Chennai to Mamallapuram to Pondicherry, Addressing the Caste

Here is a modified diary entry from my trip this weekend:  I haven’t really read it over, but it’s lunch time and I don’t know when I’ll be back on the internet.. so here it is!

 

Back on the train, probably for about 14 hours, but hopefully less, traveling from Chennai  back to Hyderabad.  It’s been a great trip, albeit a bit more lavish than I prefer to be in India.  Partially because circumstances prevented certain cost-savings, and also because I was in a small group of two other girls and myself.  We departed from Hyderabad on Thursday, separate from the rest of the group going off the night before, because we had tests and presentations to take care of.  (We are supposedly “studying” here too).  Before we had left, there were some warnings floating around Chennai because of some unrest in Sri Lanka, just next door, causing a “Bundt,” or strike.  Despite the warnings, we decided to go on ahead with our plans, of course with “constant vigilance.”  During our short stay in Chennai, followed by Mamallapuram and Pondicherry, I felt not one bit unsafe.  My time here in India in general has led me to stop allowing the media to induce a fear of foreign people and places. 

 

We arrived in Chennai, and headed to our hotel in the district of Triplicane, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood.  I had made a reservation at a place called “Broadlands,” which was described in Veena’s guidebook as a place to either love or hate.  We certainly loved it (and its cheap prices), with its whitewashed stucco walls, stained glass, green courtyards and funky pink rooms with blue shutters as doors.  It had so much character and history, with bats hanging in the hallways.  It was a bit of a gem, hidden down a side street with a great view from the roof of the mosque next door.  It is amazing what beauty India has concealed behind crumbling exteriors and just steps off of the main road.  These outer appearances are very deceiving, and you never know what you are going to stumble upon.  I find it interesting, in contrast, what they do not hide here- which we in the US go to great lengths to.  I am referring to the trash and litter, the poverty, and faults in their patchy infrastructure.  I sometimes worry that I am becoming just a little too accustomed to seeing children, dirty and alone, begging for money that they will never even be able to use because their parents or the people that they “work for,” will see any benefit of their begging.  People with the worst of disabilities, deformities, and disfigurement wander the trains to get by, as there is no truly functioning system to care for them.  This just illustrates why I am a very hesitant about any sort of extravagance. 

 

The best parts of the trip included our stay in Chennai, seeing the sights, and meeting some fascinating British travelers, who had purchased huge motorcycles and were spending six months driving around India.  We met up with them later in Pondicherry, too, and had a lot of fun exploring together.  The bus rides from city to city were quite the thrill- involving delivering huge sacks of rice and sticks and hay to just about every village between Chennai and Mamallapuram, and trying not to fall out of the open bus door while standing for two and a half hours on the ride from Mamallapuram to Pondicherry.  I also insisted in jumping into the Bay of Bengal, which was great in retrospect, but I did smell like ass for a day or two afterwards.  Also in Mamallapuram, we met some young Yemeni and Iraqi travelers, one who had studied in Roger Williams and at Harvard.  It was very cool to hear their perspective on the Iraq war, and it was nice to hear that they too were excited about President Obama.  Pondicherry, with its French charm and beautiful sights, was a bit more frustrating than I expected.  Hotels would promise us rooms, then turn us away upon arrival.  After the fourth place the rickshaw took us to, we were at our wits end and had to settle for an overpriced business hotel with a silly glass elevator that sang as you went up, and a characterless, sterile feel.  Starving after the long day of travel, we raced around looking for some food as it was already 10PM.  Everything in Pondicherry closes early, because it is monopolized by a very popular Asharam, inflicting strict drinking and bedtime policies… not what I expected from a French enclave!  We found a cute place to grab dinner, with mean waiters who gave us a downright “NO.” when we ordered crepes for desert.  It was nonetheless a lovely place to wander around, with lovely Hindu temples and Christian churches, weddings galore, and a great view of the coast.  We definitely also lucked out with our train back, because it left an hour earlier than our friends’, and theirs was derailed for about 4 hours.

 

I lastly want to add something else that I actually wasn’t here to experience.  While we were off for the weekend, there was a tragic occurrence back here on campus.  The details are a little fuzzy of course, based in rumors only, but from what I can gather, a graduate student on campus committed suicide.  People are claiming that it was caste-related, as he was a lower caste person studying under an upper caste mentor who did not treat him kindly.  So says word of mouth.  My Hindi tutor told me that this boy was the second suicide from his particular department in two months.  It’s hard to tell if it was caste-related or studies-related, or because of an infinite amount of other reasons.  Nonetheless, there have been large protests on campus, and some classes were cancelled Monday as a result.  It is very different to experience the remains of the caste system here.  The gap between the upper and backward caste (Brahmins and Dalits respectively), is so dauntingly vast, and very much more intense than the class divisions in the US.  And unlike our system, it is near impossible for a Dalit to “work their way up” in society.  In India, you are born into a caste, and there you will remain no matter how hard you work or how much acclaim or money or talent you acquire.  The system is perpetuated by child labor, and even arranged marriages by caste hold people in one place, as well as their families.  The Dalit and Backward class people are given some chances for further education, with an Affirmative Action-type program.  This has similar complications and controversies as it does in the US.  However, most lower caste people were raised doing arduous manual labor or servantile work for bare minimum wages, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives.  As I previously mentioned, anyone with physical disabilities or mental problems is generally found on the streets- old or young, unless they are lucky.  Overall, it is very difficult to reconcile seeing major computer engineering companies with no limit to their corporate spending, next to the slum village with the sewage stream running through it, children bathing in the muck. I will certainly remember what I have learned and seen and experienced here in India.