200,000 tons of Rock

I have been humbled by the richness of history that is easily accessible in Chennai and all over India, and my recent trip to another set of World Heritage sites was no exception.

The weekend before (U.S.) President's Day, some friends and I traveled to Ajanta and Ellora in the inner parts of the Indian state of Maharashtra see some really old caves. I mean OLD, as in, 2000 years ago, contemporaries of the Babylonians, Roman Senators, and the like. While Rome's armies were conquering various parts of Europe and the Mediterranean, an unknown benefactor was hiring armies of artists and stone carvers--generations of them, apparently--to hack away at the solid stone banks of a trickling river near the village of Ajanta in India to carve about half a dozen temples straight back into the rock, using pick-axes and hammer and chisels. As if that weren't enough of a technical feat in itself, in came the painters to coat the walls with stories from the life and times of Buddha, already elevated to god status, for the Buddhist monks to contemplate in meditation. About 500 years later, another frenzy of temple carving raised the number of temples to about 30.

For something carved out of solid stone, "cave" is a little misleading, since there was no natural structure to modify. During the time period of the second wave, another 7000 artisans spent 150 years creating straight out of solid rock the massive three-story Kailash Temple and another 20 or so smaller temples near Ellora. As you view these photos, impressed or not by the creativity of the sculptors, just remember: by hand. From a solid rock. With pick axe and hammer and chisel. In devotion to an idea. And these temples, incorporating architectural styles from both northern and southern India, predate the ones at Mahabalipuram by several centuries.

As if the cave temples weren't enough, in between we also visited a Mogul tomb modeled after the Taj Mahal in the 1600s, and a fort used by countless successive armies and northern invaders swooping down on the southern parts of India, again, over a period of several centuries.

For the Birds

On another day excursion (hey, I'm on a roll), two friends and I were on the road by 6:00am today, excited about the promise of spotting the migratory birds--painted storks, pelicans, even flamingoes--that stop at Pulicat Lake, an estuary located on the Bay of Bengal, right at the border between the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (India, don't forget). Although we didn't spot as many birds as we'd hoped, it was enough to satisfy us non-birders. We poked around the dry lakebed along Pulicat's receding shores, a nice escape from the hustle, bustle, and honking of Chennai. We drove through the town of Tada and ventured inland along the low-lying hills in search of some falls, which we never reached, but the drive/walk was adventure enough. Driving back through scrubby rural fields of irrigated rice paddies and made a visit to the lakeside town of Pulicat, a former Dutch settlement that was first found by the Portuguese in the 1500s, who met Arab Muslims who'd been there since the 1200s, and then there's a 10th-century Chola temple--you get the idea.

A good Indian road game is watching the colorfully decorations and reading the hand-painted public-service messages on the back of freight trucks here. The one I've seen most is "We Two, Ours One", promoting smaller families. More recently, I've seen quips promoting AIDS awareness, and, today, "avoiding" child labor. I was often pleased to note that Indian truck drivers seemed immune to the rough-talking, tough-guy routine of their colleagues in the US and Europe--or are they? I spotted this mudflap art today (end of the slideshow). And, with some translations from my own driver, I learned that most truck artists label the under-carriage rack for the spare tire almost always as not "spare" or "extra", but rather as "small house" or a euphemism for a mistress or other woman.

Stones and Spires

Today I took advantage of the cool weather to do some exploring for the hidden remnants of Chennai's history. In a country that is expanding physically and influentially, the significant markers of past glories and achievements seem to get choked out by the glitz and blitz of today's economy. A handful of dedicated advocates and historians are making a good case for preserving and memorializing Chennai's history in architecture, word, and knowledge. While I'm not involved directly in those efforts, I like connecting with my temporary home by learning details of its history, and today's trip had the feeling of a scavenger hunt for little-known sites.

Today was a tour of cemeteries. And before you break out the Halloween jokes, I'll remind you that headstones often bear an amazing wealth of information etched on something much longer-lasting than the brittle stationery of the 18th Century's colonial rulers. They're also relatively green and serene, but India always adds its character to any setting that would otherwise seem familiar: In one cemetery, the caretakers residing on site were cracking coconuts to dry the meat in the sun. At the tiny Armenian cemetery, live-in caretakers hardly seemed necessary, but three generations of a family, as well as their dogs, chickens, and an outdoor game table, all resided alongside the gleaming black marble gravestones. While some effort was apparent to keep the graves themselves tidy, the ubiquitous plastic bags and trash had piled up in several corners, mostly from neighbors tossing their waste over the walls.

Although you'd be right in saying that Hindus are most often cremated, India is home to people of many faiths, not only Indian Christians but also traders and their families over the centuries from Britain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Armenia. While the graceful structures of the Madras High Court and the Ambedkar Law College are true to their names, they were built atop one of the original British cemeteries in Chennai (the stones were moved to the St. Mary's Church inside the fort here). The newer buildings obscured the spire and we almost missed the sole remaining tomb of the son of Elihu Yale, a Governor of Madras and later benefactor of Yale University.

We went on to two other cemeteries, a St. Mary's Cemetery (though it seems lots of churches in Chennai have that name) and an Armenian cemetery (the Armenians were traders from the 1660s onwards), flanking Bharathi Road near the Chennai Central Railway Station. We were discovering tombstone inscriptions and speculating on their stories in the Cemetery of St. Mary's until the caretaker started mumbling something about cobras, which made us keep to the well-worn path through the vines of morning glory. He did mention that the overgrowth, which covered every square inch of the cemetery, was being cleared by an outside preservation group, starting in March.

After navigating the footpaths of a new but very modest settlement (it looked kind of ad hoc, but with a freshly poured concrete road, running water, electricity, churches and temples, can it be called a slum?), we found that the settlement had been built about three feet higher than the Armenian cemetery, making for a comical descent through what was once a quite elegant cemetery gate.