Indian Ethnographic Expedition Part VI. Kanyakumari, Hyderabad, Jaipur

May 23 — June 13, 2015

The design of the two rupee coin is superlative. Two!

Kanyakumari

The southernmost part of India was a pleasant surprise.

Someone told me a long time ago that there’s a town called Kanyakumari on India’s southern tip. Supposedly, every self- respecting Indian has to go there at least once in his life to shit into the sea while watching the sunrise. This was an ethnographic opportunity not to be missed.

I was expecting that it would be just like all of the other cities in the southern Indian states. But it turns out that everything is different there.

Catholic churches, lit up at night like Las Vegas casinos, are incredibly dominant here.

The churches resemble car dealerships — a few storeys high with glass windows displaying wares. In this case there’s a saint, or several of them, on every floor. Instead of the cherry on top, there’s Christ.

It’s best to get a hotel as close as possible to the shoreline, because that’s where the action is, starting at six in the morning. Here’s the view from our room:

Dawn is approaching.

People are snapping selfies already. By seven a.m. the crowd’s cellphones will be completely out of battery.

When it isn’t sunrise, this is just a regular little fishing village.

The fishermen don’t get all worked up about the sunrise. They got up very early and went out for their catch.

There are two islands sticking up out of the sea. On one of them there’s a temple, on the other — a statute of some dude. I could go on Wikipedia and painstakingly copy out the temple’s name and backstory, but I’ll leave that to other travellers, the ones who think that if they paraphrase the guidebook, someone will take an interest at last.

People are rubbing the remnants of sleep from their eyes and going up on the rooftops. The view’s better up there.

A local jackdaw is happy to have found some slop.

The people are also happy. The sun! It’s rising! It’s being reflected in our glasses!

You would think that this isn’t anything special — after all, the sun rises all over the world. Go to a bus stop in Novosibirsk and there too you can witness a mesmerising sunrise, not to mention the sunset. But no, everyone goes to the south of India to see a show that’s been running every single day for a billion years. The power of marketing at work!

But it’s not all sunshine and sand.

If instead of going to the touristy seafront you walk in the opposite direction, heading even further south, you will come to a spot brimming with archaic forces.

This bit is more for the locals.

People go into the water and delight in their ablutions. It’s possible that many of them also use this opportunity to take a dump — I didn’t manage to find that out.

The bathing area is well sectioned off from the rather turbulent ocean.

People getting changed.

Surprisingly, they aren’t shy.

A new concrete shack and a beautiful ancient shack.

Jewellery for sale.

Again, people are not the least bit shy. This is one of the few places in the world where you get the feeling that everything here is exactly as it has been for many millennia.

It’s interesting that in India seafront buildings have white and red stripes painted on them. It’s also interesting that in India beggars literally sit there with their arm outstretched. No cardboard sign, no collection box, no hat, just the palm of their hand.

Granny with AK-47s.

Yet another multi-tiered temple.

And another one.

One more.

Motorcycle being pushed into a truck.

Hyderabad

We’re in Hyderabad. Staying in one of the most lavish hotels, in superior rooms with air conditioning and internet access.

The hotel is located on the fifth floor of a business and retail centre. We had dinner on the fourth floor. This was probably the most unsightly of all of the restaurants we went to. Hot. Dark. No power sockets. Sticky menus. Half an hour wait to get a bottle of water. A cross between a cockroach and an egg-laying female ant crawling on the table.

Despite all of this, everything was delicious! It’s astounding — in India the food is delicious everywhere you go. In train stations, little cafés, eateries and restaurants. I am still waiting to come across a joint where they serve food not fit for human consumption. You know, like they do in Russia, where instead of meat you get fat-coated cartilage doused in some sort of emetic sauce.

Hyderabad by night blew our minds. Hustle and bustle, horns honking, crowds thronging, traffic jams (the first time we’ve seen traffic jams here — usually in India the traffic may slow to the speed of a pedestrian, but it’s always moving continuously).

In the morning it turned out that for the most part, all of this splendor was conjured up by lights, advertising and noise.

They’re building a metro here.

They’ve already installed the pylons for the new line; soon trains will be coursing past above.

Number plate salesman.

By the way, whilst in China everyone rides mopeds, in India it’s motorcycles. This country has more motorcycles than any other. What’s more is, isn’t at all clear why Indians need motorcycles. Probably the power of tradition.

Little flags with teeny-weeny hammers and sickles.

Indians feel an inexplicable urge to get photos taken with white people. Whilst the Chinese all want their photo taken with a European girl, there are dozens of families in India whose family archives now include snaps of the expedition party, myself included.

Locals.

There’s a nice little fort in Hyderabad. Thankfully, it’s not yet on the Unesco world heritage list. As a consequence, inside there’s total freedom and not a single barrier.

Little girl wearing eye makeup.

In Hyderabad it finally happened — the thing that all those reading and following our expedition had been waiting for, hearts aflutter, for so long. At last, the city was inundated with shit! So much shit had piled up that it spewed out of the manhole, burst through the manhole cover and gushed out onto the bustling road.

My limited knowledge of urban shit treatment was insufficient to determine how just much you had to shit in order produce this much shit. But the fact remains that there was a geyser forcefully spouting faeces.

We were lucky — we were in a car with window glass. This tuk- tuk driver was not so fortunate — he got covered in excrement.

This motorcyclist was unlucky too — the communal shit landed right on his hairdo. A passerby noticed this and is neighing with laughter.

Yet another airport entrance. Initially I thought you could show the soldier just about anything on your cellphone screen, but I was mistaken, they actually do know the entire airport schedule. If your flight’s been cancelled, they won’t let you in. The thing is, if you want to get into an Indian airport (to see someone off) but don’t have an airplane ticket you have to pay 100 rupees.

Jaipur

We flew into Jaipur. First time I’ve seen a boarding ramp without any steps. You can board or disembark in a wheelchair.

Indians love their toilet humour, and that’s why they are constantly experimenting with toilet pictograms and pictures.

Portable street toilet.

For the most part Jaipur is a thoroughly dreary city. It reminded me of faceless neighbourhoods in China. But what people come here are for the rare charms which survived by chance and are now a source of income. There is not a single sleepy suburb or concrete Brezhnev-era block anywhere in the world that can attract millions of tourists who just want to take a look.

What people do go to see are pieces of times gone by and the legacy of the colonisers.

There are lots of monkeys in the monkey temple. They aren’t afraid of anything and are happily eating nuts next to this distribution board.

Cows also have a soft spot for electrical equipment. Possibly, the grass next to it tastes better.

Clothed locals.

Unclothed locals.

The Indian Ethnographic Expedition party all together (almost).

A macaque understands the significance of the media for the first time.

We all have our cross to bear.

The only worthwhile quarter in Jaipur is the “pink city”. In reality it’s terracotta and somewhat reminiscent of Marrakesh.

Someone out there knows how to write out phone numbers like a matrix printer.

Beautiful.

In India it’s hard to tell what is meant for tourist consumption and what is being done for their own sake. I decided that everyone is just carrying on as usual. An elephant was being led through the streets.

There was also a dead man being led through the streets.