GETTING TO KNOWA STRANGER

t the hotel, the guy in the vest at the front desk had given it to him.

The postcard said, “I met an interesting guy who dances all day. First,

they called him the king of dance. When he didn’t stop, they built a temple

for him.” It also had the name of a hotel.

Suresh knew he shouldn’t become indecisive again, but he couldn’t help it now

really. He was following a girl who could probably change his life. He hadn’t

figured out if he wanted to change it even while filling up his leave application

at the office.

“A month off? For what exactly?”

At 4.30, as the heat was beginning to let up, he woke up to the sea, now a little

louder, and walked to the Shore Temple. The path was packed with shops selling

knick-knacks and things made from seashells. She probably wouldn’t have hung

around a lot here.

The temple itself was something else. The minute detailing on the stone

elephants would have put a live one to shame. He walked along to the

Pandava’s chariots and the caves (he wanted to look at the Siva and Parvati cave

again; maybe they could retrace their steps). And finally, had a smoke under the

Krishna Butterball.

Walking along the shore with the setting sun for company, he reached the old

lighthouse. He sat looking for ships the way the locals had for a few centuries.

How could he have actually gone and followed her? Would he have a job

when he went back?

The postcard read, “I’ve decided to follow Him. Better catch up fast if you don’t

want to be displaced. He’s got a pet bull. (No, not a pansy pit bull, a p-e-t bull.)”

And the name of the hotel she was going to stay in the next town.

“Do you have any rooms free?” Suresh asked.

“Yes.” The man at the reception busy writing accounts, answering phone calls

and ordering the room service around.

The moon came out to greet the Shore Temple. And the sea looked like

it was grinning.

Perhaps this was not such a bad decision after all.

Early next morning, he left for the town of dancers. He stopped at Pichavaram

for a couple of hours, but wasn’t really interested in the boat rides. So he went on

to Chidambaram and found the hotel that had the next clue. It looked expensive.

He must really be at work. How could she imagine that he would follow her?

“Is the room where this lady stayed free?”

The man looked up at him. Then he opened the register, looked at the keys

alcove and looked back at him.

“No.”

“Okay, then I’ll wait till it’s free.”

Suresh picked his bags up, went and sat in the lobby, sprawling on the couch.

Chidambaram, a town dedicated to Bharatanatyam. The brochure told him to go

and see the Nataraja Temple dedicated to Lord Siva, the Natyanjali Festival in

February-March (too late) and a few other temples.

The man at the reception finally gave him the same room she had stayed in.

Not before he told the room service staff to check if the woman had left behind

anything for the man. The man thought he was crazy. But maybe he did need this sort of thing. After a while, life had stopped offering

him anything particularly interesting. Which helped build up the indifference that

crept into his work, life and relationships.

Suresh got into the room and sniffed. No, the room service had been diligent.

No sights, smells, articles that could help him get closer to her.

He went to the Nataraja Temple to look at Siva in his Ananda Tandava pose.

He thought He looked pretty cool.

A guide was telling a few tourists about the Chidambara Ragasiyam

(Chidambaram’s secret), he eavesdropped and got to know the Aakasha Lingam

in the temple was Siva’s formless space.

While walking back to his hotel, he heard the rhythmic sound of wood striking

wood. Through the bars of an ancient house, he saw a few dancers, barely

17 or 18, dancing to the tunes of a Bhagavathar. He watched his own incidental,

private, ticketless performance for an hour.

For a few months, acquisition had made them happy. The thought of buying

things they could never have earlier. Like the terrace garden. And the jacuzzi in

the big bathroom. Even the plasma TV they never had the time to watch.

A pet bull. It could only be Thanjavur. He left Chidambaram as unsure of

what he was doing, where she was heading, or where he was following her.

Thanjavur seemed a sleepy little town. Nevertheless, the naming of

the Brahadeeswarar Temple as a UNESCO World Heritage site had

definitely woken the townsfolk up to the possibilities of commerce.

Everyone had a camera slung around their necks. Brahadeeswarar, like most

temples in Tamil Nadu, was a Lord Siva temple. Nandhi (the big, young stud bull)

guarded the entrance to the temple and was said to be the biggest stone bull in

the state. The temple was built in the 11th century by the glorious Chola dynasty.

Such was the splendour the temple recreated; it seemed like a time machine

that took you back to the 11th century. When people used their minds to

capture memories.

A fortnight earlier, she sat him down on a Thursday evening.

“This is not working out,” she said.

“Do you want to try and make it work out?”

“Yeah, what do we do?” Suresh asked.

“I don’t know, but I can’t live like this anymore.”

“But what’s wrong? We have everything, don’t we?”

“Maybe everything isn’t enough.”

“You’re talking like a romance novel.”

So, Suresh bought a Thanjavur painting of Ardhanareeswar. The process

of making the painting itself seemed symbolic of building a relationship. First,

the image is sketched on the canvas (a cloth pasted over a wooden base).

Then chalk powder is mixed with glue and applied on it. It is then sanded to shear

off rough edges. After which the sketch is strengthened by more drawing and

decorated with jewellery and apparel. Finally, the painting is transformed into a work

of art with lace, gold foil and brilliant-coloured dyes.

He went to the hotel and asked for the postcard.

She’d written,“Your luck’s looking up. He has a wife. He’s invited me to Their home.”

She decided to change her life without asking him. She told him if he really wanted

her, he had to change his life too.

His bus had to go through Trichy to get to Madurai. But he also wanted to catch up

with her as soon as possible, so he didn’t get off to see the Rock Temple.

“But where do you want to go?” Suresh asked.

“I don’t know. Remember when we first got together, we told each other we’ll

travel around Tamil Nadu?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Well, we never did it, did we? I want to do it now. And if you don’t want to come,

perhaps this marriage is as good as over.”

“You are travelling alone?” he said. “It’s not safe.”

“Who cares? I want to be young again. I want to have an adventure.”

“We’re too old to be young again.”

“You’re talking like a TV serial.”

The bus ride involved a lot of daytime travel. Which can be quite annoying during

the summer in Tamil Nadu. However, it was interesting for the kind of people who

boarded the bus. Vegetable vendors, livestock vendors, stonemasons, blacksmiths,

people whom Suresh would never have met.

When he got off at Madurai, he had the strange feeling that twists the lower part

of the spine of an uninvited guest. He picked himself up and went to the hotel.

The card read, “The place is neither here nor there. Half Eden-half Sahara.

The people’s temperament is red, like the soil.”

She left two days later after the ultimatum. Leaving him a picture postcard of

Mamallapuram, the first clue (and the answer). So he would know what to expect.

He slept for a couple of hours and woke up to go to their house.

He was uninvited, but so was everyone else who paid an entrance fee.

By far, the most common reason for visiting the city was the temple,

dedicated to the Goddess Meenakshi with a separate room for the Lord,

Sundareshwarar (or Siva). The complex has four huge gopurams or

temple towers crowning

the gateways at each cardinal direction.

Each tower was painted with a few thousand colourful

pictures from Their lives. You enter the temple and you meet

Her first, after which you go past snake shrines and the dozens of

other divine representations to His sanctum. He wished he could spend a few more hours in this beautiful, hospitable temple.

But found himself on the next bus to Theni.

The trip was beautiful. Theni was fertile and fresh, its colours conjured up made

one’s imagination look like a cheap reproduction. Green fields, blue skies and

red soil. No wonder it was where most Tamil film songs were shot.

Before deciding to go to any of the waterfalls and animal sanctuaries, he decided

to go to the hotel.

The postcard showed green hills and read, “I am tired, a princess has offered to

let me stay in her kingdom. I’ve decided to stay for a while.”

For the first couple of hours when he realised she’d left, he thought he’d let it go.

Let her go. He had work. Really, at this age, acting like a teenager.

Did he really want the marriage to work?

Then, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Finally, should he take his mobile phone with him? No, probably not.

The Vaigai Dam wasn’t as completely captivating as he thought it would be.

Summer had drunk a lot of water from the river and the

dam gates were closed. The grey swirls contrasted with

the green fields like something out of an Impressionist painting.

“How far is Kodaikanal from here?” he asked the reception clerk.

“About three or four hours, sir.”

“By bus?”

“Yes sir. Or you can rent a cab which can take you there sooner. You want to

leave immediately sir?”

“Yeah, I want a cab in exactly one hour to take me to this hotel in Kodaikanal.”

“So you are checking out now sir?”

He left exactly 60 hours after she’d left. He still was unsure, but somehow the

way she had done it impulsively and the possibility of becoming young again

had infected him as well. He was now thinking of her as a girl he ought to try

and woo. Not his wife.

The cab dropped him off at the Seven Road Junction in the centre of

Kodaikanal. Not before taking him through a sort of mild adventure with a

herd of bison. There were about thirty of them in a field walking across

unhurriedly. He would say majestically. He asked the driver to stop and

got out. The driver didn’t think it was wise, he thought the driver was just

making a big deal out of a trifle.

The smoke swirled with the mist that came along with the atmosphere there.

And he could see the snorting bisons send plumes of the condensed air into

the receding sunlight. A young male spotted him and pretending to forage,

had moved to within thirty metres of the cab.

And then twenty.

And then ten.

He got in and the driver floored it all the way to the

Seven Road Junction.

In the hotel, the postcard read, “I think I’ve found a place

for us to get bored for the rest of our lives in.”

“The lady who left this postcard, is she in her room?”

“No, she went for a walk.”

“Do you know where?”

“She mentioned the Coakers Walk.”

He dropped his bags and started running. Breathless,

paying the entrance fee for the Walk, he ran inside. All he

could see was family picnics, candy sellers and flowers.

More flowers and fruits than he’d ever seen in his entire life.

He spotted her near a fountain. And ran up to her.

Caught his breath. Tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned around.

“Hello wife” he said and grinned.

She smiled.

He hugged her.

“I missed you.”

“I can tell.”

“We’re talking like a Hollywood movie.”

Introducing the Hop On-Hop Off tour coaches from Chennai to Mamallapuram. 13 tourist spots. 4 buses in one-hour frequencies. So you can spend some time in one spot, hop onto another bus to take you to the next place you want to spend some time in. A great way, you’d agree, to spend a few hours going to Mamallapuram.

Coming soon.The slowest way to

get to Mamallapuram.

Tamil Nadu TourismFor details on TTDC’s attractive package tours with excellent accommodation and transport facilities, please contact: Tamil Nadu Tourism Complex,

Wallajah Road, Chennai - 600 002. INDIA. Ph: 91-44-25383333/25384444/25361640. Fax: 91-44-25361385/25382772e-mail: ttdc@vsnl.com, website: www.tamilnadutourism.org. For online reservations, please log on to: www.ttdconline.com

Call: Chennai 91-44-25389857 • Mumbai 91-22-24110118 • New Delhi 91-11-23745427 • Kolkata 91-33-24237432 • Jaipur 91-141-2200142

DIP

R/D

IS/1

185/

08