Harrowed Halls

Saturday 3-2-13

Today I got up early to take a tour of some local (and some far away) places. Hema and Pradeep M met me at the hotel with a driver at 8:30 am. Our first stop was Kapaleshwai temple in Mylapore. I didn’t take a lot of pictures here because I wasn’t sure what would be ok. I only saw a couple of non-Indian people and there were rules for non-Hindus as well. Basically there is a central temple that worshipers enter for Lord Shiva and another for his wife.

Surrounding those temples are smaller temples for Lord Shivas family, brother, mother and father. There may have been more. Either way, I probably should not have worn my “I didn’t do it” T-shirt, because clearly I offended one or all of the family. Probably when I tried to enter the temple that is restricted to Hindus only. Here’s the one picture I got, it’s not my best effort. It’s actually a picture of the gate house. Check the link above for more pics.

After that we dropped Hema off and Pradeep J joined us for a trip to a reenactment (like Conner Prairie or Colonial Williamsburg) park. Unfortunately what I thought the name of it was incorrect so I don’t know what it’s called right now. Anyway, this place has buildings and crafts from all the different Indian Provinces and also from different time periods.

Some interesting things about India that I’ve learned (some of this was over the past week but I thought I should write down all that I remember somewhere!

Each state in India has their own language on top of Hindi and English

Historically, Indians would build a house with a veranda (porch) that anyone could use. It was like a public resting place.

Entryways to homes were built low so that a person had to bow in order to enter the home. It was a way to force politeness, in a nice way.

Family is very sacred in India. Leaving home after college is not as frequent as in US.

The people who become spiritual leaders and who operate the temples do not choose their role. They are born into it.

Local municipalities treat their citizens better than those from outside the state. In fact, if I understand it correctly, you are always a member of a particular state and just because you move does not mean you change your state “nationality”. An example would be, you don’t become a Hoosier unless you were born in Indiana.

While there, I bought a few more souvenirs for me and others. Here are a couple of pictures of some buildings and statues I saw at the reenactment place.

Then Shiva’s revenge hit me. It was hot that day, and you can sort of see the red from sunburn starting. In Chennai it was 90+ degrees and humid. I’d been sweating profusely all day, but really bad in this place. And I had some very uncomfortable moments, I can tell the curious more later, but suffice to say, we decided to call it quits for the day.

Once I got back to the hotel and had a shower and a nap, I felt much better. I decided to have dinner and then go to the reception on the roof. Dinner was horrible…I should have known better. I saw they had a rib eye steak so I took a chance. It was pretty terrible, I only ate about half, if that. The chef came out to ask me questions about what specifically I didn’t like. He was very nice, and said he wanted to learn how to make the preparation better. Basically, I found out he grilled it a little and then put it in the oven to bake, in all the grease. I told him I’d prefer it grilled all the way and not to sit in the grease. I’m going to try the Indian restaurant soon and see if it is on par with the West End in Bangalore.

I then went to the roof reception and met with the head of housekeeping and we talked about her travels. She told me how bad conditions were in Russia and that she could not wait to get back home when she was there. Then the general manager stopped by and I had a nice chat with him. Finally, I struck up a conversation with another guest. He was from the UK originally, but is living in Hong Kong permanently. He works for an engineering company and they are here to help with the train project. All over India more and more light rail is being built for commuting due to the traffic issues. He’s got a big job!

I finished the night early trying to get logged on to work. For some reason the WiFi at this hotel is not talking nice with the AT&T and IBM VPNs. I’m not looking forward to getting my work done on Monday without better WiFi.

Anyway, I fell asleep early…