Not finding peace in Puducherry

I have been a lover of contemplative places all of of my remembered life. I love unexpected soft patches in forests. Quiet bays where you can watch the waves go in and out and in and out. Old stone churches where feet have worn down the paving stones that lead to the wooden altar. And now I am in the land of temples. Well…there are Hindu temples but there are also monuments , which are no longer used for worship and there are Roman Catholic Churches left behind by the many invaders. I was in Pondicherry. Or Puducherry as it is now known.

It is a separate and small union State. It is the place of French influence. The description is that it is like Nice in the south of France. Just to let you know…it is nothing like Nice. There is a black town and a white town. The black town is much like it’s neighbours north and south. It is crazy, with an ever flowing sea of street dogs, tuk tuks, motorbikes, garbage and unidentified hanging wires.

the white town is very different. It is clean. There are trees. There are tall policeman in smart khaki uniforms walking around. The houses are solid, painted in greys and pinks. It is almost shocking to the system not to be checking for cow pats and uneven pavements underfoot. I am not going to get this right, but it seems that 80% is owned by the ashram that has it’s headquarters there. There was the Indian teacher Sri Aurobindo and then his disciple, a French woman called “ The Mother”, who came to join him and with her considerable wealth bought the majority of white town to preserve it. There are schools and libraries. There are restaurants with open terraces, government buildings white and sparkling. Parks where Napoleon Third built some structure to honor some brothel owner who had to give up her place of work…I didn’t promise accuracy here. And churches. I went to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Shoes off. Phones off. Bossy men keeping you in line. A large plinth covered in a painting of flowers. Women and men kneeling, arms outstretched. A bookshop with books by him and by her. Another room of photos of him and of her. And then back out to put on your shoes again. It seems the main ashram is some 50 miles north, where a community of people live and work. the less well off subsidized by those that are wealthy. And the commitment is to doing good work. I am sure there is wonderful work done there , but down here it left me cold.

I went to the temple for Ganesh. A big brightly painted hall. Smooth marble floors. A central structure where you line up to get a sight of a statue of the deity, receive the Darshan from the sight and then, the monk will wave the flame around in an “ Aarti ‘ style manner and if you choose, you get a swipe of white ash on your forehead. Turns out the white ash is powdered cow dung , so although I appreciated the thought, I wiped it off . There are other smaller chapels where you can collect yellow and red ash.That will go close to the hairline..again, not going attempt to be accurate here, but it does seem that part of the red ash and the Bindi wearing is to ensure the good health of your husband. Widows don’t get to partake. Nor it seems, would I.

Ended up at the Roman Catholic Church. Which was a calm haven of blue and white and if there were no crucifixes and signs saying that donating online with a QR code would be acceptable, it would have been a pastel place of contemplation. Ended up going for a delicious supper at a place called the Coromandel Cafe. Had the best vegetarian pad Thai type salad. And a bottle of beer. and walked back to the hotel on the promenade past a statue of Gandhi, which didn't really look like him.

Obviously I didn’t find peace in a plate full of food. But it certainly cheered me up. So I continue to look.

Bags or Loose Leaves

I am a tea drinker. I always have been. I have never had a home, permanent or temporary, without a tea pot in it. I am not a tea bag tea drinker. Although occasionally I will have a fancy thing in a silk packet that feels ridiculous, and of course there are many times when I pull out a builders tea bag from Yorkshire or somewhere less familiar and show it the boiling water. I’m not that much of a purist. But I am a woman of the tea caddy. The small spoon that delves into those dried leaves, taking only the right amount for that one, first, brilliant and reassuring cup of tea in a morning. .. I buy my tea from a tea importer and I mix them. One flavour for my morning. One for my afternoon pot.

And now here I am six and a half thousand feet in the Nilgiris Hills surrounded by tea bushes as far as the eye can see.

I learn that there are the two tea areas in India. Here in the south and the hills of the north where Darjeeling and it’s cohorts come from. The tea is picked by women. Men would just want to get it done. According to the dictate they either use their fingers to tease off the very top leaf to make the white or the use a pair of shears to slice off the top branches to get the leaves that will make the stronger, darker brew.

The women live in small huts, near the plantations. They are not tall. Weathered faces and hands. They work so very hard.

The plantations are owned by families ( rich), businesses ( richer). They are paid by the weight of the leaves they pick.So they don’t stop. They wear these bags on their backs as they go row by row in the cool early morning, through the warm day. There are stalls on the side of the road where you can dress up in a bright sari, hang one of these bags on your head and have your photo taken. There was a movement started some 20 years ago, brought in by a woman called Supreya Sahu, after she saw cows swallowing plastic bags as they attempted to eat from the garbage. It stopped any single use plastic being brought into the Niligris Mountain park. Young volunteers check every vehicle for offending water bottles and plastic bags as you drive in. There are a few international tourists but there are many, many local tourists. This place, Coonoor and the town one further thousand meters up in the mountains called Ooty, is the place where people come for a special weekend, a popular destination for their honeymoon.

Ooty was once a hill station, laid out in 1848 by the East India Company. there is almost nothing left to show of that world, beyond the reason for it; which is the cooler temperatures and the verdant flowers. There is an army encampment, a Polo Field and a Botanical Garden. There is a chocolate shop and a train line that started chuffing it’s way up and down the 100 feet from Coonoor in 1908. It was until recently a steam train. But all things must change.

Ooty itself is overflowing with Indian chaos. People everywhere. Motorcycles. Everyone honking and driving, walking, weaving, zooming in any direction they wish.

There may not be any plastic allowed, but there are a lot of young men having a riotous time and drinking bottles of beer which they throw into the plantation fields where the women working endlessly can end up with lacerated feet. It’s beautiful. It’s astonishing. It’s chaotic. it’s India.

Trains..but Indian ones this time.

On a train heading north. I think it’s north. It could be sideways and at times on this trip I could have walked faster. Trains are slow in India. There is talk of a high speed one being built in Mumbai. And there are tales of a high falluting one that has a dining car and proper seats. But for everyone else they continue to cross their country slowly in ever-so-long trains made up of some twenty coaches.

It is hot outside. The kind of hot where clothing sticks. The platforms are full of people waiting for trains to arrive. Or for trains to depart.

There are little kiosks selling crisps of many flavours, drinks of many flavours, milk in many sizes. But dominating the platforms are these endless trains with bars on the windows and many people already claiming their place in the unreserved coaches. These are called Chair carriages. These consist of rows of blue benches. Each fit three people. Six across. The windows are open, the doors are wide open. The outside air is in; the inside air is pouring out. A gritty exchange. It must be so easy to fall out, but no one does because this is the way they travel. There are at least thirty fans hanging from the ceiling, whirring around, doing their best.

There is a luggage carriage ,but it must be for official things because it is locked. There is a slice of a car

riage way down the back which is labeled “ Ladies Only.” It is full. There is one carriage that has seats you can reserve. Just the one. they are also rows of three seats on either side but they are plush brown plastic. There is air conditioning, but somehow the backs of your trousers will still end up damp. There is pantry coach right next door and there are a small army of men in white hairnets who carry large trays of food up and down the carriages. Starting with omelette and bread. Which turns out to be exactly what they call out; an omelette inside two slices of white bread. Mid morning, it is the call of “ Biryani, biryani.” The couple sitting opposite me try both. So I can report that the “train biryani” is a lot of yellow infused rice with a couple of pieces of carrot.

The young couple were impressed with neither. But they also had a bag of snacks that I think they bought from the kiosks on the platform. Chocolate Bourbon biscuits without the cream filling called “ Hide and Seek” and bags of tomato flavoured crisps. And of course the Chai. Served in tiny paper cups. Which is actually just tea. Marsala Chai is where you get the cardamom. There are toilets in between all the compartments. A choice of western and squat. We were told to have a roll of toilet paper in our bags. I am rather relieved, that I haven’t had to use them. If I had to, I can do it. But the train rocks around like a fairground ride and I don’t trust my balancing skills.

It all feels very 1960’s. Industrial. Over painted. Sad yet enduring. Surprisingly it turns out that are train was not built in the 60’s. They are not post war. Or leftovers from the enthusiasm that came from the British Raj and it’s class system even when it comes to trains. Our old fashioned train and it’s twenty carriages were built all of 10 years ago. In 2017.

Landing in India

I think I lost two days. I think there was a Wednesday morning where I wandered down the driveway proudly pulling a small suitcase on wheels. Then there was a flight to Amsterdam. And a shower and a cheese and cucumber sandwich grabbed at the Schipol airport lounge. There was a flight to Mumbai, a long wait through immigration. Two hours spent in an airport hotel where you book it by the hour like an illicit affair. Then another flight down the western coast of India to Kochin and now it’s Friday.

I think I also lost my mind. And that all started in India. The wait at immigration was inbetween annoying and silly. But I think you can hurl that at almost anything in India. It was an hour and a half of watching men and women in their glass topped booths take forever, call people forward with no sense of logic, suddenly get up and walk away just because they can. I checked my bag in for the upcoming flight at 1.55 am. And had another shower in my hourly hotel room. My alarm went off at 3.50 and I headed off to departures. What I found at every checkpoint was at least four people looking very polished and proud in uniforms doing the job of one. Four separate young men looked at my boarding pass as if there was a code within that only they could decipher. The security checkpoint was manned by four men in camouflage uniforms who were basically strutting around trying to look as if they had been to war and the line just wasn’t moving. Nobody knew what items to take off, the conveyor belt was jammed because coats and strollers were wider than the opening on the scanner, bells were going off and everyone was waiting in line to be patted down, but the “soldiers” were milling around as if someone had given them a special task and it was your job to guess what it was. So 30 minutes later,when I got to the next barrier where another four young men were waiting, it all became a bit of a panic. “Go to Gate 86.” “ Yes, she must go to 86” then the third got on his walkie talkie and said “ She’s coming now.” So I set off at a brisk pace and found gate 85 but was blowed if I could find it’s neighbour. Eventually the fourth one with his own walkie talkie in hand came running after me. “ It’s this way Ma’am. This way.” And he led me to Gate 86 which was hidden behind a distant pillar. The five people clustered there gave me a form and explained to me that my case had been taken off the plane because it contained something bad. Murmurs of a power pack. I spluttered something about not wanting to leave my case but one of the five, a uniformed woman said “ Madam, we need you to board the plane right now.” And they all looked away as if the conversation was over. So I grumped my way down the walkway and found my seat. When I landed in Kochin I went to the baggage desk, where a pretty young woman in a blue sari and braces on her teeth, went and got a woman in a blue trouser suit and then the blue sari girls multiplied and none of them did anything other than tolerate me as I tried to find out about my missing suitcase. I didn’t handle it well. It is why I am an amateur traveler. When things go wrong, nothing is remotely humorous. It is the world against well-meaning wendy. All is pear shaped and demoralisation is at every turn. I was now a world traveler in a foreign land with just the one blue backpack for a five week trip and the only thing I had in the way of being prepared for a crisis was one pair of Marks and Spencers knickers. Swear to God. The cocky person wheeling her rolling bag full of neat packets of clothing , all divided up into uses and textures, was now a crushed person with a water bottle, every kind of cable and one pair of knickers. The crushed person got her bag back dear reader. At almost midnight that evening. She now had alternatives to the slumpy, salty no-longer white cotton shirt that she had been wearing round half the world. She could explore Kerala as if everything had gone to plan.

The crushed person got her bag back dear reader. At almost midnight that evening. She now had alternatives to the slumpy, salty no-longer white cotton shirt that she had been wearing round half the world. She could explore Kerala as if everything had gone to plan.

Some of what I learned in Scandinavia.

I learned that Stockholm is an elegant, civilized city. That a lot of places are closed on Monday. That it being light late into the evening might mean that you don’t realize that the restaurants are closed and you might end up with a bag of salted cashews as your first Swedish supper.

That picking your hotel purely on the basis of the wallpaper in the photograph on the website can sometimes be a brilliant idea. That running into a friend at the Warner Brothers prop house can lead to meeting her and doing a Stockholm river cruise with pear ice lollies. That beds in Scandinavia are designed differently with a solid base and just a thin mattress that flops on top with a thin duvet that sits neatly on top. Neat being the key. That even though Cardamon buns are crying out to be eaten, there’s always next time. Men, young and middle-aged are often wearing very sharp suits. And Women, middle-aged and old pull out their white trousers and denim jackets when the sun comes out. That lovely hair seems to come with the territory. That “ Tak” is such a great word to use for “thank you.” And Sweden is a totally cashless country. Since 2014, no cash is used. Except for in some grocery stores to help the older people who had trouble with this new concept. That ferries, even crossing the Baltic Sea, are an excuse for drinking at 9 o’clock in the morning and the best place, probably only on ferries crossing the Baltic Sea, is the spa where you can sit in the sauna and watch the scenery through the window. That alcohol is obviously cheaper in Sweden than in Finland because the majority of people disembarking were pulling carts piled high with cartons of beer and liquor. And “ Turku” is the oldest city in Finland. And there was a fire in 1827. And a lot of it burned down. But with one day you can sit in the cathedral with high vaulted ceilings and hear the organist practicing for a recital.

And spend a few hours at a preserved section of the old city that escaped the fire and where these original wooden houses still house the tools and living spaces of the craftsmen of the last few centuries.

And on top of that you can visit the old market hall and have a bowl of creamy salmon soup for your lunch

and still visit a museum where they have excavated the streets of the ancient city and see dog and pig skeletons where they lay, marvel at the thickness of the walls and even light a candle where the convent used to be for your friend’s friend who needs to be remembered. You can regret not wearing your swimming costume when you wander down to the swimming platform at one of the many lakes at Kirkkonnumi and discover it is a mild 20 degrees. And listen to the birch trees muttering in the wind.

And you can arrive in Helsinki for the longest day of the year. Where it is truly daylight at midnight and daybreak at 3 in the morning. No wonder no one goes to bed early. And bicycles are surely the best way to discover a new city. Especially when they allocate a strip of every sidewalk or pavement to let bicycles travel inbetween traffic and pedestrians. It would have been to good to know that when they say “ Midsommer” is the biggest holiday of their calendar, they also mean that the ENTIRE city, will close down for three days. I am thrilled for them. Those Finns spend 11 months and 27 days waiting for these three days when they all leave the town and go to the country. And they close the museums and the theatres and the shops and even most of the churches. The streets are empty. If there was tumbleweed in Scandinavia it would be rolling down the streets. It was probably busier during Covid.

But “Hei.” ( that’s Finnish for hey), It meant I could whizz around anywhere on my bike. But I also saw the unwillingness of local people, away from the areas of ‘service” to engage or smile when passing or acknowledge your presence. And I learned from a very bright young Australian woman married to a Finn that in her apartment building where she has lived for 5 years and had two children she knows none of her neighbours. That seemingly friends come from shared education at school or college and after that you can whistle. That she works for a company that brings in trained staff from abroad and that they factor into the expenses of relocation the inevitable repatriation on their departure which is normally less than a year. She herself, in the first year of her second child with all the social services she is allowed, realizes she cannot last more than another year without any kind of social life or indeed friendship. Hmm . That was a new one for me. But Scandinavia still calls and I haven’t been to Norway or Denmark yet. I have to get in a few more “ Tak”’s before I am done. There are all those open sandwiches on Rye. And Cardamon buns. All that wood. Walls, furniture. The epitome of streamlined. Even the toilets at the airport. And I’m not joking. But you know that.

Midsummer Nights Dream…..Hmmm?

I have this thing about Midsummer. I think it started with fairies at the bottom of the garden. And I’m going to leave that where it lands. But I look to certain things in our universe to give us a chance to get it right or do things better or just learn to listen. Midsummer, for me, is one of those. The longest day of the year. Before the next day where the sun has started it’s retreat. Shakespeare knew all about it. Naughty Puck, Proud Titania and Noble Oberon to name a few. He had everyone running round in circles. And I know I have written about this before, but there is this scene from Thomas Hardy’s “ The Woodlanders” when the young women of the village go down to the pond on Midsummers Eve and if the moon is shining they will see behind them the face of the one they shall marry. I have made friends come down to the beach in Santa Monica with me and chuck wishes into the waves. I have thrown back garden parties. I have tried to get people who like me to get as excited about Midsummer as I am. And I have failed. So this year I came to the home of a whole nation of people who dress up and dance on this night in June. Bigger than Christmas for them. Well , truly, Christmas is a lot to do with Santa Claus apparently living in Lapland and it being jolly cold.

I wish I could report that there was magical dust in the air and cheeky laughter at every turn. BUT…. I had advance notice that I couldn’t just come and join in. I was told to bypass Norway. Sweden was great in you went to the Dalarna area but it didn’t make sense if you didn’t know people and had somewhere to stay. I landed on Finland , because I came here last year in August and was going to meet up with new-ish friends who had a relative who now lived here and there was a midsummer festival on an island for which she had purchased tickets. I tucked my Peaseblossom spirit inside my belt and got ready to find my tribe.

It is now Midsummers Day. I have spent the day in the city of Helsinki where everybody has left for this special holiday and where EVERYTHING is closed. The museums. The churches. The theatres. The shops. I had a bike. I bicycled around. Up and down empty street. I found a boat of foreigners that took me around the archipelago that surrounds Helsinki and I saw many, many Finnish people on their boats or on little beaches. Fishing, Kayaking. Even swimming in the not warm Baltic Sea….anything to not to have to share their city with losers like me. At this festival, there was meant to be a maypole. I saw a tall pole lying on the ground. I didn’t see any brightly coloured ribbons anywhere and I am not sure it ever left it’s prone position. There was meant to be a bonfire. Very traditional at Midsummer. It was cancelled. Apparently it’s been cancelled for at east the last seven years because of fears that it would start a fire. There was going to be dancing. It ended up with a varied group of about twenty people in national dress carrying Finnish flags and then doing folk dancing of the “ you swing me around and then we cross hands and I swing you” variety.

There was food. Long lines for pancakes with a bucketload of jam and cream on them. Bratwurst in buns. Ice cream and deep-fried tiny baby fish.

There were people with flower crowns in their hair. There were some people playing fiddles. But I have a feeling Titania and Oberon would have had a peek and whistled away sharpish on their fairy wings.

So I am no closer to my long yearned for moment of magical flight. But I continue to believe. And there is always next year.

Chekhov’s Back Yard

Sitting on the porch of a tiny little cabin in a rural area of southern Finland. It is currently those days in June, The days of the midnight sun. So when I couldn’t sleep last night and looked out of my window at close to midnight, it was still light. Now it is 10.30 in the morning and I sit, with my second mug of tea, in the warm sunshine and under blue skies grazed with the odd linear cloud and the sounds around me are huge. Loud enough to be motorway nearby, or an airplane approaching a runway overhead, but it is neither of those things. It is leaves on trees. There is an occasional bird fighting for a moment in the sun and a bee whistling by. But, truly, it is just leaves shimmering away, high in the air, swaying around in the wind. There are apple trees in clusters in front of me. A grape vine being trained over a black trellis. An odd pine.

But the orchestral dance is being performed by the silver birches. That are left and right, behind and in front of me. Fifty foot up into the air. And I am reminded that I am in a country whose closest neighbour is Russia. Which I am sure must weigh very heavily on them at the moment. Because for a hundred years they were Russian after Sweden had taken hold the previous two centuries. Sweden is the second official language in Finland. And for many of the areas, except in the east, all road signs are in two languages. Swedish first, Finnish second. Circling back to Russia, the sounds remind of lines from those Chekhov plays that I read, saw, performed in. Dear modest birches, I like them more than any other tree. I love living here. And the wind, the wind! The bare birches and cherry-trees, unable to endure its rude caresses, bowed low down to the ground and wailed: "God, for what sin hast Thou bound us to the earth and will not let us go free?” if mankind is happy a thousand years from now I will have been a little bit responsible for their happiness. When I plant a little birch tree and then see it budding into young green and swaying in the wind, my heart swells with pride ....... And I remember a production of the Cherry Orchard, that surely had Ian McKellen in it , where the set was just an army of silver birches, that the characters used to hide and weave and eventually some chose to escape from. div class="separator" style="clear: both;">