Mahabalipuram Mosale

Author : Santhosh G R

Mahabalipuram Mosale (Crocs), Massaging a monitor lizard & a bit of Madarasu

The team:

Nairs (Biju Nair S)

TexMex (Tekula man Prakash Tekula)

Maamalla Santhosh G R

Menon (Biju’s friend; to a lesser extent)

Madhu (Santhosh’s girl fren; Absent but present abstractly throughout the trip)

A word of caution: Some of the descriptions, incidents, words are graphic. Proceed if and only if you don’t get offended by the doings of two adrenaline pumped bachelors and one innocent married man (me)

Also the travelogue is very detailed, running more than 10 pages ;-))

D-Day “--1”

The first choice for the trip was a trek up Tirumala hill, decided over food on plantain leaves. TexMex vetoed the trip as we was tired of going to Tirumala so often and he didn’t have any immediate desires which the lord could fulfill. He even threw the suggestion of asking the lord for a good wife, with the right amount of knowledge, patience and the ever so important right amount of fat in the right places.

Finally, dudes decided to goto Mahabalipuram, or Mammalapuram. TexMex booked the tickets with a patient wait of 1 hour at an unearthly 8AM.

Nairs took over the job of finding out the places to see, happening places not to be missed, booking hotels with the help of his friend.

D-Day “-1”

Journey started at the bangalore railway station. A lot of books for stimulating the mind and the muscles were bought for the journey. On the train, TexMex was found poring over in detail the magazines which had an editorial on Indian sleaze. He even came up to the upper berths along with nairs and me, even after a warning that the junta would consider us “queers” for sharing the upper berth.

D-Day “1” (Sat Nov 6, 2004)

The train chugged into Chennai central early, at 5:00. Thanks to nairs fren, we had a room booked at a hotel in Nugambakkam. We wanted the check-in time to be 7AM so that we could leave at 7Am the next day. TexMex had a brilliant idea of booking the hotel only for the night, and managing to pot and clean up somehow, maybe on the streets of sriperumbudur. Me and nairs were against the idea. We wanted a proper pot on which to pot and clean up, also we couldn’t imagine how we do the above without TexMex giving us concrete ideas. Anyways, a hotel was booked and waiting for us. The problem at hand was to reach the place. Nairs fren had told us that it would cost arnd 30-40 bucks to reach the place, and enterprising Nairs had a map to boot. The map gave a twist to our journey. I in my exercise-induced excitement, suggested that we could walk all the way to the hotel. Using my fingers I measures the map and compared it to the scale provided on the map to show that the distance was a meager 2 kms. This could help us also in building pressure for the oncoming potty session.

The walk started on the Poonamallee high road, much to chagrin of all the touts, auto-rick-wallahs, hotel brokers, whom we treated with contempt, with Biju becoming vitriolic with irritation.

A unique feature of the Poonamallee high road: btn Chennai central and Egmore crossroad, a distance of only a km or so, we found innumerable no. of potholes. In fact in a short stretch of 200 metres, there were 116 + 100 odd potholes on the sidewalk. Walking thru it was like meandering thru a mine of pothole covers. Biju, suggested that this might be where the gold, the kanchipuram sarees of Kum. JJ was hidden, a novel idea indeed.

The walk was longer than expected, almost 7 kms, taking us an hour and half to cover the stretch. On the way we encountered, railway project managers rest house ( a palatial building?? ), lot and lots of hospitals, Medical college mens hostel (with no girls hostel anywhere nearby – sadly), an effluent and stanching Kuvam river – the supposedly life vein for chennais dirt, a grotesque flyover on Nugambakkam high road inaugurated by Murasoli maran (which was obviously unused, considering it was on a narrow, non-jammed road).

Finally we reached hotel Ranjith, in front of Income tax (aykar) bhavan and beside Taj Coramandel. Later we were to find Anna salai, American consulate, malls with a lot of nubile young things in and around the building. A quick bath, some telly-watch, and we were out to have the complimentary hotel-breakfast. Biju was hungry after the long walk, and went at the food like a hog. Uttapams, parotas, idlis, chutney vanished down our mouth, to the utter dismay of the attendants. We finished with thick black coffee and tea and vada.

Chennai auto-wallahs are a different breed. Unlike our much touted quality-standards there is no standardized auto-meter; they quote the price they want and get off with it. The tip is to always catch a “running auto” and not one in the stand, as the “running” ones quote lesser (thanking the hotel guys for the valuable tip).

We took a auto to Koyambedu, the mofussil bustand of Chennai, huge and a veritable behemoth of a building. The auto drive cost us 65 after much haggling and Biju’s nonchalant walk-away from the auto driver. After some phone calls (how could I not call madhu??) we took a bus to Mahabs. All buses plying on this route are termed ECR buses, to say that they use the East Coast Route. I insisted on a DVD bus but to no avail. Some of the buses punchlines went like “Fast and Safe”. The conductor issuing tickets did not know of any place called Crocodile park enroute to mahabs. He did not even know the fair and took some imaginary-conjured amount to our benefit.

The journey thru Chennai is as bad as thru Bommanahalli, if not worse. 12-15 kms within the city took an hour, and the rest of the 40+ kms took the same time. The road outside Chennai was a very smooth, specially the tolled ECR road, which is of comparable US standards. ECR road has road-signs everywhere, one sign of “Cow crossing” too. Biju had a question “In the US, if you hit a deer near a deer crossing zone, you can take it home and eat it. What if we hit a cow near a cow crossing? The answer is that you will be eaten!!!”

We got down at Crocodile (mosale) park, run by an American couple, with more than a thousand crocs. Seeing the croc pond was such an amazing sight. Tekula quipped that this was not a croc park but a croc parking lot; there really were so many. The enclosures were not very high, but safe. One can watch the crocs up close and personal from a very safe distance. The nos would amaze anyone. Baby turtles and baby croc were displayed in a small glass acquarium. One could buy a ticket to hold the croc and get photos taken. After some initial hesitation, but later remembering Steve from animal planet (whom madhu likes, inspite of me not wanting her to), I decided to hold the baby croc and get a snap, to vex madhu and gain over Steve’s influence.

You need to hold the baby with two hands, one over the neck, so that it doesn’t snap at you. On being told this, a foreign couple said “is it like my in-law, or is it better?”. I told them that the croc has not bitten as told by the caretaker,

the lad replied asking “did he not show you a cut finger to prove otherwise”.

We walked thru the park, seeing some colorful iguanas, a really huge monitor lizard, a beautiful underwater glass display of a croc pond, with cat fish, turtles (such a beautiful sight of the croc standing in the water with it’s hind legs and tail for balance), a python with a rat which it was trying to gobble up. Some human monkeys who hissed at the python and king cobra to rattle them (I just hoped that these humans cld be inside the cage with the cobra hissing at them). We enjoyed all the sights, and ended with a pee in a slippery bathroom, with me juggling and balancing my camera.

Next was a visit to the snake park with the croc park, where venom extraction was being displayed. Four poisonour snakes, a Russel viper, a krait, cobra (“naja naja” as told by Tekula) and Sawscaled viper. the handler handled (sorry for the pun), the snakes with ease. Around 400 pots with cloths covering them held 400 odd snakes. All of varying degree of poison, but all potent killing machines if provoked. The viper was at it’s angriest, moving a piece of cloth produced such lout hissing sound, I literally had “romanchana”. The cobra moved with such speed whenever the handler looked away and tried to bite him, such speed. We saw the venom being extracted from the viper; the snake is marked after extraction by removing one of the scale which grows back. The krait being the smallest, was cute, but deadly as they come. The handlers have been around for 20 odd years and even been bitten by the cobra once. They have a vehicle on hand for rushing them to the hospital (god help them, on a bad traffic jam day).

One could take photos of oneself with a python wrapped around the body, but seeing the python and the time we opted out.

Coming out of the croc park, we caught a maxi-cab to mahabs. I started a conversation with a localite in my itsy-bitsy tamil and got to know of the dolphin stadium, where previously 4 dolphins entertained (now dead), sea lion entertainment, raama temple, sai temple, jain temple, finally the localite’s house on the main road, with an offer to look him up the next time we were in-and-around. We also got a tip to lunch at Guru hotel in mahabs.

The first visit on reaching mahabs was to Guru hotel. A sumptuous meal with 2 vegetable curries, pallya, rasam, fish fry, prawn masala, chicken curry, prawn curry. We walked into the city of mahabs towards the rock of arjuna’s penance. On the way we stopped again to call home (me calling and waking up madhu in Phoenix). I also bought a MP3 CD of rahman songs for a mere Rs40.

Arjunas penance is bass relief on stone. It strangely has the carving of Ganga Avatarana (the descent of ganga). One can see the sculpture of surya, chandra, arjuna who is enervated. Carving of a cat meditating is beautiful, the cat being round and healthy feigning holiness, but eating all the rats which come near. The deer motif used on old Rs10 notes is also from this relief. We hired a guide to explain us the details. Next was to an unfinished cave. Another finished cave with Krishna holding Govardhana, krsna with gopikas. There was an Egyptian influence in the form of a sphinx. We proceeded towards the big monolotic ganesha temple, sculpted out of a single massive granite. Behind it was cave temples with vaamana, durga carvings. The cave temples had a moat in front of them, which would be filled with water, so that one’s feet is washed before entering the temple, nice technology.

Mahabs was sculpted by the pallava kings, most of the temples and carvings are unfinished, probably due the constant threaten of warfare. Granite is natural. Behind the gangaavatarana relief are huge granite “mountains”, one of which has a delicately balanced butter ball (almost 10 meters across). British tried to pull the rock with elephants but could not. We saw the brahma-vishnu-maheshwara temple, the curd-butter pot of Krishna (a huge well carved out of stone).

Tekula bought a ganesha carving and we walked onwards on the granite towards the distant lighthouse. We had a good time climbing the rock, making biju exercise by doing some mountain climbing, some more caves to watch and reached the lighthouse and another stone temple. Sadly the lighthouse was locked and we could climb up. Also, passed by a lot of foreigners, obviously on the lookout for a secluded place to hook on to ganja (grass).

We proceeded towards Pandava rathas, nowhere related to pandavas but named after them. The path to the rathas is lined with a lot of sculpture shops, like mechanics carving ganeshas, lions, cros, women with unimaginable proportions and deep dark and thickly protruding nipples. Biju took photos so that he could present them to me later. Pandava rathas are again monolithic carvings, one carving of a huge elephant. A ground of Spanish with an Indian guide who spoke fluent espanyola were also present; we were amused. Coming out of the pandava ratha enclosure, we were surrounded by knick-knack sellers with small sculptures. We were enticed to buy ganesha and some very shocking kama-sutra carvings, but later realizing that they looked more like plaster of paris molds rather than hand carvings. They came very cheap.

Next destination was the shore temple. There were 7 temples in mahabs, 6 being swallowed by the sea, one remaining which is protected by an stone embankment. Another monolithic sculpture, with amazingly wide courtyard made of stone. We had a long photo session, with Tekula deleting the old uneccessary photos to make way for the current ones.

Proceeding towards the beach from the temple, we decided to have a “shooting game” at the beach front. A sum of 15 rupees fetched us 15 shots. I was the most successful with 4 hits out of the 4, the last one being to a moving/waving balloon which missed by a whisker. Being successful I got a bonus shot to end at 5 hits out of 6. Tekula and Biju accepted my supremacy after a lot of haggling. We had tea at the beach, sitting down, with our legs dangling over the sand. Seeing far beyond into the sea; getting dark it was a peacefully poignant moment, with us missing these moments in our day to day life. We were very very happy, going back to our childhood, with Tekula remembering a lot of his sessions with his girlfren (now married and with a kid )in his hometown. Some more photos with the waves at our feet, waiting for the big 7^th wave.

We trudged back towards the bus, had some thick badam milk, with real pieces of badam, some chakli (murukku) and took the bus to Chennai. Coincidentally it was the same bus we came by. We passed thru Kovalam enroute. There were huge painting advertising “Ustaad condoms” in kovalam.

We were joined by Bijus’s fren Menon at the hotel. Unlike biju, his fren has been enterprising enf to hook one of his classmates. Biju told us of how he was part of a group which helped menon to get his future wife. Saravana bhavan (world famous with braches in NY and LA) was our preferred destination for food. Food was costly affair with dosas, appams, shahi tukdaa, and the tab was picked by bijus fren. Our night ended with Tekula and me watching a Surya channel movie, me with wonder of why everyone was interested in late night movies on surya channel. Turned out to be a moral story, but interlaced with copius amount of big mallu women in only blouse and skirt!!!

D-Day “2” (Sun Nov 7, 2004)

We had decided to get up 5 and be ready by 6. Biju had volunteered for the task, but as his wont let us down and woke us a bemoaning 7. We hurried, with a namesake bath and checked out of the hotel by 8am. The destination for the day was Kanchipuram, and we filed off to Koyambedu for another bus journey. Our breakfast consisted of a lot of biscuits, sweets, junk stuff, which lasted almost all thru the day. This time we got into a DVD player bus, but sadly never got to see any movie. The journey was rickety, but we did not feel as we slept all thru the journey. When we woke at 11am we could see the gopuras of the temple.

Kanchipuram, is a dusty town with more temples that even the localite can visit. Every gully, street, nook and corner has a temple. One end of the city is dedicated to the Shiva temples, the other corner to Vishnu and in between acting as a De-Militarized zone is the shakti temple of Kanchi. To complete the shakti temple round, one has to see Madurai Meenakshi, Kanchi Kaamaakshi & Kashi Vishaalaakshi. Of course there are the smaller ones like Kollur Mukambika, Mysore Chamundi, Vaishnodevi, etc. The triad mentioned above was our goal.

Autos are huge problem in Kanchi. Everywhere you go they follow you arnd, they offer ever decreasing prices for places which are just 1km away. Finally I had run them off by saying that we had decided to walk 100km in two days as our obeisance to Kaamaakshi. This drove them off. Biju responded in irritation at all the drivers.

Our first visit was to the K K temple. The main one in the middle of the town. The dome of the temple is covered in the gold plated copper. There is a very poorly maintained kalyani (holy pond) in the temple. Saw 2 guys washing their bodies in the kalyaani. A lot of gopuras surround the main temple. We clicked photos in abandon; biju and tekulaman went into the temple to pay a visit to the god. One feature of interest was the pillar mantapam, with beautiful carving; but pathetic maintenance all the same. As usual in the Indian temple there are a lot of “courting” scenes in conjoined position as is required by the tantric rules of temple building.

We walked on from the temple to the Shanmugham temple. A relatively modern temple, with a lot of peacock scultptures. It was pleasant to watch parrots nesting in the nooks and gables of the temple and constrasting with the inanimate peacocks. From there we did a pradakshina of the whole city coming back to the Kamaakshi temple and hence on the busy bus-stand area. Time for food, and we entered HSB Saravana bhavan for a traditional tamil iyengar lunch. It was very satisfying.

Kanchi is famous mostly for it’s saris. Silk ones with complex brocades and zaris. Have heard that some of the saris are even sold by weight owing to the amount of zari (a mixture of silk, twisted wires of silver/copper and with gold paint). Ms JJ’s saris for her adopted son’t wedding went into lakhs. We hopped into a auto to reach the saree bazaar. This area teems with a lot of shops, selling saris. After much deliberation and walking to-fro across the bazaar some 3 times, we decided to enter a shop and try our hand at women wear.

Saree buying is another of the mystic arts; similar to unix programming. You never what you are getting, until you go home and hear comments like “this sari is the color of an elephant”, “Looks like gutter water”, “too much design”, “too less design”. On top of this you also need to be careful not to get some cheap stuff which is passed of as silk. To men’s eyes even nylon is like silk; for that matter anything which shines can pass off as silk. The salesperson spreads hundreds of sarees in front of you, one piled upon the other; all price ranges from Rs200/- to Rs10000/- was spread in front of us. We decided on our price range and started selecting sarees which twinkled before us. I decided to play safe and go for cotton saris with a lot of folklorish design. Finally we ended up with Tekula 2 saris, me 3 saris and biju 1 sari. The salesperson gave us a discount of 30% (later found that first he gives you 20% and on top of that 10%, which is lesser than 30%) and we were very happy. Biju insisted on a “round” figure and got some more 100/- knocked off.

Varadaraj perumal (Vishnu) temple lies a stones throw away from the saree shops. It’s a big temple, with a high gopura, a more interesting pillar mantapam. The main temple is in the form of a fort, one high wall within another. The sanctum is dark with a foreboding and huge idol of the lord. Going around the idol you are surprised to find another door at the back, which leads u up a flight of stairs. Here you find the acclaimed Golden lizard or the Bangaru-Palli. If any day you have a lizard fall on you, you need to go to kanchi and touch the the bangaru-palli and your paapa will be erased from your personal history. There are two lizards, one with a gold plate and another silver plated, to witness the fact that you are touching the lizard you have silver plated sun and moon. All these are not on the ground, but interestingly affixed to a beam on the roof, to simulate a live lizard. The walls of the temple are full of paintings, which sadly (as everywhere in kanchi) are fading due to lack of care and maintenance. Coming out we walked around the 100 pillared mandapam, supposedly carved out of a single stone and joined. A necklace is carved out of stone with no joints, a distinctive southern temple feature; Tekula gaped at the necklace and appreciated the sculptors.

Back to Chennai, the task was to find a bus. We had a panicky time, trying to get a bus to Chennai; there was none, most of them were headed to other places. The only bus we could finally manage to get was a ramshackle dabba which could pass for a bus. The journey was arduous and bumpy, with water seeping in due to rain; biju’s shoulder was all wet and was on the verge of freezing into a ice clod. We reachecd Koyambedu and thence on Chennai central in time to catch the train.

Our meal was burgers and biryaani from Marrybrowns. We hopped onto the III AC coach on the Mysore express. Bill settlement was supposed to be taken up in the train, but finding everyone turning off the lights to call an early night, even we decided to call it a day, to “rejuvenate” ourselves and get nostalgic.

D-Day “+1” (Mon Nov 8, 2004)

Reached bangalore early in the morning. The trip was big fun, lots of experiences, bohomie and gunh-ho. Thanks to everyone who helped in making the trip so “rejuvenating”.