Sunday, February 27, 2005
At last Pondicherry!
First of all, an evidence that came after some dialogues with young indian employees : who is the most famous french in India - living or dead?
(answer in NB to check your guess)
Temple discovery went on 2 weeks ago as I brought a collegue to Kanchipuram, tamil capital of silk sarees & one of the 7 holy cities in India (Varanasi-Benares apart, no clue about the 5 last...). Once there you need a travel book to know where to start among the 140 temples and more. We limited our visit to 2 temples : the one where Siva (horizontal mark on forehead) is supposed to have married Parvathi under a 3500 y-o. mango tree (dead now) and a Vishnu (vertical mark - lll) temple. Two common caracteristics : greedy priest and regular massive weddings (any link?). I the first we were told that once a year 2000 mariages are celebrated at the same time around the famous tree. We stopped at a small shrine inside were a priest was honoring 9 god's statues supposed to represent the 9 planets. We executed a lot of mechanical things beyond our understandig under the priest's guidance. Made some wishes, were given some powder for our relatives once back in Europe (yellow for ladies, red for men) and then came the bill : 20 rupies per god, 9 gods, rounded total 200 rupies. The essence of logic. In the next temple as the brahman started to insist too much on the 400 priest living around the place we found rapidely the next exit before he was able to convert it in rupies! - He had got already his salary for showing us the details of a wedding pavillon (only 400 married at a time) including legendary knights, Vishnou's avatars in turtle and snake and some discretes scenes of Kamasutra unfortunatly covered by spider webs...
On the next sunday afternoon I went randomly through Chennai riding ze Bullet (250km and still no driving licence) : I was a kind of "Manu" Moretti, that would have dropped his scooter and Roma to try some new experiences. I stopped at a the Snake Park were hundreds of families go each sunday to admire the specimens. In front of each kind a map of India is showing with red dots in which indian state it can be found. Almost all of them have red points in all 21 states!
What is the link between Dumas, Romain Rolland, Suffren, La Bourdonnais? All magic names in french litterature, adventure and/or historical sphere, they give their names to the (starting from seaside)1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th street of Pondicherry where I had to go - earlier than expected - for a passport renewal. French spirit is still in the air, some nice restaurant, small calm streets shadowed by trees and the Dupleix were I had an great expresso in a room with a sensational wood smell coming from the carved ceiling (some furniture of Dupleix (the most famous french gouvernor - 18th cent.) are used in the rooms decoration!). So promissing. Too short stay, I have to ride back there...
"Faits divers" - local news : A pakistanise actress was heavily fined once back in her home country after shoting a kissing scene in an indian film (with an indian actor!).
More sad - "fresh" from this morning - : a young girl, 13 y-o., seen nacked in her bath by 3 boys (her bathroom had no roof), committed suicide with kerosene some time after.
Sometimes indians appear to be exageratedly puritans, serious and severe - especially in the South.
Let's finish with a better one : some weeks ago I was supposed to be picked up by a man to make me visit some close area. Appointment was at 9 a.m.. The car showed up at 9.20, the guide went out starting to apologize and as I went to enter the car (an "Ambassador" without age) the man told me that we had to wait for the driver : he had gone in a hidden place ...to have breakfast! No comment.
NB : C'est Napoleon!
(answer in NB to check your guess)
Temple discovery went on 2 weeks ago as I brought a collegue to Kanchipuram, tamil capital of silk sarees & one of the 7 holy cities in India (Varanasi-Benares apart, no clue about the 5 last...). Once there you need a travel book to know where to start among the 140 temples and more. We limited our visit to 2 temples : the one where Siva (horizontal mark on forehead) is supposed to have married Parvathi under a 3500 y-o. mango tree (dead now) and a Vishnu (vertical mark - lll) temple. Two common caracteristics : greedy priest and regular massive weddings (any link?). I the first we were told that once a year 2000 mariages are celebrated at the same time around the famous tree. We stopped at a small shrine inside were a priest was honoring 9 god's statues supposed to represent the 9 planets. We executed a lot of mechanical things beyond our understandig under the priest's guidance. Made some wishes, were given some powder for our relatives once back in Europe (yellow for ladies, red for men) and then came the bill : 20 rupies per god, 9 gods, rounded total 200 rupies. The essence of logic. In the next temple as the brahman started to insist too much on the 400 priest living around the place we found rapidely the next exit before he was able to convert it in rupies! - He had got already his salary for showing us the details of a wedding pavillon (only 400 married at a time) including legendary knights, Vishnou's avatars in turtle and snake and some discretes scenes of Kamasutra unfortunatly covered by spider webs...
On the next sunday afternoon I went randomly through Chennai riding ze Bullet (250km and still no driving licence) : I was a kind of "Manu" Moretti, that would have dropped his scooter and Roma to try some new experiences. I stopped at a the Snake Park were hundreds of families go each sunday to admire the specimens. In front of each kind a map of India is showing with red dots in which indian state it can be found. Almost all of them have red points in all 21 states!
What is the link between Dumas, Romain Rolland, Suffren, La Bourdonnais? All magic names in french litterature, adventure and/or historical sphere, they give their names to the (starting from seaside)1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th street of Pondicherry where I had to go - earlier than expected - for a passport renewal. French spirit is still in the air, some nice restaurant, small calm streets shadowed by trees and the Dupleix were I had an great expresso in a room with a sensational wood smell coming from the carved ceiling (some furniture of Dupleix (the most famous french gouvernor - 18th cent.) are used in the rooms decoration!). So promissing. Too short stay, I have to ride back there...
"Faits divers" - local news : A pakistanise actress was heavily fined once back in her home country after shoting a kissing scene in an indian film (with an indian actor!).
More sad - "fresh" from this morning - : a young girl, 13 y-o., seen nacked in her bath by 3 boys (her bathroom had no roof), committed suicide with kerosene some time after.
Sometimes indians appear to be exageratedly puritans, serious and severe - especially in the South.
Let's finish with a better one : some weeks ago I was supposed to be picked up by a man to make me visit some close area. Appointment was at 9 a.m.. The car showed up at 9.20, the guide went out starting to apologize and as I went to enter the car (an "Ambassador" without age) the man told me that we had to wait for the driver : he had gone in a hidden place ...to have breakfast! No comment.
NB : C'est Napoleon!
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Out of time
When you love sailing and you land in India there are 2 possibilities : eather you learn by heart every single word of each single article found in a good monthly yachting magazine or you try and try harder to sail at any cost and in any conditon. I chose the later. That's how every sunday afternoon I enter the harbour "premises" with the due pass, cross coke's clouds made by permanent truck's movements and reach a small house surrounded by old boats and covered inside by tables of regata's winners since the club was founded in 1912. Mostly "lords" until 1947, then indian names...
So called "lascars" take care of boat preparation and when you board everything is ready (aristocratic concept of yachting, but considered the difficult access to the water and the poor & dirty appearance of the material, I am not complaining). Wind is good, boats are "waterwags" - wooden, copied from an irish design - heavy but stable, and "enterprises" - plastic hull, from the 80's, quite quick and reactive.
Playground is the harbour (between container carriers and super-tankers) and and a small area out of it. Once on the water, it becomes a game between you and the wind : at "beat" (french : "au pres"), sails tight, hull starting to tilt, water singing along the hull,.. what more can you ask for?
Once the training finished, you are black and just good for a shower after a last ride along Marina beach.
January 26th, Republic Day. Off. The indian "14 juillet". On TV : tanks, rockets, jets, soldiers, and... cultural associations from each indian State showing traditional dances in colorful clothes : Rajahstan, Penjab, Maharashtra, West Bengal,... Equivalent is really missing on the Champs-Elysees!
Yesterday I visited my 2 first hindu temples during an business trip in the south of Tamil Nadu. Trip was in Titicorin, in a training center to follow-up the courses given to the future plant's operators, beside a huge fertilizer's plant (amoniac smells...), surrounded by sea-salt production ponds ("marais salants" - looked like Guerande!) and hosting a huge variety of bird (including peacocks, the indian national bird).
A talentuous member of the human ressources team accompagned me to Tirunelveli (with local accent say "trnlveli" as fast as possible), giving me lots a explainations. That's how I discovered why the temples have this vertical pyramid shape at the entry (kind of "visible part of the iceberg"): a temple is built like a lying human body, the pyramid is supposed to be the feet with one store for each sense that you are supposed to drop at the entry. Walking further you reach the belly button, a kind of metallic vertical column going through the stone ceiling, then the chest made of heavy side-pillars decorated with gods, godesses, demons, dancers statues (oiled blackstone in the first of the 2 temples). The roof is made of stones with a few openings to provide light through light-wells that bring mysterious mood in the room and on the carved stones. Only then you reach the head, where the God is staying. Enter through a tiny door,"see the God", smell encence, give to the priest the gift you chose, he goes close to the God, sings prayers, comes back and distibutes color powder (yellow in the Vishnu temple, red or white in the Shiva's), for direct use on your forehead and in a small envelop for later use, leaves to eat, holy water, some oil for hands and arms, holy fire for purification and sometimes puts a bowl (with a footprint on it) on your head to remember you that you are just one among billions. Walking barefoot in the temple you make amazing encounters like hundereds of poors gathered for their daily free lunch, one elephant that blesses you with it's nose ("trompe"???) - Have you ever noticed the beauty of an elephant's eyes? - musicians, small shrines in every corner, and lots a individuals or small groups siting, lying, walking in all corners of the temple, about which you will never have the tiniest idea of the purpose of their staying here. Spiritual mood...Out of time...
So called "lascars" take care of boat preparation and when you board everything is ready (aristocratic concept of yachting, but considered the difficult access to the water and the poor & dirty appearance of the material, I am not complaining). Wind is good, boats are "waterwags" - wooden, copied from an irish design - heavy but stable, and "enterprises" - plastic hull, from the 80's, quite quick and reactive.
Playground is the harbour (between container carriers and super-tankers) and and a small area out of it. Once on the water, it becomes a game between you and the wind : at "beat" (french : "au pres"), sails tight, hull starting to tilt, water singing along the hull,.. what more can you ask for?
Once the training finished, you are black and just good for a shower after a last ride along Marina beach.
January 26th, Republic Day. Off. The indian "14 juillet". On TV : tanks, rockets, jets, soldiers, and... cultural associations from each indian State showing traditional dances in colorful clothes : Rajahstan, Penjab, Maharashtra, West Bengal,... Equivalent is really missing on the Champs-Elysees!
Yesterday I visited my 2 first hindu temples during an business trip in the south of Tamil Nadu. Trip was in Titicorin, in a training center to follow-up the courses given to the future plant's operators, beside a huge fertilizer's plant (amoniac smells...), surrounded by sea-salt production ponds ("marais salants" - looked like Guerande!) and hosting a huge variety of bird (including peacocks, the indian national bird).
A talentuous member of the human ressources team accompagned me to Tirunelveli (with local accent say "trnlveli" as fast as possible), giving me lots a explainations. That's how I discovered why the temples have this vertical pyramid shape at the entry (kind of "visible part of the iceberg"): a temple is built like a lying human body, the pyramid is supposed to be the feet with one store for each sense that you are supposed to drop at the entry. Walking further you reach the belly button, a kind of metallic vertical column going through the stone ceiling, then the chest made of heavy side-pillars decorated with gods, godesses, demons, dancers statues (oiled blackstone in the first of the 2 temples). The roof is made of stones with a few openings to provide light through light-wells that bring mysterious mood in the room and on the carved stones. Only then you reach the head, where the God is staying. Enter through a tiny door,"see the God", smell encence, give to the priest the gift you chose, he goes close to the God, sings prayers, comes back and distibutes color powder (yellow in the Vishnu temple, red or white in the Shiva's), for direct use on your forehead and in a small envelop for later use, leaves to eat, holy water, some oil for hands and arms, holy fire for purification and sometimes puts a bowl (with a footprint on it) on your head to remember you that you are just one among billions. Walking barefoot in the temple you make amazing encounters like hundereds of poors gathered for their daily free lunch, one elephant that blesses you with it's nose ("trompe"???) - Have you ever noticed the beauty of an elephant's eyes? - musicians, small shrines in every corner, and lots a individuals or small groups siting, lying, walking in all corners of the temple, about which you will never have the tiniest idea of the purpose of their staying here. Spiritual mood...Out of time...
