The End--at Least for Now

Saturday morning Nelson’s brother Johnson arrived shortly before Claire and I left on the train to return to Bangalore. Here is a picture of most everyone. From left to right: a couple who were old friends and dropped by to see Nelson; Nelson; Claire; Carolyn; Alphonse; Lydia; Johnson; and Titu.


The scenery from the train from Coimbatore north to Bangalore was some of the most beautiful we had seen the entire journey: mountains, little farms, tree plantations. We didn’t get pictures, though, because the train was moving fast and someone was sitting between us and the window. First class “AC” was sold out when Nelson got our tickets, but second class was fine, especially when we heard that the 7-hour trip would cost a grand total of $5 for both of us together. The other four women in our section, each traveling alone, were friendly and curious about us, the only white folk in the car. We ate the bananas Carolyn had packed and wondered whether it was ok to throw the peels out the window—but only till we watched others, even a nun dressed like Mother Teresa, throwing napkins, plates, plastic bottles, and everything else imaginable out the train windows. I tried to remember whether the U.S. was as littered as India when Ladybird Johnson started her “Keep America Beautiful” campaign in the 1960s. I don’t think it was. It’s a shame, because without the litter India would be so beautiful.









Prem, the friend who had taken me on his motorcycle to the store the first day I arrived, met us at the train station in Bangalore, and we took a taxi to the Jeevadhama Passionist Seminary to stay overnight. We all got up at 3:30 to take Claire to the airport, then slept some more. I had breakfast with one of the students, a young man who was extremely interested in all things academic, who had decided in 10th grade to go into the priesthood. We talked for awhile about the interplay between Christianity and Hinduism in India, and he told me that the religious, that is, nuns and priests, were much more interested in incorporating elements of Hindu ritual into Catholic worship than the laity was.


Prem and I later took a walk to the nearby church which, like the one in Coimbatore, was also St. Anthony’s. Next to it was an entire garden dedicated to St. Anthony, which was punctuated with little jailcell-like structures with figures inside illustrating some aspect of St. Anthony’s story. I came to like the guy: he was always finding rings, reattaching legs, preaching to fish, preaching to people against social injustice, and using miraculous means (such as talking infants) to defend the innocent against false charges. He must have been my protector all the way home from Bangalore, because though it was a long journey, it went as smoothly as international travel possibly can, with no sidetrips to unexpected countries and all luggage intact.


Nelson and I had had a conversation about the Hindu ashrams and temples we had visited. He too was fairly dubious about the yogis and gurus, especially Sri Ramana, the one with the huge ashram that attracted so many westerners. The whole experience left me with the impression that in most every religion very similar human impulses can be located: credulity among the faithful that is sometimes exploited by less-than-saintly leaders; rituals that both communicate and obscure divine presence; sectarianism and narrowness; mysticism, worship, and deeds of devotion that transcend baser elements of religion and reach deep into faith and human value. Hinduism, like India itself, is not easy to romanticize. But it does, like all travel experiences, teach us a little more about what of our own cultural assumptions are particular to us and what transcends boundaries of identity.


During this trip I often felt like a bucket of water was being poured, and my capacity to take it in was only thimble-sized. As someone said, “traveling in India is a lot of things, but never boring.” So much was happening that I could not quickly enough process for myself, much less put down on paper. If it were possible to replay the entire three weeks again the way a movie can be replayed, I think I would learn just as much again. I know from my dreams since returning home that India is still working my mind and will be for a good long time. I am so grateful to Father Joe and Father Nelson, and to all the many friends we met along the way, for so hospitably opening this unique experience to all of us.

Cooking Lessons

Claire and I knew we were in trouble when, late in the evening on the way home from Ooty, Father Nelson said, “Now the program for tomorrow is…” Sure enough, Friday morning we were up and out the door at 7:30 to catch the train to his sister Helene’s home an hour away for breakfast served on banana leaves.









We had a relatively quiet day, except for a trip on the backs of the family scooters to the internet café.











Before lunch we made gulab jamun, round balls of dough fried in oil and soaked in syrup, much more delicious than healthy. This was fine with us, since everything else we ate was amazingly wholesome. Nelson documented the entire cooking process.































After Titu and Lydia came home from school, we played cards and relaxed before heading to the bus station for the ride home. Lydia and Nelson caught a ride with Phillip on the scooter, but the rest of us followed in the less exciting motorized rickshaw.

More Pictures from our Ooty Day

Here is a nice picture of Nelson's parents Carolyn and Alphonse, and below are a few monkey friends we encountered at and near the nature reserve. They are not shy at all.

Ooty and the Mudumalai Nature Reserve

Thursday morning we left at 6:00 a.m. to take the three-hour drive with a hired driver to the town of Udhagamandalam, affectionately known as Ooty, up in the Nilgiri Hills about a mile and a half above sea level (half again as high as Denver). Seventeen hairpin turns to get there from the south, 36 from the north, on a road built by the British. We went straight through Ooty and down the other side to go first to the Mudumalai Nature Reserve. We didn’t see any tigers, but did find several wild elephants, many spotted deer, and numerous monkeys, as well as birds and beautiful scenery.





























We learned to count to 36 backwards in the language of the state of Tamil Nadu (which is Tamil) as we retraced our 36 hairpin turns to return to Ooty. We stopped at the “Indira Mess” for lunch (though the name didn’t sound inviting to us, it clearly meant something different in Indian English).


Among other things, Ooty is a plastic-free city.


































There we visited a beautiful and lush botanical garden that was established by the British in 1847, i.e., 163 years ago.














On the way back we were amused to encounter India’s “Quiet Corner.”

Coimbatore

Wednesday morning Claire and I took the train to Coimbatore, northeast of Cochin, where Father Nelson’s parents Alphonse and Carolyn had graciously invited us to stay with them.




Alphonse had been a banker before he retired, but they chose to keep their home relatively simple and clutter-free. They were in the process of adding a smaller second floor apartment to move into, so they could rent out the ground floor and enjoy a breeze. We were given a tour of the building project, very different construction than in the U.S., brick covered with concrete and plaster. As you can see, everything is carried by hand (or head). Their transportation fleet is a motorbike and a bicycle, and for other needs they call on neighborhood taxis, motorized rickshaws, buses, trains, and hired drivers. We experienced all of these. I continued to be amazed at the relative freedom from “stuff” in Indian family life, and the richness in human relations instead. Also, the infrastructure—you could find anything you needed at one of the hundreds of tiny family-owned shops nearby, and could get around just fine on very little money.

We rested awhile, then played dominoes with them. Their family loves games, and over the few days we played a lot of cards and Yahtzee as well.




In the evening Father Nelson took us around town. First we visited a nursing home run by ten or twelve nuns, some of them quite young. Ordinarily families care for their elderly at home, but this nursing home was for those whose families were either too poor to keep them or for other reasons chose not to. Relatively new but materially quite spare, the facility housed about 120 women and 30 men in 4 or 5 wards. Each patient, or “inmate,” as they were called, possessed an iron bed with two small drawers under the mattress. That was it. The beds were lined up 30 or 40 to a room with ample space to maneuver, but no privacy. It gave a new meaning to “can’t take it with you”—there was not much stuff these elderly were going to be leaving behind. But they were all clean and warm, eager to meet us, to bless us and be blessed. There were vegetable and flower gardens the patients who could would enjoy working in. There were absolutely none of the nursing home smells we find in even the best facilities in the U.S. The sisters labored hard to care for their needs and to let them know they were loved. We were very impressed with their dedication.

The parish church was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan monk known not only as the patron saint of lost things, but of pregnancy. Nelson told us that many Hindu couples as well as Christians come to the church to ask St. Anthony to intercede for their fertility. Many miracles are associated with him; more on this later.

Father Nelson had told us of “Anglo Indians,” people descended from English colonialists who looked like light-skinned Indians but whose first language was English. He took us to visit a father and son who were Anglo Indians, and we visited with them and learned about their history. Very interesting. Like every place, India is more and more complex and diverse the more you learn about it.