Adventures in India: Day One

January 1, 2013

Chennai to Mamalahpurum

I don’t know what I expected when I chose Chennai as my point of entry into India, but my first impressions of the city are that it is way more and way less than whatever that was. The smell of the city is omnipresent and intense: old urine, onions, car emissions, something cooking that smells tempting, something rotting that smells and is repulsive, a hint of flowers when there are none to be seen, incense, jasmine. &;People sleep in the streets day and night. It is very hot and very muggy. And at the risk of making a gross overgeneralization, the people who are not sleeping in the streets seem very pushy and very aggressive, even by my New York standards. More than just the necessary jostle to get through a crowd there appears to be a sense of wanting to get ahead, to gain an advantage, to be the first. And it is not uncommon for me to be having a conversation with some shopkeeper or hotel receptionist when I am interrupted by someone else who simply wants to get in … now.
I did manage to arrive at the guesthouse I had hoped to stay in without a reservation around 11PM, notwithstanding the harrowing reality that the cab driver I rode with and his fellow Indian terrorist vehicle drivers all have absolutely no regard for the lane of the road they are driving in and I cannot even tell if they drive on the right side or on the left. In fact I think it may change from street to street or as conditions dictate. And when red lights that hold the vehicle terrorists back on occasion indicate by their digital countdown signal that there are less than twenty seconds left before the light changes to green the honking starts, and with about ten seconds left the entire lane of cars is moving forward through the remaining red light. As for crossing the roadway as a pedestrian, although it is accomplished by me by attaching myself to any one of the Indian contortionists who do so with casual regularity, to me it seems like a feat of immense daring and perfect timing.
The guesthouse is locked when I arrive there, but, after much bell ringing, the door is opened by a sleepy old man and an even sleepier younger man. They say everything is closed early because it is “election time,” although I’ve seen open teashops on my way into Chennai and later learn that the election itself is more than a month away. My room at this inn, complete with cold shower, toilet without toilet paper, and terrace surrounded by prison bars, is in an olden Maharaja’s home. After that it’s all down hill. The sheets have burn holes in them and I can scratch my itchy back on their roughly textured weave. The floor is concrete, cracked, dirty – no make that filthy – and has never met a rug or tile. The soles of my feet are dirty – no make that filthy – within a second or two and I have to take them into the bed with me. The walls are cracked, ancient, discolored, moldy, and covered with flaking plaster. Electric wires are hanging everywhere, although there are no electric outlets. Also no hot water, soap, towels, blankets, cabinets, or even wall hooks. There is one old rusty metal folding chair. All in all it feels a bit like a cell. We are definitely talking upgrade.
In the morning I move about the Triplicate neighborhood streets among throngs of people, cars, trucks, rickshaws, horns, mufflers, whistles, and yelling. Eye contact is rare, make that non-existent, notwithstanding that I look at people directly, and stick out as an obvious, tall, white, foreign guy. The sight of green trees able to breathe and grow in the city comforts me. The calling of crows with gray collars that make it look like they too are dirty also helps, although I ’m quite sure that what the kahkahs – which is Tamil for crow – are saying and asking me is, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” And, of course, the crow guides’ question is the absolutely right question, which I don’t really know the answer to (on a spiritual quest? studying yoga?), because all I’ve found so far, at least to my eyes, is a dirty, highly polluted, teeming, and somewhat nondescript, gray city. Besides, what I really want to know first, even before I try to answer the crows, is can my diet for the next five weeks in India really consist of only bananas, cashew nuts, Kit Kat bars, and water?
My favorite moments are when taxi drivers seeking to take me on as a fare as I walk aimlessly – the only obvious foreigner – through the streets ask me, “Where are you going?” And I reply, “I have no idea.” And I really don’t. Over the course of four days in Chennai dozens of people ask me, what I am doing here, which I can’t answer, followed by the even more pointed and revealing question “Okay, but why did you choose Chennai?” And for three days I tell all of them, I really don’t know.