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.

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.

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’.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.