As one took the first step out into the crumbly road, moisted by virginal breeze of a humid morning, so did the mind search frantically for an auto that will take us to Kanyakumari. None in sight. Not good.
Our morning train allowed us to bid a few farewells and exchanged addresses that will receive our newly reacquainted habit of "snail mailing" postcards. Now two figures wandered down the same alley that they had taken last night for a sumptuous thuckpa and tribal banana leaf rice flour pancake that our yogacharya had made for us - a perfect sendoff - to a smiling Keralan boy, his early eyes glinting with the eagerness of familiarity.
"Good morning Saar, nice to see you again".
Hubby explained that he took this one to town the day before. Or was it two days before? Nevermind, but we made our "backside" first entry since we were too lazy to take off our backpacks and every auto that we did that, never seemed to fail to amuse. Given the vehicle was the size of a rat's stomach, there was a lot of graceful grunting and puffing as we adjusted ourselves into the palatial spread of PVC-coated seats at the back. Our driver was proudly beaming when he heard that I replied "I'm fine" in perhaps the only small repertoire of Tamil that I have learned.
And off we sped and thundered downhill towards the train station.
Two chai and 30 pages of my book later, we reached the Southern most tip of India, the meeting point of the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal. Our little world unfolded into another auto ride to the coast, passing sleepy stony homes that looked on stoically as we punctuated the atmosphere with a horn and beep. The odd child selling individual cigarettes, a hyperexcited chook flapped across our heads. We rocked up to a nice little clean room and booked it when we found it was available. Perched on a small man-levelled cliff, we were minutes away from the bazaar and temples, the tourist / guidebook-made famous temple and shrine by the rock, commemorating one of India's revered saints, Swami Vivekananda, and a 40m-high statue of the poetic saint, Thiruvalluvar (who wrote the famous 2,000-year old beyond Thirukkural - which today, is still in the top selling list in Tamil Nadu bookshops).
We were also living by the best (in my personal many times returning opinion) local restaurant in town. Life really couldn't had been more welcoming.
So Fate had it that tonight, was to be, the night of all nights. All Shaivite will be up all night performing pooja in remembrance and gratitude of Lord Shiva, whom had watched over them all these while, for He shall be taking a deserving kip. The amazing thing that had made the Hindu deities so endearing to their local followers would be amongst others, the fact that they exhibited the same wants and desires, the same attributes, yet possessed the far-fetched and ultimate display of abilities and powers, symbolized the ideal values in a society that mere mortals could only crave and aim to achieve within their limited lives until moksha freed them for the opening gates of Samadhi. So, tonight, as with many selected times and dates according to the holy Hindu calender, Lord Shiva will be taking a rest. What luck had for us was that, of all the Shiva Rathiri celebrations, tonight was the grand dame - the Maha Shiva Rathiri. On a scale of your EPL season, Derby, and the Carling Cup, the Maha would be the World Cup. Only one night, all night long, priests will be bathing the holy Lingam in all the temples, yards of devotees will be offering their hands in namaste and bells churning out the long duration of rites taking place, garlands of jasmine will be traded and placed by the feet of the Nandi or the lord himself. The whole small town will be bathed by the time darkness arrived, the shining gold of a thousand candles.
We were smacked in the middle of this whole thing.
Hot. Noises of devotional songs and traders yelling for the quick bargain to get your flowers and bananas on the way to the temples. Smells of chai simmering on darkened pots squatting over blue dancing flames, pak-pak rhythms made by the downfalling parang that cracked open a trail of fresh green coconuts to quench the burning taste of a many throats. Colours splashed across the throngs of varied visitors across India, some obviously from the North judging from their attire that looked funnily out of place in the tropical Kanyakumari night. As we walked towards the tip of the town, I saw for myself a sight atypical of what I had learned of a sunset's perspective in art class. I was surrounded by a blitzing bleeding sun that painted the right of my sky in the holiest of holy red, while I stood in the middle of the bazaar promenade in which hundreds moved amidst kerosene lamps and ice cream stalls, slices of young mangoes being peppered with local masala, burning chickpeas and horse rides, and my left sky was extending far beyond the limits of my eyes, creamed in a dash of cobalt blue while the lights of the fishing towns glistened like Christmas lights from a far away Finland.
Everyone sat, stood, ran and watched. I watched and was being watched. A few local lads asked to have their photographs taken. I ate a slice of young mango, felt my nose disintegrated in between my eyes, and we walked in a rare carefree manner found in the craziest, busiest town at the most packed time of the year. Literally tens of hundreds of the same stalls were selling the same thing - raw honeycomb, spices, almond and cashews by the kilogram, cups and sunglasses (yes, even at night!) and pictures of deities, oil lamps and fake plastic flower garlands guaranteed the adornment of the temples will not be any less this year. I was quite taken by the ingenuity of the local temple decoration committee - two huge tusks of green bananas, freckled by a long line of yellow lights that looked like ripe golden cousins of the former - they did look the part!
The air that night was a cocktail of Catholic mass and Hindu songs. Closer to the fishing villages, which we took a walk the next morning, between still hearing the waning hums of all-night devotional thevaram, you could close in on the local faith in their patron, St. George the dragon slayer, and the The Church of Our Lady Ransom. Many of the ways of life here were dated. Fishermen mending their nets by hand, boats that hung their cross on the boat's front along with their tiny gas tanks, bulbs and cover all intact. Yet most of the surrounding was newly constructed.
Reconstructed, perhaps was a more appropriate word. In the 2004 Tsunami, everything here was wiped out, save the holy church. In this sleepy strip of the town, the faint historical steps of St Francis Xavier and the likes of his footsteps were imprinted deep and lasting on the soil that the locals still continue to build and celebrate their feast days and important events. Hymns and passages from the Bible were decorated across walls and streets. The meditative half-gaze of St. Mary looked upon the passing as each street corner was sure guaranteed to have a small shrine evoking the valour of good over evil in the form of a moustachioed St. George - even he was adapted to look a bit of the proverbial Indian male.
And as we walked past households lining their fronts with chalk kolam, patches of lime green, girly pink and sky blue bade us farewell as we sat through the remaining hours before we found our way to the train station yet again. Kanyakumari was the perfect reintroduction into India again, and in a unique way, was everything that we had bottled up, only to consume once again because of the basic weaknesses of being human - our lust for excitement, our desire for stimuli, and our love for life.
