Hi everybody,
I'm back in Delhi from a brief and aborted trip to South India. We hit Pondicherry and Chennai, the former, a tiny slice of France (sort of) in India and the latter, the largest city in the South and one of the IT powerhouses of "New India". "Old India" still dominates, though, with all the good and bad that entails.
The trip started inauspiciously, with early morning news from Mumbai about the unfolding attacks. My friend swung by in a taxi and I jumped in, breathlessly telling him about the terrible news; turns out, he had some bad news of his own: a massive storm was pummelling Pondicherry (the prettily named Cyclone Nisha). Indeed, we saw many a flooded landscape on the drive to Pondicherry from Chennai airport, and were slightly delayed by roads swamped by rainwater.
But vastly more irritating was the delay caused by a corrupt highways official we faced on the outskirts of Pondicherry.
Moments after our taxi driver suddenly halted our Ambassador outside a thatch shack, the driver requested 200 rupees and handed us an incomprehensible receipt he happened to have in the taxi. It was written in English, but with words that a 7-year old would recognize as not belonging in the sequence they were placed. We argued, hampered by the language barrier as he spoke little English and we knew no Tamil. He gestured that the money was not for him, pointing to the shack, so I accompanied him inside where I found a somewhat humorless gentleman perched behind a rickety table littered with ancient ledger books and an old cash register. The scene looked semi-official (in an "Old India" kind of way) and after some half-hearted arguing, I was prepared to pay him the 200...except he now demanded 250, which I wholeheartedly refused to hand over. "Why 250?" I asked, now genuinely annoyed. "For paper," he explained angrily, pointing to his raggedy receipt book, (where the figure of 200 rupees was clearly printed). I snorted, and continued to insist on the 200, which I already felt was overly-generous on my part considering I still did not know what it was for. This state-appointed highway robber then tried a different and more ambitious tact: he raised the amount of the toll. "400!" he announced, "you give me 400 rupees!" What made him think I would pay the larger amount when I had made quite clear I would not pay the smaller one remains unclear. I was simultaneously disgusted and impressed with his audacity, laughing to hide my surprise. To buy time, I pointed to a cow lingering behind me, eagerly chewing on moldy ledger books. The highway robber seemed uninterested, but the taxi driver made a show of chasing the holy bovine away, albeit to no avail: the cow almost immediately returned, lured by the leathery goodness one only finds in moldy, government-issued Indian ledger books. I returned to the argument, demanding to know what the 400 rupees could possibly be for. The robber-man tried various answers: the paper again, a toll, for cyclone repairs. I stood my ground. Suddenly, clearly tired of me, he bellowed "No problem! Pay 200 rupees". I smiled and handed him the cash. The taxi driver laughed. The cow licked a ledger book. We continued on into Pondicherry.
This relatively small town in Tamil Nadu was once the centre of French colonial rule in India. Reminders of this past are visible in the charming architecture and the "kepi", the hats sported by the local police similar to those worn by the French Foreign Legion. The seafood is fresh and tasty, and locals pleasant and smiling. There are more middle-aged French tourists than is normal for India, surely lured promises of a sub-continental Provence or Paris. I truly hoped they had not jetted in all the way from France for the few blocks of French architecture that lingered. Pondicherry is a very pleasant place compared to most of the hectic tourist towns in India, but it ain't Cannes.
Unfortunately, the cyclone had visited the small town only hours before we arrived and the damage was visible everywhere. Trees blocked roads and streets were flooded, while the wind continued to blow forcefully, especially toward the water. The seaside road was closed to traffic and most stores were closed. We did little that day, as there was little to do. The next day, the waterfront was open and we took some photos, before wandering through the back alleys of the town, snapping shots of everyday life in Podicherry. I decided to head back early to Chennai, as the weather was not promising.
The drive back up to the big city was marked by more scenes of flooded fields and roads although surprisingly, the sun was now out in full force. We reached Chennai after dark, and I settled into a rather expensive boutique eco-hotel - "New India" in all its glitzy, over-priced glory. I was impressed with the sleek lobby and clean room, less so with the taxi racket operating out of the hotel, designed specifically to fleece visitors by forcing them to pay exorbitantly for two or four hour taxi "packages". That evening, all we wanted was a 2km ride to a restaurant, a drive worth maybe a fifth what expected us to pay. We were refused. Disgusted, and muttering to myself that somethings never change in India, particularly its impressive ability to gouge and infuriate visitors, we haggled with a rickshaw driver and went for dinner.
The next day I explored Chennai and spent most of the day with my cousin and his family. We had lunch at a tasty Thai restaurant and exchanged news of the Mumbai attacks, lamenting the inadequate response of the security forces, debating the mid-term effects on the economy and, sadly, agreeing that such an attack or bombing will happen again. He dropped me at the airport with a boxful of sweets and promises to hook up again soon.
This was more or less my first trip to South India and it represented a noticeable change of pace from the Northern part of the country where we live. There is a languidness common to many tropical regions that lingers in the air, mixing with the oppressive humidity to slow things down just a notch. When the rain clears, the sky is a clear blue, not the soupy grey of Delhi. The sea is omnipresent providing a sense of vast, open space that simply does not exist in crowded Delhi, surrounded as it is by the Rajasthani desert, the Himilayan foothills and the endless plains of Uttar Pradesh. Even Chennai did not feel crowded, despite its 4.5 million-strong population. I'm looking forward to our return to the South, less than a month away when we'll visit Kerala.
I'm back in Delhi from a brief and aborted trip to South India. We hit Pondicherry and Chennai, the former, a tiny slice of France (sort of) in India and the latter, the largest city in the South and one of the IT powerhouses of "New India". "Old India" still dominates, though, with all the good and bad that entails.
The trip started inauspiciously, with early morning news from Mumbai about the unfolding attacks. My friend swung by in a taxi and I jumped in, breathlessly telling him about the terrible news; turns out, he had some bad news of his own: a massive storm was pummelling Pondicherry (the prettily named Cyclone Nisha). Indeed, we saw many a flooded landscape on the drive to Pondicherry from Chennai airport, and were slightly delayed by roads swamped by rainwater.
But vastly more irritating was the delay caused by a corrupt highways official we faced on the outskirts of Pondicherry.
Moments after our taxi driver suddenly halted our Ambassador outside a thatch shack, the driver requested 200 rupees and handed us an incomprehensible receipt he happened to have in the taxi. It was written in English, but with words that a 7-year old would recognize as not belonging in the sequence they were placed. We argued, hampered by the language barrier as he spoke little English and we knew no Tamil. He gestured that the money was not for him, pointing to the shack, so I accompanied him inside where I found a somewhat humorless gentleman perched behind a rickety table littered with ancient ledger books and an old cash register. The scene looked semi-official (in an "Old India" kind of way) and after some half-hearted arguing, I was prepared to pay him the 200...except he now demanded 250, which I wholeheartedly refused to hand over. "Why 250?" I asked, now genuinely annoyed. "For paper," he explained angrily, pointing to his raggedy receipt book, (where the figure of 200 rupees was clearly printed). I snorted, and continued to insist on the 200, which I already felt was overly-generous on my part considering I still did not know what it was for. This state-appointed highway robber then tried a different and more ambitious tact: he raised the amount of the toll. "400!" he announced, "you give me 400 rupees!" What made him think I would pay the larger amount when I had made quite clear I would not pay the smaller one remains unclear. I was simultaneously disgusted and impressed with his audacity, laughing to hide my surprise. To buy time, I pointed to a cow lingering behind me, eagerly chewing on moldy ledger books. The highway robber seemed uninterested, but the taxi driver made a show of chasing the holy bovine away, albeit to no avail: the cow almost immediately returned, lured by the leathery goodness one only finds in moldy, government-issued Indian ledger books. I returned to the argument, demanding to know what the 400 rupees could possibly be for. The robber-man tried various answers: the paper again, a toll, for cyclone repairs. I stood my ground. Suddenly, clearly tired of me, he bellowed "No problem! Pay 200 rupees". I smiled and handed him the cash. The taxi driver laughed. The cow licked a ledger book. We continued on into Pondicherry.
This relatively small town in Tamil Nadu was once the centre of French colonial rule in India. Reminders of this past are visible in the charming architecture and the "kepi", the hats sported by the local police similar to those worn by the French Foreign Legion. The seafood is fresh and tasty, and locals pleasant and smiling. There are more middle-aged French tourists than is normal for India, surely lured promises of a sub-continental Provence or Paris. I truly hoped they had not jetted in all the way from France for the few blocks of French architecture that lingered. Pondicherry is a very pleasant place compared to most of the hectic tourist towns in India, but it ain't Cannes.
Unfortunately, the cyclone had visited the small town only hours before we arrived and the damage was visible everywhere. Trees blocked roads and streets were flooded, while the wind continued to blow forcefully, especially toward the water. The seaside road was closed to traffic and most stores were closed. We did little that day, as there was little to do. The next day, the waterfront was open and we took some photos, before wandering through the back alleys of the town, snapping shots of everyday life in Podicherry. I decided to head back early to Chennai, as the weather was not promising.
The drive back up to the big city was marked by more scenes of flooded fields and roads although surprisingly, the sun was now out in full force. We reached Chennai after dark, and I settled into a rather expensive boutique eco-hotel - "New India" in all its glitzy, over-priced glory. I was impressed with the sleek lobby and clean room, less so with the taxi racket operating out of the hotel, designed specifically to fleece visitors by forcing them to pay exorbitantly for two or four hour taxi "packages". That evening, all we wanted was a 2km ride to a restaurant, a drive worth maybe a fifth what expected us to pay. We were refused. Disgusted, and muttering to myself that somethings never change in India, particularly its impressive ability to gouge and infuriate visitors, we haggled with a rickshaw driver and went for dinner.
The next day I explored Chennai and spent most of the day with my cousin and his family. We had lunch at a tasty Thai restaurant and exchanged news of the Mumbai attacks, lamenting the inadequate response of the security forces, debating the mid-term effects on the economy and, sadly, agreeing that such an attack or bombing will happen again. He dropped me at the airport with a boxful of sweets and promises to hook up again soon.
This was more or less my first trip to South India and it represented a noticeable change of pace from the Northern part of the country where we live. There is a languidness common to many tropical regions that lingers in the air, mixing with the oppressive humidity to slow things down just a notch. When the rain clears, the sky is a clear blue, not the soupy grey of Delhi. The sea is omnipresent providing a sense of vast, open space that simply does not exist in crowded Delhi, surrounded as it is by the Rajasthani desert, the Himilayan foothills and the endless plains of Uttar Pradesh. Even Chennai did not feel crowded, despite its 4.5 million-strong population. I'm looking forward to our return to the South, less than a month away when we'll visit Kerala.
1 comment:
Zal,
Your writing is excellent. It's a shame you have that stupid thing called modesty and haven't told us all about this before!
There must be a way to share your photos either by posting a link to Shutterfly or by putting them directly in your posts. You take some great pics.
Keep posting. You make me want to go to India and stay the hell away at the same time.
Cheers,
James.
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