Evening of Tuesday, 29 December 2009, Radisson Hotel, Chennai: Today we hired a driver from the hotel and drove around Chennai all day. One of the places we stopped at was called the Ice House outside of Chennai were Swami Vivekenanda stayed for a week after he got back from the famous 1897 World Religious Conference in Chicago. He was the first Swami ever to visit the Americas. He ended up staying in the US for an extended period, and became all the rage there due to his forceful personality and charismatic speaking skills. Swami Vivekenanda was a disciple of Ramakrishna. This "Ice House" is now a museum devoted to his memory, with a short film, lots of photos, paintings, books and a meditation room that had been Swami Vivekananda's bedroom while he was there. They called it the Ice House because in the 1800's, for the first time ice was brought to southern India by boat from Boston, and stored there. Ice became quite popular to these southern Indian (who had never experienced it before), and the Bostonian who ran the scheme made a fortune. But then a process was developed to make ice locally using evaporative cooling and the bottom fell out of the market for Boston ice.
So while I was there I felt a need to use their public restroom for #2, as some of my spicy lunch was reacting with my delicate intestines. And of course, we're talking Indian toilets here, which is basically a porcelein basin with a foot-shaped area on each side to place your feet as you squat. And then a plastic measuring cup (2-cup size) sitting under a faucet for you to use to wash your privates with after performing the dirty deed. But it takes a very skilled yogi indeed (in my opinion) to be able to perform this operation while squatting with your pants down around your ankles, without getting your pants wet and/or soiled in either the excretion or the washing stages. I finally decided to just take them off before proceeding, and that seemed to work fine, but it takes longer.
The thing you see quite often here that you would never see back home is the 4 person moped scenario. It goes something like this. Dad is driving the moped. Oldest daughter (around 10 years old) behind him, arm around his waist. Mom sitting sidesaddle behind her, holding youngest daughter (about 5 years old). Snaking through dangerous traffic at about 20 mph as everybody (taxis, motorcycles, mopeds, pedestrians, motor rickshaws and the occasional dog or cow) weaves in and out, horns touting periodically as if they were controlled by an extremely talented cosmic teenage video game player, amazingly accident-free.
Monday, December 28, 2009
We're here now!
Tuesday, 29 Dec 2009, morning, Radisson Hotel, Chennai, India: We arrived last night in Chennai (used to be called Madras) a little after midnight. Before that, on the plane, an Indian man and his daughter sat in front of us. They both lived in the US now, and we're coming for a visit to family in India. I think she was born in the US, attending Purdue, majoring in Mechanical Engineering, having done summer internships with General Mills and Proctor & Gamble.... as American as apple pie. He also was some kind of professional, although I did not ask for details. We got to talking about yoga, Vedanta and various spiritual teachers.
As I told him, my first exposure to Indian culture was when I was initiated into Transcendental Meditation in 1973. He also had been initiated when he was 17, by a couple of Germans who had been trained by Maharishi and were teaching meditation in India at the time. We also talked about Yogananda, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Swami Vishnudevananda and Swami Satchidananda. I owe so much to my Indian spiritual teachers, and also my engineering professors. So much of my heritage comes from Mother India. When we left the plane, the man said, "Even though you are not from India, I say to you, welcome home." I responded, "Thank you, it feels like home. Namaste."
The most interesting sight one sees in developing countries is the scene that invariably presents itself to you when you pass customs and begin to walk out of the terminal toward the taxi staging area. You are faced with a huge crowd of men, women and children all pressed up against a restraining rope, waiting for the arriving passengers. Many of them are drivers holding signs with the names of their guests. Others are family members awaiting their loved ones. Remember that this was about 1 AM in the morning, but still there must have been a few hundred people there, all pressed hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, brightly colored saris. No such sight greets a visitor to New York or Boston, especially at 1 AM.
As I told him, my first exposure to Indian culture was when I was initiated into Transcendental Meditation in 1973. He also had been initiated when he was 17, by a couple of Germans who had been trained by Maharishi and were teaching meditation in India at the time. We also talked about Yogananda, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Swami Vishnudevananda and Swami Satchidananda. I owe so much to my Indian spiritual teachers, and also my engineering professors. So much of my heritage comes from Mother India. When we left the plane, the man said, "Even though you are not from India, I say to you, welcome home." I responded, "Thank you, it feels like home. Namaste."
The most interesting sight one sees in developing countries is the scene that invariably presents itself to you when you pass customs and begin to walk out of the terminal toward the taxi staging area. You are faced with a huge crowd of men, women and children all pressed up against a restraining rope, waiting for the arriving passengers. Many of them are drivers holding signs with the names of their guests. Others are family members awaiting their loved ones. Remember that this was about 1 AM in the morning, but still there must have been a few hundred people there, all pressed hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, brightly colored saris. No such sight greets a visitor to New York or Boston, especially at 1 AM.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)