The US Department of State have just written to me, asking me to take the next step in my application for a visa. I didn’t need this and right now is about the worst time I could have received it. So here’s another entry in Bruce’s dictionary:

Serenbollocky (n): an accidental juxtaposition of two unrelated but similar undesirable things or events that combine to make Bruce feel utterly dejected

Just been to Ottapalam post office. What a bloody palaver!

First, I wanted to post a letter by a fast service and I thought that ‘speedpost’ would be the best service. It is in terms of speed but I didn’t know about the minimum charge of 795 rupees (over 10 pounds) per item sent to the UK. ‘Registered airmail’ cost 39 rupees and should only take a week.

Then I had a bag of stuff to post home. At or near other post-offices, someone makes a living (I hope) sewing packages into parcels, sealing them and making them look very nice. Not here, despite the office looking very modern and computerised. Also, I’m not sure I liked the questions about what was in the parcel I was sending. I asked if I could buy a cardboard box or maybe a padded envelope: someone brought me a battered cardboard box and some clear parcel tape which we munged into a facsimile of a parcel, all the while being advise by one of his colleagues and watched by the Postmaster who had ordered this chap to find me a box. I was then given some newspaper to wrap around it – again using clear parcel tape to try to hold it together. (I was being helped a lot but I don’t think it actually helped in the production of a good parcel.)

Then I was given a purple water-based marker pen, a sheet of white paper and a clear plastic bag and was told to write the sender’s and receiver’s addresses on the paper and slide it into the bag. A middle-ranking(?) post-worker then stapled this to the parcel and we used more parcel tape to cover the staples. He then asked me what service I’d like to use. I asked about prices first and so his colleague weighed the parcel (the scales were in a back office) and looked up prices on her PC. Once I’d chosen sea-mail (because it cost 523 rupees and would take a month, while other services would cost double that for not much better service), he tried to use the marker pen to write this on the plastic bag.

This, er, wasn’t as successful as he’d have liked so he procured another bag and sheet of paper, wrote the service on this new sheet, put it in its bag and then stapled and taped this to the side of the parcel. Finally his colleague entered the address details into her computer, attached a bar-code sticker (which she read with a modern ‘wand’) and printed a receipt. All of this was a lot of fun and I cracked up several times. My former colleagues, in particular, will know what this is like.

Moral: if you’re posting parcel from India, be ready to buy your own packing materials and wrap your own parcels. I’m amazed by the help the postal workers gave me but I think I could have done a better job on my own. Having said that, when parcels have been sewn into bags and then sealed, they look brilliant and have all arrived perfectly intact, within a not-too-distressing time of posting.

BTW, LJ’s spelling-checker suggested ‘Oedipal’ for ‘Ottapalam’.

Yesterday was a bit of a wash-out: The places I wanted to go were all closed, presumably because it was Sunday, and I managed to lose my small cute padlock. I did get to see a Kathakali performance yesterday. It wasn’t as enthralling as I’d hoped but that may have been because I was busy vituperating myself on losing my padlock. Also, I arrived half-way through the introductory talk so I’m going to give it another try this evening.

I’m in Ooty in the Nilgiri area of Tamil Nadu. I’m still alive but my head is spinning from some fairly unpleasant things. Some details will be forthcoming once I’ve got my head around what I can and can’t say: I’ve been told a few things about people that I’d rather not know and been put in some very compromising positions. I’ve also done myself some large disfavours.

I’m getting out of this crazy state tomorrow and will then find a cybercafe and blog till I drop.

Oh, I have a new cellphone. Same old number (07909 504328) because my SIM card survived the Arabian Sea. Call me if you want!

For Jack Ryan only

AWAKENINGS
I was rudely woken at 6am by a local church calling its faithful to prayer. I know it was already daylight but that’s no excuse for the amount of noise. Suriya brought me some very-welcome ginger/lemon black tea (she’d made this wonderful brew for me several times each day) and told me that what others had done the previous night was an alcohol-induced aberration. I wasn’t completely convinced but I was relieved to hear that we would be leaving this town today, so I didn’t hit my eject-button.

She also told me that Sakya-Raj’s colleague, John, had arranged with his boss to give us a tour of the hydro-electric power-station at the dam which gives this town its name. So we took an autorickshaw to the entrance, crossing the putrid rivers again. Here, I was told to hand in my camera: the TNEB is afraid of espionage leading to sabotage by terrorists such as the Naxalites. I was in a bolshy mood: even without this, I wouldn’t have let the machine that powers my memories out of my sight. So I handed my camera’s batteries to the security guard, and watched him put them safely in his hut before moving on. (The batteries are rechargable AAs: these seem to last a lot longer than normal batteries, even those reputed to last long times.)

DAMBUSTERS
We were taken into a huge building which houses the Soviet-designed (and built?) turbines. These date from 1962 and I posed a bit, transliterating the cyrillic plaques. We were taken into a turbine pit that was open for maintenance. It’s huge and very, very impressive. The turbines are about 10 metres in diameter, each blade weighing about 2 tonnes*. Two floors above them, generators produce 11,000 kV and this is then fed out to a transformer field outside the building. The four turbines are fed by a tunnel from the Stanley reservoir – the outflow goes back into the Cauvery river.
* a lot of information was painted on plaques sported by just about everything apart from the janitor’s chai-glass. I was reminded of the labels on all the kit in the batcave (in the 1960s TV series). The KER-POWs, BIFFs and SPLAT would come later.

There was also a impressive, hand-painted, map showing the layout of the whole dam complex, including a vertical section showing how the tunnel came from the reservoir to the power-house. I’m told I wasn’t doing a bad thing when I pointed out the sign-writer has consistently spelled ‘switch’ as ‘swicth’. I think I shouldn’t have got even slightly bothered when asked if I understood hydro-electricity: I haven’t got my science doctorate tattooed on my forehead – yet. Also, it’s a mistake to try to ask about three-phase generators and thermal power-loss via an interpreter who is 14 and hasn’t yet studied much physics. Sincere apologies to Priya!

This power-house, transformer field and tunnel work in addition to the original power-house built in 1934 at the foot of the dam. This houses smaller, but still impressive, British-built turbines and generators, one of which was open for maintenance. We were taken around this power-house too: it’s fantastic to see machinery which was built in in the country where I grew up still in use. For me it’s a lump-in-the-throat tribute to the people who designed and built it. I hope the Soviet kit lasts as long and continues keeping this area of India with the electricity to which it’s become accustomed. (There was evidence later that this is a vain hope.) Unfortunately, this is all Wikipedia has to say about the place. However, I’ve read that there is argument between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu about the mounts of water reaching the dam. Here’s an article from The Hindu which seems vaguely relevant. I can’t find a map of the installation in the time I’m prepared to spend online just now.

I was introduced to the engineers who maintain the transformer field. It was hard to think of anything I could ask or say to them. I was also upset to see that ‘officers’ and ‘workers’ had separate lavatories. While I was in these engineers’ office, more upset related to last night arose. This was where the KER-POWs, BIFFs and SPLAT happened, probably only verbally. I didn’t hear about it until late this evening and we left the place with me in awe of what humans can do when they get their acts together. I like free electricity!

BREAKFAST IN AMERICA
We bussed back to Thermal Quarters, Laxmi leaving us at the bus-station to travel to her home village to register to vote.

Back at Sakya-Raj and Lilly’s flat, John, Lilly and Sariya organised lunch and the girls had fun feeding each other.

	Lizzie and Selma
	Priya and Leema(?)
	you can see why I’m smitten by Lizzie

I think it was about now when someone (I know who but I won’t say here) asked what I did for sex without a wife. My answer amused people but may not have been entirely sensible, given the circumstances.

I was also again asked my wife’s name: I was getting a bit sick of questions about my personal life, especially painful aspects, and so gave a facetious answer which caused a lot of amusement and turned the conversation elsewhere. I think I might owe the butt of my facetiousness an apology: I think she realised it was a joke and wasn’t upset but I can’t be sure.

I was also by now concerned that the madness from last night wasn’t completely over, keen to get away*, quite keen to check what had happened to my bank account this month and anxious to get back to a big town and buy a replacement cellphone and so be able to contact home whenever I wanted or needed. So I asked Suriya to confirm that we would return to Salem that afternoon and to tell me what time we would leave Mettur Dam. Her answer implied that I had time to at least email home so I walked to a cybercafe about half an hour from Thermal Quarters, near the camera-shop that had burnt my photos to CD last night. I managed to email that I was leaving Mettur Dam for Salem that evening before the manager told me to save and shut down – it had started raining.
*especially in case the things that have been excised from “IT GETS CREEPY” in the previous entry recurred. I didn’t believe the events excised from “IT GETS WORSE” would recur.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE
In fact this was an understatement: the heavens, hell and the deep blue sea were pouring out of the sky, obliterating visibility and turning the road into a luke-warm swimming pool. I have no idea why this should have led to a power-cut: surely to goodness more rain should lead to more hydro-electricity!* I didn’t want to wait for the storm to end – it was only about 45 minutes from when we were due to leave. I couldn’t attract an autorickshaw so I begged a plastic bag from the shop next to the cybercafe, put my most water-vulnerable items in it and then pelted into the rain, screaming curses at Indian weather and people (including me) who put me into bad situations.
*Having seen a week later the sparking and blow-out of mains kit in Ottapalam after a downpour, I begin to understand.

After about half a mile, I hailed a passing autorickshaw and was driven to a road-junction near Thermal Quarters. This was quite a drive – I was soaked through but still getting rained on horizontally and couldn’t see more than 10 metres in any direction. At the road-junction, my sense of direction deserted me and so I ran around in the pouring rain before Rajesh called me from an open-fronted phone centre at the middle of the junction. I sheltered there with him and was given more plastic bags by the manager (bless you sir!) to keep other items dry. We waited for about half an hour before the rain eased enough to let us squelch back to thermal quarters (only a minute away).

Back there my sodden-ness was the cause of much hilarity. I didn’t want to unpack to change and knew that the air temperature would soon dry me. I’m sorry to say I reacted strongly to Suriya mentioning that Sakya-Raj had returned and was asking us to stay. I thought she was suggesting we do so and so didn’t give her time to say that both she and Priya were unhappy with the atmosphere in the house. (She told me this on the bus to Salem.) I said sharply that I’d asked her to confirm what was happening before I went out and had just emailed home to say I was moving on and so I certainly wasn’t staying.

THE GREAT ESCAPE
About half an hour later, we did leave: one of the neighbours gave us some samosas and water for the journey. We arrived back at Balaji and Nitya’s house late in the evening: my parents phoned me there but it turned out the phone was in the part of the house that is rented by a businessman and that he had been in bed so I trudged off into the night to call home.

the sewer outside Nitya and Balaji’s house. It’s almost as wide as my sandal is long and stinks!

When I returned, probably well after midnight, I was still very upset by the un-bloggable events last night and their consequences: Suriya asked me what was wrong. I burst into tears and told her that I’d been badly affected by it and wanted to know what the hell was happening in Thermal Quarters. She told me a lot of things which I can’t repeat here, more about her and Raju’s history (including how at a time of utter disaster, she’d become a Christian), more about her fears for her, Priya’s, Margaret Mary and Raju’s current situations and other stuff that, again, is confined to my head and private blog entries. The more I heard, the more horrifiedly fascinated I became by the mess of peoples’ lives: as if this mess was headlights and I was a rabbit dazzled by them. Again, nothing was happening that doesn’t happen millions of times over each day on this planet but it’s all very sad and, for me, further proof that we must be the most fucked-up species ever to have existed.

She didn’t ask me for any financial support, even though she had made it plain several times that she was in severe financial difficulty*: all she wanted was my friendship and to give friendship/love back to me. Maybe in a decade’s time when Priya had qualified (as a software engineer!), I could help her find her feet in the UK**. I was still upset with her for leading me into a mad-house, even though I had been totally willing to come to a complete stranger’s wedding in a place I knew nothing about (and so some of the fault has to be mine). However, I told her I wanted to know in advance about anywhere she’d take me in future and that I wouldn’t leave Salem until I had a working cellphone. I think we reached an understanding and we retired to our individual pits.
*earlier she’d shown me her bank-book. I’d seen how little she earned. OK, a cynic might suggest she has other accounts but I refuse to be that cynical yet.
**So what do people currently working in this field advise, please? Priya is again a normal, decent human being.

I should emphasise that no-one tried to scam me or force me to do anything I didn’t want and I don’t think Suriya ever spoke a deliberate untruth to me. There were occasions when a cynic might conclude she had but they could all easily be attributed to simple communication difficulties: Suriya’s english is limited: her sentence-construction is quite idiosyncratic (possibly using Tamil constructions) and she speaks English in a deep, almost gruff, monotone. I don’t fault her for any of this: I don’t speak any Indian languages at all and it’s become very apparent that I was wrong not to do so before I came here.

The couple then posed for photographs inside the house whose verandah was the eating-place. However, again Suriya hurried us away back to the house near the church where we’d slept. (She later told me that she and Raju had seriously argued that morning or the night before. While other people have corroborated some of the things she said about Raju, I haven’t seen them myself and so it’s unfair on Raju to repeat them, especially in a public diary.)

I think it was now that I asked Leema, (Suriya’s ‘best friend’) how she got two 10p-coin-sized scars on her arm. She told me that someone had burned her with a cigar but Suriya later told me that this was untrue and that the person Leema named was a decent person who would never do such a thing. (She didn’t say who had, in her opinion, caused the scars.*) So it seems best not to give Leema’s actual answer here.
*Suriya also made other unpleasant allegations about Leema – and others involved in Leema’s life, despite saying that Leema was her best friend and otherwise acting as this were true all the time. She basically said that she and Leema are best friends but had come to an accommodation: Leema’s life was her own and Suriya’s life was her own.)

She then disappeared while we watched two buses go by. (This might have been the time she and Raju argued.) There was a long wait…

GETTING CREEPY
Also, during this trip, Sakya-Raj kept touching my arm. I asked him several times, via Suriya and Priya, not to do so. I know it’s common in India for same-sex friends to have their arms about each other. (Also, Sakya-Raj and Lilly don’t speak any English so we had to communicate by gestures, body-language and proxies.) However,unwarranted touching by anyone makes me very uncomfortable. Later that evening, when he was still touching me, this time on my leg, I calmly but firmly removed his hands and then made a praying/greeting gesture to show “I mean no harm or emnity but JUST DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!“.

IT GETS WORSE
Most folk returned to Thermal Quarters but Suriya and Rajesh waited with me while I got my photos burnt to CD at a camera shop and bought some antiseptic cream and plasters. (Earlier I’d trodden on and cut Suriya’s foot.) I think it was when we got back that Suriya took me to the block’s roof to hang up or collect some laundry and then burst into tears, telling me about the argument she’d had with Raju. (I know it was after dark when this discussion occurred and that the next day it was raining far too much for anyone to venture up there.

Not much later, Rajesh, Leonie, Lizzie, Lilly, and Priya* were (presumably) asleep in the bedroom** (Rajesh was on the only bed), leaving only me, Sakya-Raj and Suriya awake. It was then that I was put in the first difficult position. I’m not best pleased with my reaction: I probably should have grabbed my kit and bugged out of the house altogether. I didn’t, partly from morbid fascination and shell-shock, partly from a hope that I could rescue some of the friendships I’d started to form and partly because I wanted to show that them (and myself) that I wasn’t going to be swayed by what was happening.
*Leema and her daughter Selma may also have been there

The tension from this, coupled with my ongoing constipation and the effects of the rotten smells from earlier, made it easy for me to go to the bathroom and feign retching. (It was hardly feigning at all!) This seemed the easiest way to extricate myself from the lounge and the difficult situation – which I hoped would be over in the morning. I then went to the bedroom to try to sleep – there was a space beside Rajesh that had been left for me. This was in no way anything other than them offering me the best sleeping arrangement they could.

As I was trying to settle, I was told that I’d been made a horrible offer*. I replied that I wasn’t interested – I probably should have told all involved to go to hell but was too shell-shocked to think straight. Later I was told that the offerer had been drunk and that, as soon as sobriety had set in, the offer was withdrawn and apologised for many times over. I can’t say that alcohol provides any excuse and I don’t know whether the person who would have suffered most if I’d accepted the offer received an apology.
*Again, no details here apart the knowledge that only adults would have been involved

Eventually I fell into an interrupted sleep, hoping that Suriya had been mistaken or that I’d wake up and find that the offer and the interruptions were just dreams.

After all this and some things I was told later, there’s no way I want to meet any of the Mettur Dam folk again, apart from Lizzie (with whom I was well smitten) and Leonie: they’re two cute kids who, if what I’ve been told is true, are probably very unhappy just now. Even if it’s not true, while Sakya-Raj and Lilly were brilliant day-time hosts, I don’t think I could feel comfortable in their flat. I’m curious whether any of the things I’ve been told are about to happen will occur but there’s no way of finding out without returning.

GOING TO CHURCH
I think we were woken at around 6am. I know I got to bucket-shower with hot water and dress fairly respectably. (I’d wanted to buy a tie in Salem but failed to get this across.) Raju himself was done to a turn and the bride, Margaret Mary, was also beautifully dressed.

I took this photo of Raju when I went back to the house where we ate to collect the batteries I’d left charging there overnight.

Many other folk were also dressed beautifully, as befitted what might be the most important event in someone’s life.

Laxmi: she usually wore quiet, autumnal colours

Raju and Margaret Mary paraded to the church, accompanied by drummers and a clarionet(?) player. I wish I could include an AVI here.

	parade to church
	parade to church

THE SERVICE
Before the service began, Raju and Margaret Mary took confession. This surprised me: as far as I’m aware, confession is a Catholic ritual and, again as far as I’m aware, Raju is a Protestant: as far as I’m aware, he and Suriya both work in Colva for the same US-based Christian organisation.

I was also surprised by the scale and lavishness of the wedding: as far as I was aware, Raju earns only a tiny wage from this organisation for preaching a few afternoons a week in Colva. I know that the wedding was brought forward a few days so that someone important could attend. This may well have been David Padmanaban. If so, I imagine he contributed towards the wedding. Suriya later told me she contributed a huge (for her) amount. However, she told me that Raju had supported her and her daughters for a long time when they were homeless and apparently otherwise friendless.

Raju taking confession

Interior of church

I can’t recall (and wasn’t able to take notes because Raju had asked me to photograph everything, despite an apparently professional video crew and still photographer being present) much about the exact order of the service. I was also crying quite a lot of the time: weddings always bring out the old romantic part of me and now remind me of my own history.

The congregation (over 100 people) was separated by gender: men on the left and women (and small children) on the right. (Late-comers stood wherever there was room.)

the congregation

There was the usual mix of hymns, prayers and sermons (all in Tamil), interspersed with readings (Raju read one – I don’t recall Margaret Mary doing so) before the actual marriage act.

Sermon

Vows?

After what appeared to be the vows, Margaret Mary and Raju put beautiful garlands on each other. I’ve seen such garlands in photos of hindu couples: I think it’s a beautiful idea that deserves to cross religious barriers.

Exchanging garlands

garlanded

Then another Catholic(?) event: communion. The priests took communion first, then administered to the bride and groom. After this, most of the congregation took communion too. I wish I knew the proportions of Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, multi-faith believers, agnostics and atheists in the congregation. Oh for telepathy!

	Communion
	altar girl
	giving communion to the congregation

BREAKFAST
The couple and the ministers then paraded out of the church. Suriya hurried us to the house where we’d eaten last night. Again, a lovely breakfast was served onto banana leaves. (When you’ve finished eating, you fold the leaf over so that the edges are towards you. I presume this is so that any drips fall onto you and not onto your companions.)

	David Padmanaban and I at breakfast
	David Padmanaban, I, Rajesh and Sakya-Raj at breakfast
	The eating-place was a verandah between two houses.

By the time I’d eaten, Raju and Margaret Mary were parading towards the eating-house, again accompanied by the fantastic music. When these photos were reviewed back in Mettur Dam, most people present (including me) made or laughed at jokes about the difference in height between the bride and groom. I did say at the time that bodies don’t matter, so long as the couple are happy with each other. I know friends and family are ‘entitled’ to rib each other but the couple weren’t there to rib back and I wasn’t really a friend, although I hoped to become one as time goes by.

	Parading back to the eating-place
	close-up of parade
	even closer
	musicians

The couple then posed for photographs inside the house whose verandah was the eating-place. However, again Suriya hurried us away back to the house near the church where we’d slept. (The probable reason for this is currently in a private entry.)

Margaret Mary, Raju and Rajesh

I took more photographs of guests, friends and family, almost all at their request (not that I didn’t want to). I noticed that Leonie (Lilly and Sakya-Raj’s eldest daughter) and others had their right hands painted. I asked if someone could do this for me and Leonie was ‘volunteered’ amid hilarity from others. I hope this didn’t embarrass her too much and that she didn’t end up doing something she didn’t want to. As far as I could tell she enjoyed doing it and seeing that this random whitey was harmlessly weird. (Leonie’s 13 or 14 and doesn’t speak English. Earlier, in Satara, Latika had told me that the darker a bride’s hand becomes, the more her groom loves her.)

	Priya
	Leonie painting my hand
	my painted hand

I think it was now that I asked Leema, (Suriya’s ‘best friend’) how she got two 10p-coin-sized scars on her arm. (Her reply, and Suriya’s comment on this, are currently in a private entry.)

METTUR DAM
Suriya then rounded up the folk who were to stay in Mettur Dam that night and took us to the bus-stop. She then disappeared while we watched two buses go by. (I can guess why but until I’m sure, I’ll keep the guess in a private entry.) There was a long wait (nearly two hours) in intense sunshine for the next bus. Sakya-Raj and others procured some very welcome plastic sachets of orange-juice* and water from a nearby house/stall and even managed to borrow a wood-and-string bed. This was where I found out how comfortable they are: I slept for quite a while on one side of it. I think they have quite a lot of give so if I was to sleep on one for a long time I’d end up with a sore back unless I kept tightening it. There were a few laughs as I choked on my juice and spluttered some down my front.
*of course the plastic was thrown onto the street, despite me asking folk not to!

waiting for the bus

Eventually we bussed back to Kholetur and thence to Mettur Dam and unloaded ourselves into Sakya-Raj and Lilly’s flat in ‘Thermal Quarters’. This is a an apartment complex owned by Tamil Nadu Electricity Board: Sakya-Raj works at the nearby hydroelectric power-station. The flat, probably identical to the others in the complex, had a lounge/living/TV room (about 8 square metres), a toilet, a shower-room, a kitchen (about 4 square metres), a bedroom (about 9 square metres) and a balcony (about 3 square metres).

Thermal Quarters

altar in playground at Thermal Quarters

I don’t know who suggested that we have a walk in the park in front of the dam. I do recall that it took ages for everyone to get ready so that we didn’t set out until 30 minutes before dusk and that the rivers near the dam absolutely STANK of dead fish and rancid sulphur compounds. Maybe this should have brought back happy memories of my PhD but it didn’t – it just made me retch! I did manage to take some vaguely interesting pictures on the way.

	Scouting sign in Mettur Dam
	temple in Mettur Dam

temple in Mettur Dam

GETTING CREEPY
The reason for this section’s title is currently in a private entry.

at Mettur Dam park

at Mettur Dam park

IT GETS WORSE
Most folk returned to Thermal Quarters but Suriya and Rajesh waited with me while I got my photos burnt to CD at a camera shop and bought some antiseptic cream and plasters. (Earlier I’d trodden on and cut Suriya’s foot.) I think it was when we got back that Suriya took me to the block’s roof to hang up or collect some laundry and then told me some things about her family that are currently in a private entry. (I know it was after dark when this discussion occurred and that the next day it was raining far too much for anyone to venture up there.

After this, an unpleasant circumstance occurred. Then there was a sick conversation (which I didn’t initiate and didn’t want). I later reacted inappropriately to this lot: because none of this reflects well on me or my hosts, they’re partially described in an entry that will probably always remain private.

Of all the experiences I could have in India, tonight’s meal has to be one of the wierdest. I have just drunk a MUG* of tea with soya milk and brown sugar!
*Tea in India is (almost) invariably served in tiny cups (less than 200ml, I guess) with cow milk and white sugar, unless you are nible and quick enough to specify khala chai (Marathi/Hindi for ‘black tea’) or nai cheeni (Hindi for ‘no sugar’) or nai sagar (Marathi for ‘no sugar’).

To complete the trip, my meal was

• grilled TOFU with a peanut sauce
• boiled sweet potatoes
• carrot sticks
• green salad
• millet chapati
• a blend of freshly-prepared beetroot, carrot and orange juice. (These three were my choices – I think I’ll try something else next time.)

The whole meal was organic and vegan. And there was me not believing in miracles.

Somehow I found time to write an (annotated) diary entry
On bus to Rasipuram (met Selvam, Suriya’s distant cousin [Suriya and his grandfathers were brothers], who gave us a lift to the main road).

MDMK(?) propaganda in abundance.

MDMK(?) poster

Last night phone was f***** – bad news because I really wanted to call home. In my absence, dad calls me at Nitya and Balaji’s house.

I’d been missing contact with home so Priya, Rajesh and Nitya took me to an international phone booth, even though it was late at night. Earlier Bobby had given me the addresses [and phone numbers where available] of all the places I’d be staying for the wedding and I’d emailed them to my parents. The international phone didn’t work and there was a brief discussion over whether I was dialling my parents’ number correctly. I kept my cool, despite feeling slightly insulted. My parents have had the same number for at least 20 years and I’d been calling them regularly from India.

TV/DVD-equipped bus, Tamil/Bollywood/disco music

This is probably a contradiction. Tamil Nadu has a large cinema industry centred on Chennai.

Then meet David Padmanaban and his orphanage/bus/church.

David and his wife Shakila (Suriya’s neice) are (Protestant?) Christians whose house in the in the compound of the orphanage they own(?) and run. They also have property (a single-story apartment building and possibly a tea plantation) in the Nilgiris, some farmland in the outskirts of Rasipuram and a bus service.

David and Shakila Padmanaban

He showed me around the orphanage. I couldn’t help cringing when he asked them to line up and then come forward in turn to shake my hand. I wonder if this was as embarrassing for them as it was for me? I don’t fault David and Shakila’s aims or kindness and given the chance, I would like to support this work: these kids would probably have been on the streets or dead without this place.

some of the orphans – the rest were on holiday with distant relatives

There seemed also to be a disparity between the orphanage quarters and its owners’ house which seemed to tacitly say “I’m rich: you’re not”. I’m well aware that this disparity is nothing compared to the disparity between the orphans’ apparent lives and the cost of the camera slung around my waist or the amount of money I’m spending on what’s basically a holiday.

I was also curious why Suriya lives in a tiny rented house in Goa and has serious financial difficulties (she’d shown me her bank book) when David and Shakila were well off in Tamil Nadu. I did ask Suriya about this later: if I put her answer here, I might be libelling David and Shakila. This would be totally out of order: they fed and watered me, treated me kindly and I’m just a random stranger who can’t (currently) do anything for them except advertise their help for kids who otherwise have nothing while I’m (currently) doing nothing at all for anyone.

David then took me on the back of his scooter to his church, his school and to the bus station to show me (one of?) his bus(es?).

	David Padmanaban’s church
	David Padmanaban’s school
	David Padmanban’s bus

He also took me to his nearby farmland where his staff grow bananas, coconuts and sugar-cane. The land is separated from a lake by a dyke that carries a main road. David told me that this had leaked, ruining half of this year’s sugar-cane crop. He also offered me coconut milk. This was another cringe-making event: one of his staff walked barefoot through ankle-deep, dirty-looking puddles puddles to a tree, climbed it and cut down two coconuts. He brought them back to the verandah where David and I were sitting (while the staff stood, almost to attention, around us), chopped off some of the husk and pierced the nut with a lethal-looking machete. After all this, the milk was watery and unpleasant, not a patch on how I believe the coconut flesh would have tasted.

I say bananas, you say baneenas

After this, David took me back to his house where I met Venkatesh (his father-in-law and Suriya’s brother-in-law) and Tukin, David and Shakila’s son. I doubt you’ll really want to know this but it was about now that I noticed I was constipated!

All this time Rajesh had been at the house. This was also embarrassing: obviously I didn’t know that much about the relationships but I did know that Rajesh was from north-east Karnataka but worked as a waiter in Goa and had been friends with Suriya and Raju for much, much longer than I. He had also never been to Tamil Nadu before. This preferential treatment continued during the week and at least twice I mentioned to Rajesh and Suriya that I hadn’t asked for and didn’t want it. I also tried to make it plain to everyone that I appreciated what they were doing for me but that there was an imbalance because I couldn’t return the favours unless any of them ever visited the UK and that I didn’t want to be even an unwilling cause of upset for Rajesh. All through this trip, he was generous and perfectly decent.

Onwards to nuptiality
Suriya, Rajesh and I then bussed back to Salem where we were joined by Laxmi and Priya. We then all bussed to Mettur Dam, where I managed to photograph poorly a ‘khala sanyassin’, then another bus to Kholetur and finally, as night fell, bussed to within 10 minutes’ walk of Savaryapalyam, Raju’s home village. During the walk, we met a wedding guest (probably a relative) who was an english and maths teacher. He took me on the back of his motorbike to the house where Raju was staying, then went back to collect others.

khala sanyassin (black-clothed mendicant priest)

At the house, I met Raju (the groom) for the second ever time and was also was introduced to more of his and Suriya’s friends and relations, including:

• Lily and Sakya-Raj (who live in Mettur Dam but are originally, I believe, from Suriya’s home village) and their children Leonie (aged 14) and Lizzie (aged 11)
• Leema (Suriya’s ‘best friend’ from her home village) and her daughter Selma.

I asked if there was an international phone-booth in the village (they seem to be incredibly common) but was told that the nearest was in Kholetur. I was taken by bike back to Kholetur (3 km in the dark at around 30 km/h was fine – until the driver answered his cellphone without stopping). After returning from this and getting grounded, we were given our evening meal. I have to say that until you’ve eaten real south Indian food with your fingers from a banana leaf you’ve missed one of the world’s best treats.

	Leema and Suriya
	Rajesh, Priya, Laxmi, Sakya-Raj, Raju, Suriya and Lily

Rajesh, Suriya and I were put up in a house belonging to Raju’s grand-parents. Rajesh and I were indoors on metal beds, while other folk slept on the verandah on wood-and-string beds or on mats.

Priya and Lizzie sharing a wood-and-string bed

We also got to watch a bit of cricket (I think highlights of the recent one-day series between India and Pakistan) while the family-folk were chatting out on the verandah. I was kept awake by this for a while and eventually went out to join them. Leema, a woman was smoking a cigar. She offered me one and I tried it: she must have lungs of cast iron to smoke these things! Finally I got to sleep around midnight – not too soon because the wedding was due to kick off at 8 am the next day.