Syamala's mother and brother-in-law greeted us at the airport. We loaded all of our bags into a van taxi and drove into town. The streets were filled with cars, trucks, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, pedestrians, cows, goats, and bicycles. A man driving a motorcycle or scooter, with a woman wearing a beautiful sari, sitting sidesaddle on the back, was a common sight. Many of the vehicles on the road were auto-rickshaws, which are bright yellow little three-wheeler, partly enclosed taxis that usually seat three people in the back. The driver steers with motorcycle-like handlebars. Most of the rickshaws and large trucks were highly personalized. They had decorative paintings or words, often religious in nature, all over the back, sides, and front of the vehicle.
It was a mad system of vehicles closely weaving in and out of each other that miraculously got us from the airport to the Venkateswara Swami Temple guesthouse where we spent the night. Many Hindus travel around the country to visit temples; so many Hindu temples had facilities to accommodate these travelers. Syamala's brother-in-law, Prasad worked in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh at the Tirmula temple. Tirupati is the birthplace of the God, Venkateswara Swami. Since Prasad works at this temple he can stay at other temples' guesthouses for free.
Many Indians are vegetarians at some level, so all of the restaurants are conveniently labeled as, "Vegetarian", "Non-Vegetarian", or "Veg/Non-Veg". Syamala and I changed into some fresh clothes and we all went out for dinner at a "Veg/Non-Veg" restaurant. We rode in two auto rickshaws: Syamala, her mother Rani, and myself in one and Prasad following closely behind in another one. We arrived at the restaurant and parked next to a cow that was foraging for food in a trash pile on the side of the street. Across the street, a woman was sitting on the ground, selling garlands and fragrant jasmine flowers for tying in hair. We walked up a narrow, cement stairway to be seated in the restaurant. The servers laid down a huge banana leaf in front of each of us. Prasad poured a little water down and swished it around with his hand to clean and rinse off the leaf. The rest of us followed his example. We gave our orders and soon an entourage of male servers brought our food in steel serving bowls. One man scooped rice with a small plate onto our banana leaves. Then other men served our requested curries. Even though I only ordered one veggie curry, which I shared with Rani, they gave me a sampling of all of the spicy vegetarian curries they had prepared that night. What a treat!
Back at the guesthouse, the three of us women slept in a double bed. The following morning I bathed by dipping a cup into a bucket of water and pouring it over my body, lathering up, and rinsing off with the same cup method. The toilet there was the squatter kind, a porcelain hole in the ground with two platforms for your feet. I didn't use, or even see any toilet paper the whole time I was in India. Instead, a bucket of water with a cup for dipping was kept beside the toilet for washing.
Syamala and Prasad took me to the temple for pooja (worship) before we went to breakfast. Per Hindu tradition, Rani did not go with us to the temple because she was menstruating, nor did any of us touch her before we went. We walked inside the front entrance of the temple that was decorated with intricately carved statues of various Hindu deities. The idol of Venkateswara Swami was housed at this temple. He was dressed in a robe and covered in so many flowers that all you could see was his face and feet. The worshipers stood with their palms together facing the idol while the priest performed the ceremony. He chanted and passed a plate of fire around to the worshipers. The people moved their hand over the flame then touched their eyes and chests, receiving blessings from the light of the flame. Syamala's husband Pradeep later told me that fire is the purest form of nature. Everything can be destroyed and cleansed by fire. Therefore, much in the same way followers of some Christian religions partake in the sacrament, the Hindu worshipers are cleansed of their sins by the flame. The priest also passed a spoonful of coconut water to each person's hand for drinking. This water had been used to bathe the idol. Drinking it was thought to bestow blessings of good health. Syamala and I stepped up to the front. Syamala told the priest our names, including Pradeep, who was in the U.S. at that time. The priest said some prayers in our names then cut some flowers from the altar. He gave the flowers to us in a plastic bag that had an image of Venkateswara Swami printed on it, to carry good luck with us throughout the day.
We left the temple and met Rani in front to go out shopping. Again, three of us in one rickshaw and Prasad following in another. He was a very good sport and escorted us around all day. We went to a few tailor shops and picked out fabric to have several salwar kamees (long dresses with pants) and dupatas (scarves) custom tailored. The cotton material cost anywhere from 200 to 800 rupees ($4 TO $16 U.S.) and up, plus 50 rupees (about $1 U.S.) for one-hour tailoring service. They took our measurements and specifics about things like dress length, pant style, and neck line style. We went out to some other stores and came back an hour later to pick up our 15 custom tailored outfits. Now that's service!
After we were done shopping, Prasad escorted us to the Chennai train station where we boarded an overnight train to Syamala's village, Kaikalur. We pulled up to the station in an organized line of yellow auto-rikshaws. We hired a few men to carry our baggage. Even though some of our bags had wheels, they carried them all on their heads. We made our way through the crowds, past several platforms with docked trains, to the very last platform where the train to Kaikalur was docked. I can only imagine what a mess I would have been in if I had tried to locate the correct train by myself.
Chennai is in the state of Tamil Nadu. The mother tongue there is Tamil. Since it is a big city with people living there from all over the country, the signs there are printed either in Tamil, English, or a combination of the two. I went to sleep on the train in the land of the Tamil language and woke up in Kaikalur, Andhra Pradesh, where the mother tongue is Telugu. All the signs in the small village of Kaikalur are printed in Telugu, which has a completely different alphabet than Tamil.
We arrived at the single-platform train station in Kaikalur around 5:00 am and were greeted by Syamala's father, Venkateswara Rao. Dawn was just starting to break, birds were calling, and beautiful prayer music was playing over loud speakers. There were about ten rickety, old looking bicycle rickshaws waiting in front of the train station. These rickshaws were bicycles that pulled a covered cart that seats one or two people (under normal circumstances). Syamala stopped to say hello to one of the rickshaw drivers. She told me that he used to give her rides to school when she was a child. Since we had baggage we rode in a car taxi, instead of the rickshaws, a couple of kilometers to Syamala's family's house. We passed many small houses, dodging goats, chickens and pedestrians the entire way. The British style taxi appeared to be from the 60's, as did most of the car taxis I saw in Andhra Pradesh. They were so old that the seat belts were not functional or were non-existent... not that anybody seemed to mind.
Syamala's grandmother, her sister Vimala, and Vimala and Prasad's kids, Gnanasa and Adithya greeted us when we arrived at their home. Vimala and her family were visiting from Tirupati. Syamala's grandmother lives there with Rani and Venkateswara. She hasn't left the house, out of respect for her husband, since he died more than 20 years ago. She also happens to be Syamala's father's sister. So technically speaking, she is also Syamala's aunt.
Soon after we arrived there, I walked with Vimala across the street and the bridge over the canal to the hospital. Vimala was going to have a cyst removed. The hospital consisted of a waiting room, an office room with a desk, and an exam room. The exam room didn't seem to be very private, because another patient was taken in while Vimala's procedure was in progress. The whole thing took about 20 minutes. While I waited, I noticed a poster on the wall that illustrated several people, mostly women and children, lined up behind a water well. It was the kind of well that had a lever that had to be pumped up and down to get the water to pour out. One person was trying to pump water into their bucket, but barely a droplet of water was coming out. The poster warned people to conserve water, a message that should be heeded by all of us.
Early Sunday morning we hired a cab driver and his car for the full day and left for Vijayawada. It was a two-hour drive from Kaikalur to Vijayawada, passing through many small villages, fish farms, and rice fields. I saw many strange looking milk cows, that I was informed were actually buffalo. There is a canal running along side the road for a good portion of the way to Vijayawada. People were bathing, buffalo were drinking, men were fishing with nets, and women were doing laundry, all in this slow-moving canal.
Their process of doing laundry was something new to my western eyes. They swished the cloth in a bucket of water or in the river, beat the cloth on a rock, then swung it around and over their head as water flew everywhere from the centrifugal force. Then they beat it on the rock again. This repeated over and over again until the garment was beaten clean.
There must have been a method to the madness of driving on the streets of India. Some roads had a center line dividing one direction of traffic from the other, but that didn't seem to mean a whole lot. Horns were used constantly. Many vehicles had the words "Please sound horn" decoratively painted in English across the rear bumper. In a kind of go-if-you-dare driving environment like this, making your presence known to other drivers was of utmost importance. Following distance, what was that? It was a miracle that we didn't hit another vehicle, a person, or even a cow. To make it more confusing for me, we drove on the left side of the road and the steering wheel was on the right side of the car.
We passed many temples on our way to Vijayawada, one of which our driver stopped at and went inside to do some pooja for a brief moment while the rest of us waited in the car. We went to Vijayawada because it was a festival for the wedding anniversary for Lord Rama, arranged by Syamala's aunt and uncle. As we drove into town we passed several small parades of people playing wind instruments and hand drums in celebration of the anniversary.
A little frustrated and embarrassed, I tried to understand some of the reasoning behind this tradition. It was not until after I returned to the United States that I became more open to the idea of staying isolated while menstruating. I learned that the intent of staying in the bedroom and having food brought in is for the woman to have rest and to be served for three to five days each month, when otherwise, her daily activities call for her to be actively working. Even Native American women would follow a similar tradition by staying in her tipi and being served by sisters during this time of rest. When considering my own normal daily tasks, I would appreciate a few days each month just to rest and relax.
Back in Kaikalur one evening, Syamala and I rode in a bicycle rickshaw and Vimala, Gnanasa, and Adithya followed us in another to the only movie theater in the village. The theater was old and the chairs were uncomfortable, but the movie was good at least what I saw of it before I fell asleep. I have a hard time staying awake during American movies, which usually last an hour and a half. Indian movies often run for three or four hours, with lots of songs and an intermission. The movie ticket cost 15 rupees, which is about $0.30 U.S in money.
From the rooftop of Lakshmi's house you could see many fishponds on the outskirts of the village. We had arrived at the rooftop in time to watch a glorious red sunset fade into dusk. As the brilliant colors of the sky were fading many children gathered as news traveled that I was visiting there. Most of them spoke English quite well and called me Auntie. They introduced themselves to me and told me what grade they were in. Lakshmi and her college-age son also spoke English quite well. In the course of the conversation while getting acquainted, Lakshmi casually asked if I was "married or a virgin". Since I was single, and understanding how important a woman's reputation was, my only option to answer was "virgin". By the end of the evening my cheeks ached from smiling so much because of the warm welcome that was extended to me by the people of this beautiful village.
Early the next morning we left for Venkateswara's fish farms. Syamala, Vimala, Venkateswara, Gnanasa, Adithya, and I rode in a taxi for about 30 or 45 minutes on a narrow road through several small fishing and rice farm villages. It was the same driver who had picked us up from the Kaikalur train station, and who had driven us to Vijayawada. Most of the houses we passed were made of stick and mud walls with thatched palm leaf roofs. The dried mud walls of the houses were decorated with white designs all around the outside, especially around the entrances and around the foundations. The rice fields looked as if they had been recently harvested. Now the farm workers were gathering the rice straw into bundles and carrying them on their heads to large piles. As we drove on past a few more villages, the paved road turned to dirt and gravel. Workers there were mostly women. Rather than carrying straw, they were walking down the road carrying plastic bags full of water and fish. They were transporting grown fish in water-filled bags from the ponds to a packinghouse where they would be packed in ice and shipped away to be sold.
For thousands of years, Hindus and many other cultures and religions around the world, including Native Americans, have used the swastika as a symbol of devotion or other spiritual representation. It is unfortunate that to many Americans the swastika carries negative connotations associated with Hitler and the holocaust, as he stole it to represent something that was never intended for that symbol.
After Rani took me to see Saibaba, Fatima came to take me to Lakshmi's house. First we stopped in at Fatima's house and were quickly greeted by her neighbors, a few women and several children. Most of the children asked me simple questions and introduced themselves to me in English. We only stayed at Fatima's for a little while then she took me to Lakshmi's house. Lakshmi and I sat in chairs and talked with Fatima, who sat on the floor because she is a maid, not because of her caste. In fact, Fatima is not part of the caste system at all because she is Muslim. The caste system is part of the Hindu religion.
A couple of the boys took me across the street to see the Vasavi Kamjaka Parameswary Temple that houses the Goddess of the Vysyas caste. This was the caste of Lakshmi's family. As we entered the front gate of the temple grounds, a man was shoeing away a cow that had been nibbling from some mango branches and leaves that were hung to decorate the entrance. This temple had been built with money from one of the boys' grandfathers, so that grandchild should always enter and complete his pooja before the others. Two women at the temple invited me into the kitchen to show me where they were cooking large pots of vegetarian food over gas flames in preparation for a large feast.
Across the street in the other direction from Lakshmi's house was the Sri Syamalamba temple, which I visited another day with Rani and her friend, Uma. Lakshmi said that Syamalamba's body was found at that site, so the temple was erected there. This was the Goddess who Syamala was named after.
Lakshmi took me to her cousin Lakshmi's house where I took an actual shower, with water running from the showerhead! Lakshmi and Lakshmi dressed me up in a beautiful silk sari; six meters of fabric tucked and folded in all the right places. There are no buttons or clasps to keep these beautiful dresses on, but if folded and tucked correctly they will stay on all day, whether for a special occasion or for work. Over the sari they dressed me in bangles, a necklace, a bindi sticker on my forehead, and fragrant jasmine flowers freshly strung by Lakshmi for my hair. We went to the rooftop and took photos of ourselves in the sunset with fishponds and cranes perching in palm trees as our backdrop. After dark Lakshmi walked with me through the narrow crowded dirt streets back to Syamala's house.
Every morning Syamala's grandmother would make me a delicious steaming hot cup of coffee that could accurately be described as a buffalo's milk latte. Breakfast usually consisted of idlis (steamed cakes) with peanut or coconut chutney or ginger pickle, or dosas (thin pancakes) stuffed with curried vegetables. Lunch and dinner nearly always included one or two vegetarian curries, a non-vegetarian curry, rasam (tomato soup), white rice, and homemade yogurt. The food was always spicy and always delicious! For desert we would usually eat sweets freshly made by Grandmother, mango slices, or freshly squeezed mango juice. Mango season was just beginning. Reportedly there are over 100 varieties of mangos that grow in India and they are the best in the world. Lucky for me because mangos just happen to be my favorite fruit and the "king of mangos" grows in Kaikalur! These mangos were very large, about the size of a small cantaloupe, and firm. Their skin was green and the flesh on the inside was a mellow yellowish-orange. The flavorful taste was tangy with a little bit of sweet! Venkateswara would often cut slices from one of these large mangoes and walk around the house, passing them to each person for an afternoon snack.
Next, people gathered around six ornately decorated fire pits. As their priest chanted over the loud speaker they poured spoonfuls of cow ghee (clarified butter) and handfuls of grain called "mix of nine" into the fire. Then they would circumambulate the fire pit an odd number of times. People would rotate in and out of the circle so that everyone could have the opportunity to receive the blessings bestowed by participating. It seemed to go on for a long time because it got very hot and smoky. We were outside, seated under a huge colorfully decorated shade canopy. Large fans were set up around the perimeter of the canopy to blow fresh air into the fire pit area. But instead it created a circulation that kept the smoke confined around us all. After the pooja was complete, lunch was served to everyone. We dished up our plates buffet-style, and as always, ate with our hands.
On the drive back to Kaikalur we passed kilometer after kilometer of rice fields. It was harvest time and I saw the whole operation over the course of the drive. Pretty much everything was done by hand. First the rice grass was cut by hand then it was bundled and tied. The bundles were hoisted up onto men and women's heads and carried - sagging down over their heads and shoulders - to one large pile. After it was piled up someone drove a small tractor around in a circle on top of the pile, spreading it out, apparently to loosen the grain from the chaff. Then people came back into the center of the pile and sifted the grain from the chaff using hand-woven baskets. The grain piled up in the center as they pushed the straw to the outside to form a ring around them. They made a large container to place the grain in by twisting the straw into a 2-inch thick rope and coiling it around into a giant-sized basket. These hand-made baskets were roughly eight feet in diameter, six feet tall, and ended up being heaped full of rice. The rice was then shoveled into gunnysacks, piled onto a tractor-trailer, or more commonly, a cow trailer, and hauled away to market. The straw was piled onto another trailer and hauled to a nearby brick making station. We passed several piles of freshly made bricks that were stacked high and wide. Many had smoke rising from a fire underneath the pile to dry them.
In the evening, just before we left Kaikalur, I went with Uma, her husband, and two of their friends to a temple on the south side of the village. The man who drove us was the secretary for that temple. There was a statue above the entrance with a three-faced god standing with his companion cow, but it was too dark to see the details. First they prayed to a statue of Ganesh so that he would not allow obstacles to come in our way. They also prayed to the feet of the Swami who constructed that temple. When circumambulating inside the temple, they showed me an image of \ that had appeared by itself on the backside of the life-sized photo of the Swami. The worshipers believe that this proves the Swami's divine power. After pooja we all sat in front of the idol for a few minutes until we had that God's permission to leave.
After visiting the temple, they drove me to the north side of town on the road to Eluru and stopped on a bridge over a lake that is a bird sanctuary. We got out of the car so that we could absorb the scenery around us. The moon was full and very large, as it was low in the sky. The sunrises, sunsets and low moons were a beautiful dark red. Because of pollution in the air they often faded into and out of sight while above the horizon line. There was a wonderful feeling in the air that night that made me shiver with joy.
Later that night after Uma dropped me at home Rani, Syamala, and I caught an overnight train to Visakhapatanam (Vizakh for short) on the East Coast of Andhra Pradesh. There were no air-conditioned compartments on that train, which was better because you could see out the windows, but they didn't provide a pillow or sleep sheet. If I'd have known that ahead of time I would have been prepared with my neck pillow. Instead, I used my hard, lumpy backpack as a pillow and didn't sleep very much at all.
Syamala's cousin picked us up at the Vizakh train station at 4:30 in the morning. He and his family lived in an apartment across the street from the East Coast beach of the Indian Ocean. I went out for the last part of the sunrise with their two kids, Smiley and Sunny, who both speak English very well. As I sat there watching the sun rise and fade from a dark red into brilliant existence above the Indian Ocean, I couldn't help but think that this is where Columbus thought he was when he mistakenly called the Native American people Indians.
Syamala's cousin took us for a drive down the beach a little way to a naval area. There were three hilltops at the mouth of the naval inlet, one with a Catholic Church, one with a Muslim Mosque, and one with a Hindu Temple. Since Vizakh is a naval town, people from all over the country live there. The mother tongue is Telugu, but unlike the villages, the signs here are printed in Hindi or English more than Telugu.
For 35 rupees per person (less than $1.00 in U.S. money) we went for a boat ride around the inlet where we could see naval shipbuilding operations, and out into the ocean far enough to get a good view of the coastline of the city. A few dolphins raced and jumped ahead of us as the boat traveled along. It felt refreshing to be on the water and breathing in the sea air!
All of the houses that I had an opportunity to visit, with the exception of Fatima's, had a pooja room, or at least a closet or cupboard for daily pooja. Some were more extravagant than others were. Some had a few idols or images and some had many. Uma's had many shelves full of photos and statues in a small room devoted just to the daily pooja. Syamala's cousin even had a little pooja cupboard in his restaurant.
We went with Syamala's cousin's family and neighbors to a beach resort on the south side if Vizakh for a picnic. It was a beautiful day and the ocean water was warm and inviting. I did not take clothes for swimming, but one of the women there lent me a salwar kamees to wear in the water. Men wore regular bathing suites. Some even wore Speedos. Women wore full salwar kamees dresses, without the dupata.
A few days later I took an overnight train to Hyderabad, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh. As the train pulled into the Hyderabad station I looked out the window to see a family of monkeys walking in a line along the top of a brick wall. Pradeep's father Rao greeted us at the train station and took us to his home in the neighboring city, Secunderabad.
Bharathy and Rao's maid Lakshmi had only worked in their house for a couple of months. They met when Rao and Bharathy started construction on the upstairs room of their house. Lakshmi, who was 25 years old, was one of the laborers working with the construction crew. She had been married, but her husband left her. So now, her family would only feed her one meal per day. "If her husband has left her, why should they feed her?" Bharathy felt badly for Lakshmi so she asked her to stay at their house and work for them. Although they didn't have that much work and already had one maid, at least they would know that Lakshmi's belly would be full.
Many houses in India have intricate decorative designs drawn on the ground in the entrance way called Rangoli (Hindi) or Muggu (Telugu). According to Radhika, the husband is the king of the house and should leave each morning with a good feeling that the house is kept clean. The Goddess Lakshmi also likes houses to be kept very clean and tidy. So, each morning, after everything is swept clean they will draw a design on the ground at the front entry to the house. Radhika lives in an apartment and her entry is made out of tile, so she uses chalk sticks to draw her designs. A lot of houses, especially outside the city, have dirt entryways. People that live in these houses will mix cow dung with water and put it down over the dirt to keep bugs out of the house. Then they will draw their designs by letting a narrow chalk powder or rice flour line fall from their hand. These designs let the Goddess Lakshmi know that this house is clean and it invites her in. Radhika said, "Since this is the entrance to the house it should be beautiful. In the same way that the face is the entrance to the body, the bindi sticker is put as a decoration to enhance a woman's beauty."
Radhika told me some things about Indian families and about how much she was missing her brother who had been away for four years working in the U.S. She said that children are entirely dependent on their families until marriage. Even then, if a son, he will continue to live with his parents along with his new wife, unless his employment requires them to move away. They live together, eat together, sleep together, and console in each other. Siblings have very strong friendships. When an Indian is married, his or her siblings can feel jealous of the new spouse because they are used to having so much of his or her attention that now will be focused more on the new spouse.
I saw that parents would often tie strings around their children's waists, worn underneath their clothes. Radhika said that it was to ward off evil. She said that some men also wore them and that they were probably originally used to tuck a diaper or loincloth into. But today its use has continued for superstitious reasons. Another Indian family tradition that Pradeep told me about is that youngsters would touch their elders' feet to seek their blessings before stating anything important.
During one of our philosophical discussions at Pradeep's parent's house, about how the universe carries on and how the human mind gains knowledge (actually Rao told me stories and I listened), Rao said that there are 14 nationally recognized languages in India, including English. There are fifteen languages printed on the rupee notes, plus the English numerals of the denomination. That's a lot of languages for one country! My friend Prabhat once told me that in India you can travel a few hundred kilometers from your home and feel like a foreigner in your own country because there are so many different languages and cultures. I can't help but think that maybe that is how the native tribes of America would have developed and co-existed had they been uninterrupted by European settlers.
Radhika's eight-year-old son Chaitanya speaks Telugu at home, Hindi with his friends during a cricket match and English at school. He is comfortable with all three of these languages enough to freely communicate in any one of them. Vimala's children Gnanasa, who is four years old and Adithya, who is seven years old are also learning languages. Adithya is learning to recite historical facts about India in English. Gnanasa can write the Telugu alphabet and the English alphabet in cursive and manuscript, along with some simple English words. What a contrast to growing up in a society where we are required to learn only one language. It is inspiring to see what potential we have for learning, adapting, and communicating.
I stayed my last night in India at Rao and Bharathy's home in Secunderabad. Their maid Saavitri, who had been with them for several years, decorated my hands and feet with henna as a farewell gift. This was traditionally done on the hands of brides, but not necessarily restricted to such occasions. She painted intricate designs freehand by squeezing henna from a cone made of a plastic film. It looked as if she was squeezing icing onto a cake. I slept that night with my fingers and palms outstretched with the dark green mud drying on my skin and impressing its image there. As I had to catch an early flight, before the sun came up the next morning I awoke to Saavitri gently cracking and rubbing the dry mud off of the tops of my feet to reveal a dark orange-brown design that she had so carefully laid down the night before.
For as long as I can remember I have been attracted to Indian cultures, even to the extent that at times I have joked that the stork dropped me in the wrong place (except that I wouldn't trade my own family for anything!). I am thankful for the opportunity given to me by my friends who showed me around, and who took care of me during my stay in India. I learned more than I could ever have imagined. All of my senses have been tantalized! My memories of India are as vivid as the colorful daily aspects of their lives. The beautiful people I met there will always hold a warm memory in my heart. I can hardly wait for the day when I can return to this beautiful country to explore other areas, languages and cultures and visit my friends again in Andhra Pradesh.(Spring 2001)
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