Yesterday we made an all-day excursion to Mahabalipurum, a temple town about two hours away on the coastal highway. It’s the same road we traveled from Chennai Airport, but it was dark so we didn’t see much on that trip.
Just like Pondicherry, which is shortened to Pondy, Mahabalipurum has a nickname of Mahabs. I guess even Indians get tired of pronouncing all those syllables in place names. The longest one in this part of India (Tamil Nadu) is Tiruvannamalai, aka Tiru, which is famous for the full-moon circumnavigation around a mountain.
The landscape was flat and rural, rice fields and palm trees, water buffaloes and oxen, salt ponds and marshes. Tons of egrets and herons wading in the shallow water. Villagers bent over in the fields and the salt ponds, laboring in the sun.
In Mahabalipurum the major temple-caves are called the rahtas. They were carved out of granite during the Pallavan rule, in the eighth century. The figures are of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Ganesha, and other Hindu gods. The carvings are very well preserved and vivid.
The town is famous for its stone figures of all types and sizes. Nearly all the figurines sold in India are made here. The streets are filled with shops and also workshops, where you can see and hear workers grinding and hammering away on stone with power and hand tools.
One of the most intriguing machines I saw was a belt-driven past making machine, which was grinding away making a terrible racket and spitting out strips of pasta.
Another temple is right on the beach and called appropriate The Shore Temple. After lunch a few of us took a long walk in the hot sun to visit it. When I was in India in 1976 with the Brown University Chorus, we spent the day on this beach and swam, sunbathed, and walked over to the temple, which at that time right at the water’s edge. I remember walking through it in ankle-deep water.
Since then, the area around the temple has been filled in with earth, planted with grass and fenced in. You now have to pay 250 rupees and buy a ticket to enter.
I have a picture of me and Sallie Spence sitting on the beach on our beach towels in 1976 in front of this very temple. So naturally I had to pose for a few pictures of me this time in 2011.
The salt water and wind have eroded the carvings in the shore temple, which is square and built around two tiny rooms. One has an obelisk in it, and the other a reclining Vishnu.
While I was sitting in the shade at the temple’s entrance, a man holding a baby came out. I greeted the baby, and instantly the father handed me his baby. He and his wife chatted with me while I held and admired the little girl, who was 9 months old, hailed from Chennai, and named something like Sakti but not Shakti. She sat on my leg and was completely happy. The parents took pictures, and a small crowd gather to see this American woman wearing Indian clothes holding an Indian baby.
Once again, I felt like a rock star. The parents were in no hurry to reclaim their child, so finally I handed her back to her mother. The little girl turned and reached her arms back for me. Such a sweetie!
This is the second time I’ve held an Indian baby, and they really seem to have no fear of strangers. Maybe they are just used to being handed around from one person to the next.
After our walk to the temple, Danielle, Margaret and I ended up in a random tiny shop. I was lured in by the promise of A/C. So it was really just a ceiling fan, but that did the job. The shop owner was named Jolly, and he lived up to his name. Unlike most merchants, he offered a reasonable price up front and didn’t do much bargaining.
When he heard we were staying in Auroville, he challenged us any number of times to compare his prices with those in Auroville and to telephone him and tell him he was not an honest man if Auroville had better prices.
Our ride home took place during rush hour, and it was truly a feat of fine driving by our brilliant bus driver that got us home safely. We amused ourselves by counting the number of passengers stuffed into the back of auto-rickshaws as we passed them in our bus. I believe the award-winning number was 10.
