5 Days in Chennai, India and 3 Days at Sea

India was one of the most amazing and difficult places that we have visited thus far and although I have had 3 days now to process my experiences in India – I am still not certain that I will be able to give a good enough description of this place – but I will try my best for all you amazing, wonderful people at home! J Ok – so Chennai, India was a completely fascinating, contradictory, traditional, liberated, clean, dirty – a place where dichotomies exist in full force and no one gives any rhyme or reason for it. After leaving India, many of us still could not put to words the experience of being in India and even now, as I write this blog – I am finding myself staring out into the ocean and wondering how in the world I am going to sum up my 5 days there…

The Chennai port is an industrial port, so we were surrounded by what looked like car dealerships, but then we also were next to a coal plant – so pretty much at all times of the day, the ship smelled of fuel and by the end of our 5 days the outside was almost completely black with coal soot. Everything from the ship to the inner corners of our ears was covered in black coal at the end of each day – and let me tell you, there are some strange things that can water out of your eyes or that you can sneeze out when you spend your days docked outside of a coal mine! J The city of Chennai was just as polluted as our port as well – cars, motorcycles, rickshaws (which are like death traps on wheels – little buggies that have a motor in them like a lawnmower – and you can fit 3 people if you stuff or like us 5 if you are really strapped for transportation!), cows, goats, dogs, bikes, people – the streets are the most stressful, chaotic and spastic streets I have ever seen – barely any lights, traffic means nothing, street signs mean nothing, driving on the wrong side of the street also means nothing – and somehow this all works. People travel around without any problems and we only saw 1 accident in the entire 5 days, which is utterly amazing considering that in many of our rickshaw experiences we came so close to the other cars, animals, people, etc. that we could have stepped into the other vehicle fairly easily.

Indians do this strange bobble head nod thing to let you know that something is acceptable or ok. Its kind of a side to side nod, so sometimes you think that the person has told you no when they are actually saying ok. Got a bit confusing when ordering food or asking for something, until we remembered what that head bobble meant! We spent all of our time in Chennai (while a lot of the people from the ship traveled to see the Taj) and we had a great experience. We saw some wonderful things and a lot of heartbreaking things as well. The first day was spent getting familiar with the city. We went out with 5 other people in a rickshaw and stopped for some market shopping and lunch. The funny thing about the rickshaw drivers is that there are specific businesses that pay the drivers to take tourists to their shops – they give the driver gifts and a commission. So of course, every time we got into the rickshaw we would have to fight with them to get them to not take us to this rug shop or souvenir shop, which were the most expensive places to go too! I think I went back to the same place 3 times and by the end of the 5 days we would just refuse to get out of the rickshaw, until they took us to where we wanted to go. Its quite fun – constant haggling for a lower price (usually arguing over a few cents), your lungs are clogged with the exhaust from all these vehicles, the streets are dirty, bathrooms are anywhere for men and for women, you have to squat over a hole in the ground. I learned to hold it until we got back to the ship! There are people that live on the streets, next to the rivers, trash is everywhere, people are begging for food, children so small and skinny tug at your arms for food, using the left hand is considered unclean because it is the hand used for wiping oneself after going to the bathroom, the food is super spicy – not really sure why one would want their mouth to burn so much, but it does clean out your sinuses! India is so hot that its almost oppressive – one day it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity – and yet the women are supposed to be fully covered (no shoulders or knees can be shown) so needless to say, I sweat my butt off again. By the end of the 5 days, my legs were actually swollen from the heat and in pain – a bunch of people on the ship felt the same way – I guess because our bodies are just not used to that type of heat – it makes NJ summers look like winter in comparison.

We visited Hindu temples so beautiful and intricate in design – statues of their gods were bold in color and carved into every part of the city. Shoes must be removed whenever going into a temple – and many a time we thought we would come back from the temples shoeless! But the people of India are very honest in a lot of ways – Karma probably has something to do with that and I think the heat too – you are just too hot to make any efforts for dishonesty. On the last day in India, we went outside of the city to Mamallapurum and Katchiaria to visit some temples created in the 8th and 9th century. It was just amazing to see the dedication of the people to preserving and using these spaces – no graffiti, no destruction – so un-American! We saw 5 temples carved out of 1 large stone from the 8th century, monks and regular people holding festivals for Shiva, hawkers selling every type of figurine possible to us (and of course, on the last day we were able to haggle them down in price so much that we got a bunch of statues of gods for $1 each – it got pretty fun!). The fabrics in India are amazing as well – so bright and beautiful and sooo cheap! I bought a sari, although I am not sure what I am going to do with it (maybe have it made into a dress or pillow cases or something) I got it for 550 Rupees and the US $1 is equivalent to 44 Rupees, so I got it for about $12 – not bad! I got a few shirts and a skirt too – the markets are just crowded with amazing things to buy and everything is really so cheap. Most of our meals only cost us $1 each. We drank a lot of soda because the water is so bad – its all cloudy and filled with bacteria and such. I had South Indian coffee, which was absolutely amazing. It comes in 3 parts – 1 part looks like coffee tar, then hot water, and then milk – it is a really dark roast and most Indians drink it black, which must keep you awake for centuries! I bought some tea, although it was surprisingly difficult to find because most people just get a cup from someone because they don’t have the means to purchase a lot on their own.

The majority of the people in India live off of $1 a day and yet there are others with advanced degrees and it seems that the country is slowly moving forward. We visited an orphanage which had about 300 children living there – of course the majority of the children were girls because, as the superintendent said, girls aren’t of any great value to the culture and are more an expense/burden than they are a blessing. I know that I know this – I mean, I work for girls’ education, have a women’s studies background and all – yet somehow in India it really hit me as to how girls and women are really seen throughout the world. I was constantly experiencing the feeling of being invisible, whether on the streets when men would cut me off, walk in front of me, etc. or when only Tom would be asked a direct question and I would be ignored or perceived strangely if I asked a question, women rarely speak directly to anyone – instead they wait to be spoken to – one woman said that the rickshaw driver was utterly shocked when he found out that she was married and “allowed to go out alone without her husband.” Men and women are not to interact in public spaces and arranged marriages still account for 70% of all marriages. If women are not married by the time they are 25 years old, they are seen as barren and ultimately sad/worthless. Publicly, men and women occupy completely different spaces and will never be seen touching. Yet, men are given complete freedom to be very affectionate with other men. It was not uncommon to see men holding hands, hugging, arms wrapped around each other, etc. – but this has nothing to do with their sexuality. Homosexuality is not a part of Indian culture – in fact it is hushed by the culture and not something that people could be open about. Women did not have the same luxury as men in being affectionate publicly with one another – so it was really an interesting experience and phenomenon to see. Most people do not own shoes, so the majority of the people in the city are walking around barefoot. Helmets are not something that anyone wears when riding a motorcycle – again, its amazing that more people haven’t died from accidents. We saw a few monkeys, but not many. Cows are sacred so if they go to cross a street or something – all traffic stops – this is the only time that traffic stops.

Ultimately, Chennai is just a chaotic place that somehow operates as one. The people that we met were wonderful and yet the poverty of the place makes your heart ache. Just seeing the way that most people lived, really brings home the amazing advantages that I have, that we all have – I think it will now be difficult to complain about most things, when I think about mothers walking around with small, malnourished children begging for a little bit of food, shacks on a river that smells so bad that I cannot even begin to describe the smell, full grown men only about 4ft tall because of malnutrition – the poverty of India is something that is so tragic and yet at the same time, so treatable – if only people would begin to care and not harden ourselves to their tragedy. This was the difficulty of India – the slap in the face of poverty, inequality, and social responsibility. As this trip moves along, the theme of poverty and gross inequality becomes not only linked, but thematic in many ways. From Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius to India – the poverty has built itself up on one another – and it all looks and feels the same – it changes you, for better or for worse – and I will never be able to let go of this disconcerting feeling of which I have no words to describe. And so instead, I sit on a luxurious ship – bathed, clean, fully clothed, in air conditioning where food is readily available and I think about this experience – sailing for 3 days to another place sure to jolt the senses – onto Penang, Malaysia – who knows what will come next…