and others took me to a cellphone shop in Salem which looked as though it should be able to help. They offered tri-band Nokias which would take my previous phone’s SIM card at affordable prices. I was able to confirm that my SIM card was still working but I couldn’t get any of the models I was offered to dial out. (With rather bitter hindsight, I realise this may have been because I didn’t try to make the phones roam: they may have defaulted to a network that didn’t get on with my UK service provider.)

I couldn’t find out why I couldn’t dial out because the shop workers spoke almost no English and I spoke no Tamil but I was, as far as I can recall and could understand at the time, promised another try once we got to Nilgiri. I think Suriya said that the person with whom we’d be staying was a cellphone vendor and I know I asked her if he spoke good English (to which she appeared to say yes) but he wasn’t. (He was a driving instructor.) I can’t explain how this occurred: again, I don’t believe Suriya told me any deliberate untruths but I’m sure I tried to use vocabulary she’d understand.

TRAVEL AND ARRIVAL IN NILGIRI (WEDNESDAY 3RD MAY)
Anyway, Suriya, Rajesh and I took buses from Salem to Coimbatore and thence to Metturpalayam. All of this journey was intensely hot. A final bus wound up and up into the hills to Kotagiri.

	painted-head bloke in a bus station. No idea what it’s about
	Nilgiri scene
	Nilgiri scene
	more political grafitti
	tea plantation, Nilgiri
	Nilgiri scene

When we arrived at Kotagiri, we then went to a single-story building that I was told is owned by David Padmanaban. It has a closed verandah behind which are four apartments and a shower/toilet room. There’s a double garage next to it, in which are kept the cars belonging to my latest hosts, Madhan and Geetha. Again, I was given a warm greeting and I got on well with Geetha especially. Her english is very good, as is her cooking (even though she said she was embarrassed by it). Madhan let me try my SIM card in his cellphone and I was able to call home, so I now knew that the card hadn’t been at fault this morning.

I can’t recall what we ate that evening but I do know that I enjoyed it. I talked quite a bit with Geetha while Rajesh spent a lot of time playing with Madhumeeta, Geetha and Madhan’s two-year-old daughter. (I seemed to scare her no matter what I did.) Geetha told me that she and Madhan had married when she was about 17 and he was 27 because her father was dying and she needed to be associated with a man. When I protested that this was ‘bullshit’, she said that she was well aware what this word meant, that she understood what I meant (and may have tended to agree: it wasn’t legally necessary) but that she needed a man for many important social functions. Fortunately, she had already met Madhan and they had a strong, loving, relationship. She jokingly said that if, however, he even looked at another woman she’d divorce him like a shot. Madhan contrived to look suitably innocent and injured before laughing with her.

She’s been able to continue her education since her marriage, eventually earning a degree in history. She now works in ‘data conversion’ which interested me because of some of the things I’d seen and heard about after Leckie & Leckie became part of Granada Learning. She and her family were about to move to Trichy in southern Tamil Nadu (which apparently didn’t please her landlord: her brother-in-law) and so she was looking for new data-conversion projects. (I’m sure there are folk who read this blog who might have such work: if so, email me privately and I’ll put you in contact.)

Rajesh and I slept in the apartment next to Geetha, Madhan and Madhumeeta’s: I’m not sure where Suriya slept.

	Madhmeeta
	Mudhan, Geetha and Madhumeeta’s neighbours in David Padmanaban’s apartment in Kotagiri
	me drinking ginger chai, Geetha and Madhumeeta
	Suriya, Rajesh, Geetha and Madhumeeta

OOTY AND ABOOTY (THURSDAY 4TH MAY)
I was keen to try to have a last full day with Suriya and Rajesh that was free of the unpleasantries that had marred the start of the week and to try to put our friendship back in order, or at least have an enjoyable last time. I knew that the next day I’d be travelling on to Kerala while they’d return to Goa.

In the morning, a taxi arrived: it turned out someone had arranged for us to be taken to Kotagiri’s park, then to Doddabetta (the highest point in the Nilgiris), then to Ooty and then back to Kotagiri. First, I insisted we were taken to a cellphone shop: I found a model that should have worked but the owner wouldn’t let me dial out to confirm this so we moved on.

For what they’re worth, here are some photos from Kotagiri’s park:

	Nilgiri temple
	in a park in Kottagiri
	in a park in Kotagiri
	in a park in Kotagiri
	in a park in Kotagiri
	Rajesh in a park in Kotagiri
	in a park in Kotagiri
	Bruce and Suriya in a park in Kotagiri
	some random lads who wanted to be photographed

Doddabetta is very commercialised: in a way this was fortunate because my camera batteries ran out of charge and so I bought some new ones: this is where I confirmed that even Duracells don’t last anything like as long as my rechargables. There was a telescope house from which you could look out at the surrounding countryside and some lovely views. I hope my photographs do the area some justice.

	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	camera and battery-seller at Doddabetta
	Doddabetta
	random bloke who wanted to be photographed

After this, we were taken to Ooty, where we had lunch – rice, ‘drumsticks’ and various condiments (including banana bhajis) on a banana leaf – in a fast-food, pack-them-in-and-feed-them-as-much-as-they-want-of-the-same restaurant. I was impressed by this Indian equivalent to McDonalds: good food served without paper and plastic waste for very little money. We then found a cellphone shop where I finally bought a new cellphone. It works and I may end up being the only whitey in the UK who has a phone marked with Tamil characters.

We also finally arranged for Suriya to buy her new glasses: I had given her money to buy them over two weeks ago. (She hadn’t asked me to do this: it was entirely my decision after I’d volunteered to try to mend her old pair but hadn’t been able to do so.) She’d kept prevaricating, initially saying they’d be cheaper in Tamil Nadu and then saying each day we were in Tamil Nadu that she’d buy them the next day. I had become a little annoyed by this: I wanted her to have what she obviously needed and was concerned what had happened to the money: from what she’d told me previously, it was conceivable she’d given it to someone else. In the end, to get lightweight lenses and the bifocals on her prescription, the total cost was 1200 rupees, 200 more than I’d given her so far. I stress I have no qualms about this amount: the food, accommodation and guidance she’d given me far outweighed this and friendship is priceless anyway!

I was keen to rent a pedallo on the lake, partly because I thought some physical action might help me clear my mind of the tension that still clouded it but mostly because it looked fun. It was, but it was very hard work too. My backside complained for quite a time afterwards. We also passed a political candidate: I have no idea which party he stands for.

	Suriya and Rajesh boating on Ooty lake
	boating on Ooty lake
	boating on Ooty lake
	Ooty park – the area was filled with these beautiful trees
	a political candidate

We were next taken to Ooty’s botanic gardens where I took what must be very usual tourist photos: judge for yourself!

	Suriya, Rajesh and I at Ooty botanic gardens
	Suriya, Rajesh and I at Ooty botanic gardens
	some friends of Suriya at Ooty botanic gardens
	Ooty botanical gardens
	Ooty botanical gardens
	fossilised wood at Ooty botanical gardens
	Ooty botanical gardens

Our final destination was Ooty’s rose garden. It’s apparently a hangover from the Raj and was lovely. I’m still, er, puzzled by the names people give to roses: here’s a few examples.

	Ooty rose garden
	paving slab at Ooty rose garden
	why give flowers silly names?
	why give flowers silly names?
	why give flowers silly names?
	why give flowers silly names?
	why give flowers silly names?
	why give flowers silly names?
	why give flowers silly names?
	Ooty rose garden
	she wasn’t beautiful
	and she had far too many thorns
	aww pwitty
	so is this
	for Jane Ann
	in the rose garden
	why give a rose a stupid name?
	why give a rose a stupid name?
	reproducing Australia: a dunny and a gum-tree. The dunny was locked so I took a leak behind it.
	the backside of Ooty
	the backside of Ooty
	pretty!

THE END OF A LOVELY DAY (THURSDAY 4TH MAY)
I finally fulfilled a promise to Suriya to show her how to email. The tension had almost disappeared by the time we returned to Kotagiri but re-surfaced when the taxi-driver needed to be paid another 500 rupees. I’d paid 300 in the morning and was again in the frame, despite an expensive day. 11 pounds for a day’s travel and sight-seeing isn’t much* but, and I made this clear (I hope) to Suriya, I should have been told in advance!
*and no-one had asked me for money for food and accommodation during this trip: if they had, I’d have been very happy to reimburse them because, with the exception of David and Shakila Padmanaban, none of my hosts seemed very well off. I didn’t even want to take advantage of rich people’s hospitality so I hope that later I’ll be able to balance things.

Geetha had cooked brown chickpea curry and chapattis – utterly delicious. (She apologised that she’d used brown chickpeas but I told her that I think they gave a better flavour. (This is my honest opinion: they add a nuttiness that white chickpeas just can’t.) We also discussed the possibility of getting back to the main train line via the Nilgiri mountain ‘toy train’ and which I was insistent I wanted to try. I thought it went from Kotagiri to Metturpalayam but I’d misread my guidebook. (It goes from Ooty to Coonoor and then down the mountains to Metturpalayam. Madhan this evening and the next morning made a lot of enquiries and it was eventually arranged to for us to take a bus to Coonoor and the train from there.

	Madhumeeta and Rajesh
	Rajesh and Madhumeeta
	Mudhan, Geetha and Madhumeeta

GOODBYE BLUE SKY/FULL STEAM AHEAD (FRIDAY 5TH MAY))
In the morning we were woken early by yet another election rally. I wonder if anyone simply votes for the party that disturbs them the least? We arrived at Coonoor the next morning about mid-day after some moderately hair-rasing bus journey, towards the end of which we passed some political activists who gave me one of the flyers that’s in a later blog entry.

	Rajesh, Madhumeeta, Suriya, Madhan, Geetha and neighbour
	some girls on the buss who asked to be photographed
	Nilgiri scene
	religious procession
	temple
	political activists who gave me a flyer
	sign in Coonoor

The bus stopped in the middle of town and we had to waddle quite quickly to the station. There we were able to buy normal (jam-packed compartment) tickets but Suriya said we’d get on a reserved coach and buy ‘reservations’ from the conductor. It wasn’t clear whether this would be legal or baksheesh: it turned out to be legal. (If we’d bought our tickets yesterday we could have bought reservations at the time.)

Because the coach was tiny and had no luggage racks, I chained my rucsac to a vacant platform outside the back of the passenger compartment. For this, I received a angry shouting from two rail-workers. I wasn’t pleased by this, was still stressed and shouted back at them, while complying. (If they’d explained why quietly, I’d not have done so. It turns out this is the place where the person who ensures the rack and pinion are engaged stands.)

The journey itself was very exciting and I hope my photos do it justice. As we descended, so the climate became hotter and hotter: I wasn’t in Scotland any more (or even in Kansas) but back in mainstream India.

	notice at Coonoor station
	Coonoor in Tamil, Hindi and English
	Coonoor station
	the toy train!
	on board the toy train
	the officious flag-waver
	view from the train
	the conductor selling us our ‘reservations’
	view from the train
	view from the train
	view from the train
	view from the train
	view from the train
	view from the train
	view from the train
	last view of tea-plantation
	view from the train
	view from the train
	Where’s King John and the barons?
	view from the train
	view from the train
	view from the train
	getting steam up
	where I wanted to put my kit
	It’s Thomas
	our carriage

Finally we pulled into Metturpalayam. There were lots of soldiers on duty. I wondered out loud why: was ‘Auntie Sonia’ visiting? A soldier nodded and I asked him to confirm: she was about to arrive and campaign for next week’s election.

We took a final bus to Coimbatore where I commited another lapse of control. I’d been slow to get on the bus but Suriya had saved me a seat at the front next to her. I didn’t want to try to get there because that would involve bashing my rucsac-laden way down the crowded aisle and tried to get her to let someone else sit next to her. This didn’t communicate and finally I was persuaded to join her. When I got there, I thought I would be more comfortable standing and said so. However Suriya kept trying to take my rucsac off my back. I snapped and shouted at her “stop organising me!”: this probably embarrassed her a lot as well as upsetting her: I’m not at all proud that I caused her to cry.

I apologised as best I could and sat cursing myself. A few minutes later she said that it was now nothing and that I could forget about it. (I couldn’t: while I’m sure it’s fine to tell someone that I can make my own decisions, it’s not OK to shout. Suriya had babied me a lot and done things that had I couldn’t appreciate, even though I could see [often with hindsight] that they were her trying to be a friend in the way she thought was best. This is only a reason, it doesn’t excuse my loss of temper.)

By the time we got to Coimbatore, we were talking normally again. We ate dosas in the bus-stand cafe and then somehow got to the station. Various enquiries told us that Ottapalam was the last stop on Suriya and Rajesh’s route before it turned north towards Mangalore so I bought a ticket to there and also ended up paying for Rajesh and Suriya’s tickets to Mangalore. (This was hardly any money and Suriya told me she intended to pay me back.) I also asked whether she had money for the journey from Mangalore to Colva. She said she did.

However, later on during the journey she asked me for 200 rupees to cover this part of their journey. I was shocked: I asked her why she’d told me she did earlier and she told me she’d misunderstood my question. This was when she promised to pay me back everything. I also told her she was fortunate I had this much money with me: I would have had time to go to an ATM in Coimbatore but now there was no chance. I did have two 500 rupee notes but since we were in a compartment in which there were 20 people sitting in a space designed for 10, I wasn’t going to risk displaying my ‘wealth’ to all and sundry. So at the last stop before Ottapalam, I dashed off the train, got a 500 note changed at a book-stall and gave her the 200.

We arrived at Ottapalam at about 10pm: I said goodbye to Suriya and Rajesh and phoned home. I also enquired about trains south to Ernakulam: there would be a train at 4am but I needed sleep and so got an autorickshaw driver to take me to a hotel. Since then I’ve stayed in Ottapalam, blogging, thinking, feeling and trying to get my head together. Suriya’s been in contact and I have to write to her because phoning doesn’t allow me to say what I need. Now that this blog is complete and as soon as I’ve written to her, I’ll be able to move on, at least figuratively.