Indian Ethnographic Expedition Part V. Thalassery, Mahé, Kozhikode, Coimbatore, Chennai, Trivandrum

May 23 — June 13, 2015

Indian “Coca-Cola” labels are as simple and as to the point as possible. Just a large logo without any superfluous details or text.

Thalassery

South India in bloom.

Also, the south of India is communist through and through.

The city is jam-packed with advertising.

And hammers and sickles.

My favourite composition — a Christmas tree adorned with communist flags.

Mahé

The city of Mahé is part of the most territorially scattered Indian state — Puducherry. This is explained by the fact that these are all former French dominions. This state gets special privileges of some sort — that’s why they trade in construction materials here.

And in booze. People come here from all of the neighbouring states to stock up.

Kozhikode

The city greeted us with a bundle of communist flags.

To take an Indian selfie you have to hold your index finger up to your face.

Coimbatore

Last time I hoodwinked readers, saying that all Indian women get their left nostril pierced. Some of them pierce the right.

Some pierce both.

Highly hipsterish dentist’s office logo.

The most interesting local attribute — they use chalk to draw protective motifs on the pavement in front their front doors.

Here’s another interesting detail — the stairs are supplemented with a ramp for rolling your moped indoors.

The cables look like a music stave.

Hindu temples are the world’s curliest.

The city is fairly big and lively, but looks just as uninteresting as the majority of Indian cities. Indians stopped caring whether urban developments are coherent or beautiful about a hundred years ago.

Traffic light.

Rubbish bin.

The security system in Indian airports is anything but normal. For instance, every airline rents its own X-ray scanner. You can’t just put your luggage through another airline’s scanner (although it’s staffed by the same people). First we went through the one on the left, but it turned out we were supposed to go through the one on the right. So we had to do it all over again.

Chennai

Everything in India is swell, aside from their idiotic penchant for renaming cities for the worse. You had brilliant Bombay, now there’s woolly Mumbai. You had resplendent Calcutta, now it’s pitiful Kolkata. Before there was magnificent Madras, now there’s Chinese-sounding Chennai. All of this is trivial and petty, like changing Moldavia to Moldova.

Nonetheless, Chennai is a wonderful city. The lifts have collapsible doors. You have to slide them open by hand.

The rubbish truck stopped at a traffic light and while it waited crows perched atop it.

Female civilian.

Servicewomen.

Ad for the modern-day military against a bamboo forest backdrop.

Colonial splendor. Or rather, what’s left of it.

Old street sign.

Alleyway.

Street kitchen.

Toilets in transit. They put them in haystacks to stop them smashing en route.

Somebody’s cosy abode.

The conversation.

Pedicab. A rarity nowadays. When I was in India eight years ago, I observed pulled rickshaws in Calcutta, completely unmechanised.

Animal-powered transport.

Way back when they built beautiful buildings made to last for centuries. This is hands down one of the most beautiful buildings in India.

This is how they build today:

All of the statues in Chennai absolutely have to be pointing at something.

Otherwise they can’t really be called statues.

This is why the finger is a must.

The local Russian cultural centre has been running for thirty years already. Its sign hangs above the pavement just so, ensuring that every single passerby bangs his noggin on it.

A detail that Russia and India have in common — useless information signs next to all sorts of things. For example, escalator rules. Who needs them? But wait, it’s doesn’t stop there — there’s more. Here they are in three languages. I bet even the guy who did the text layout didn’t read them.

Trivandrum

One of the neatest airports in the entire country.

With a great pictogram for the ladies’ room.

In India, with the exception of a few states, the sale of booze is organised in piss poor fashion. You have to look for a specialist shop. There aren’t any liquor stores in shopping centres.

The wall of the liquor store. All of the customers spit on it as they leave.

You can only find passable wine in the big expensive hotels. Since we are staying in hostels and guesthouses, we get the regular wine you find in stores. All of the bottles are sold at a temperature of 35-40 degrees; pricier wine is cloaked in a thick layer of dust.