Kodai life

Kodai was small, quiet, and remote in the 1960s.     The main intersection outside my boarding school looked like this.     Note the absence of traffic.

The same intersection looks very different now.   In the 60s a few vehicles each day labored up  from the surrounding plains.    Now wheeled traffic is almost nonstop, much of it bearing day-tripping tourists from Coimbatore, Madurai, and other nearby cities.

Kodai now has countless hotels and restaurants.     Here's my favorite spot for breakfast; the wandering cow seems to agree.

 
The Astoria serves excellent morning idli and vadai.    My favorite Astoria breakfast is poori --- hot, puffy tortilla-like bread with potato curry.    These cheerful Tamilian gents seemed to be enjoying the food.

Food familiar to American visitors is available, too.    The Tamil characters say  doh-mee-nose.  The pizza can be delivered by motor scooter.

Long ago my Western-focused Kodai boarding school was populated largely by North Americans and Europeans.   The place is still (or even more) Western-oriented now, but the population is much more diverse:

Kodai has always offered many diversions.   I spent a lot of time on this golf course as a kid.

One can now finish a links outing with refreshment --- and a warning (it's mandatory in Tamilnadu bars, we were told).

The once-quiet Kodai lake is now ringed with shops and stalls:

Boating is a popular pastime.  The classic varnished lapstrake rowboats of yore have given way to more unusual craft. 

"Eve teasing" --- sexual harassment --- is right out, as signs in English, Tamil, and Malayalam announce.    Don't drink the water, either.

Kodai flora and fauna

The Kodai area, lying at 7000 feet elevation in the Palni Hills,  has flora and fauna quite different from those of the surrounding South Indian plains.     What's found now in Kodai reflects both the mountain climate and human-caused effects, and things have changed markedly over the many years I've been visiting.

On the animal front, the place is now overrun with rhesus monkeys, especially in places that attract tourists and their snacks.    This one was about five feet off a heavily-traveled footpath.

The monkey population seems in little danger as long as snack food remnants remain.

Gaur, aka Indian Bison, are muscular, serious customers, weighing up to 2000 pounds and generally undeterred by fences.    This one must have been working out regularly if his back-muscle definition is any indication.   The photo's blurriness derives from the photographer's survival instinct.

In my youth gaur were never seen anywhere near Kodai town, and only rarely in the wild.   Now protected from hunting and lacking predators, they roam freely around the edges of town, and occasionally perforate an inhabitant.   This one was grazing in a pear orchard very near a friend's house.

On the flora front,  lantana has always been common in these hills.   The plant is sometimes considered a noxious weed, but I like its peppery green smell and cheerful colors.   It seems to thrive only above 5000 feet.

Kodai is too cold for some crops, but many grow in the vicinity, at lower elevations.     Here is shade-grown coffee at around 5000 feet:

This bizarre item is jackfruit ; the name supposedly derives from Malayalam, the language spoken next door in Kerala.   The fruits can weigh 50 pounds or more, and grow right off the trunk.    The outside has a rough, stippled texture;  the edible part inside is stringy and yellow.

The Kodai biome was long ago mainly grassland with densely wooded sholas  along the steep valley streambeds.       Shola trees are mainly deciduous, like those below.   Note the flowering rhododendron and the very steep terrain behind.     Thanks to its inaccessibility to humans this area still supports  wildlife.   We heard unusual langur monkeys calling below.

Eucalyptus was (perhaps unwisely) introduced to the area many years ago, and has spread promiscuously.    It's attractive, but has bad environmental effects, like absorbing excessive groundwater and drying out the sholas.

Camellias are native to Asia, but I'm guessing this one derives mainly from the British colonial period.

Kodai: Princess of hill stations

The town of Kodaikanal (known universally as Kodai) lies near 7000 feet elevation in the Palni Hills of western Tamilnadu.     Here's a view from near the top, looking southwest along some of the steepest terrain.

Kodai is an Indian "hill station"in the best historical sense.     Hill stations --- Darjeeling, Simla,  Mussoorie,  and Ootacamund ("Ooty") are other famous examples ---  were in earlier days mainly a refuge for British colonials from the heat, dust, and sometimes disease of the surrounding "plains".

Ooty, not very far away in the Nilgiri hills, has often been called the Queen of the hill stations ---  and was once considered to be renamed "Victoria".   Two long articles about Ooty and its history appeared in the New Yorker in 1967.    There one learns, for instance, that both Thomas Babington Macaulay and Edward Lear took Ooty vacations in the 1800s; both of them noticed (and overstated) the resemblance to England.  

If Ooty is Queen, then the younger Kodai certainly ranks at least as Princess.

Traces of colonial days can still be found around Kodai, including in the names of houses and properties:   Loch End, Lochnagar, Red Lynch, Clancullen, the old English Club (now called the Kodaikanal Club), St. Peter's Church (with a pukka eagle-shaped lectern),  and the old English cemetery, where lie the likes of Dudley Linnell Sedgwick, of Cashio, Ireland, killed in 1857 while hunting bison.

Here's another Kodai church, in which I spent many childhood Sundays.  It could be in Scotland.

Bryant Park, near the lake, is a beautifully-kept bit of Victoriana.   Note the (frequent) mountain mist.

Here's another view from Kodai, looking toward Mt Perumal through the mist coming up from the plains.

One of the main Palni Hills streams drains to the town of Palni, about 5000 feet down Elephant Valley, shown here.     The eponymous beasts can indeed be seen in the vicinity, perhaps attracted by fruit and coffee plantations in the area.

The terrain gets even steeper a few miles out of Kodai.   Behind my daughter and a family friend are Pillar Rocks, now a famous and crowded tourist spot but formerly a lonely (and dangerous) hiking destination.

Up the mountain

Travel from the temple city of Madurai to the mountain town of Kodaikanal, about 120 km, is easiest, and not very expensive, by hired car.     The trip takes at least 3 hours, thanks to often heavy traffic and the winding mountain ghat road.   Our driver, the excellent Mr. Rahumath, met my daughter and me at our Madurai hotel.    

Enroute one passes through several significant country towns, including Vathillagundu,  formerly transliterated as Batlagundu.     In the 60s the place seemed just a dusty hamlet;  now it's a bustling regional center, with regular and serious traffic jams.    "No bypass," our driver lamented, and indeed several main roads and the bus station all converge right in the middle of town. 

Vathillagundu school kids, like their peers throughout South India,  wear uniforms.   Girls are always smartly turned out, flowers in hair and  cell phones at (or in) hand.   These girls'  salwar kameez outfits were seldom seen down South in earlier days, but they're everywhere now, North Indian origin notwithstanding.

just before heading up the mountains we like to pause for refreshment  at a pleasant eatery, named (a bit non-standardly) for a famous Biblical venue.     Note the spelling upgrade (and decor downgrade) sometime between 2008 and 2012.     The Tamil characters, by the way, simply transliterate the English name.

Eaden Garden, 2008

Eden Garden, 2012

 Across from the Eden Garden, foothills of the Palni range, which rises above 7500 feets, are visible across a "tank".

Rhesus monkeys are common in South India.  Near Chennai we saw one clamber onto a restaurant balcony  and dislodge a flower pot.    Monkeys hang around the ghat road with its readily gullible travelers and easy tourist-food pickings.    Two other monkey species (the Nilgiri langur and the lion-tailed macaque) also occur (but rarely) in the general area.

 The ghat road twists and turns and switchbacks, rising about 7000 feet over 30 road miles to Kodaikanal.      Here's an almost century-old view.  

The present road is paved, but little if any wider, and now bears much, much more traffic.

The cooling air, greening vegetation, and scent of eucalyptus are all delightful, and seriously memory-evoking to one who grew up in these blessed environs.  

A famous (but now trash-degraded) tourist spot, Silver Cascade, has been on Kodaikanal tourist postcards for at least 100 years.     Here's an old view:

With the present drought, water flow is much attenuated.

Here is our destination.    My former boarding schools still exist, very near the iconic Kodai lake --- then mainly picturesque but now an important source of the town's water.

"Eagle" temple

Near Mahabalipuram is the town of Thirukkalikundram, the site of a locally famous "Eagle" temple.    Quotes are needed because the eponymous birds are actually Egyptian vultures  .    By reputation, the "eagles" accept food from the priests daily around noon.


My daughter and I visited the place in March 2012.


The temple, dedicated to Siva, perches atop a substantial hill.   It's accessible by a staircase asserted to have 1100 steps.   Shoes and chappals are forbidden, so the smooth stone stairs are welcome.     But one stays  in the shade whenever possible, because the dark stone heats up very markedly in the midday sun.  

Few of the Temple's visitors are foreign tourists.      These Tamilian ladies face a long, hot, steep climb.

Here's the view from on top.   Note the tall conical towers (gopurams) of yet another important temple below.

Our pleasant and chatty driver, himself a Siva devotee, turned out to know the place and the local priests well;  he took this snap.    The hilltop temple's interior is supposedly restricted to Hindus, but Mr. Yerumalai led us right in and introduced us to the top priests.    One of them mentioned a brother working with computers in Sunnyvale, California.   (This is not really remarkable; countless South Indians work in the IT industry, at home and abroad.)

All three of us emerged from the temple properly garlanded and forehead-marked, and bearing ceremonial flowers.    Mr. Yerumalai, our driver and guide, is at left. 

Chennai and Mahabalipuram

Chennai, on India's southwest coast, is India's deep southern metropolis.    Chennai was known in British colonial times as Madras, and the surrounding state, now Tamilnadu, was formerly Madras State.     Chennai offers plenty to do and see;  I remember many interesting times there from my youth.  But a jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, just-arrived foreigner first notices Chennai's busy-ness, heat, noise, wandering animals, and frantic traffic.

Having just flown from Minneapolis to Chennai, via Paris and Bangalore, in March 2012, my daughter and I did the prudent thing:   We headed directly from the airport to the peaceful, quiet, clean Ideal Beach Resort, about an hour's drive down the Bay of Bengal coast.

The traffic was intense all the way, but it didn't stop this little girl from conking out on the gas tank of Dad's motorcycle.    Not visible is Mom, riding side-saddle behind, and another sibling sandwiched between the parents.

Animals often share the road with vehicles.   This cow is on the main highway from Chennai to Pondicherrry, an important city further down the coast.    Note the so-called auto-rickshaw on the other side.   These contraptions often carry 5 or 6 passengers.

At last we arrived at the Ideal Beach Resort, a very comfortable (and relatively pricey) place about 4 km north of Mahabalipuram, about which more below.    The IBR is popular with European tourists but seems to attract few Americans.    Indeed there are few American  in these America-remote parts.  But for those who get here, the IBR is perfect for sleeping off time changes and easing into South Indian culinary delights.   Here is a morning view (we're on the east coast, remember) over the Bay of Bengal.

Mahabalipuram is a wonderful temple city just down the coast --- indeed, walkable along the beach from the IBR.    The temples and carvings date from the Pallava dynasty, around  700 CE.   The shore temple along the beach is, according to our guide, just one of five similar complexes, the other four having been washed out to sea over the centuries.   What remains is now protected by a (modern) sea wall.

Here are two views of the seaside temple complex, now somewhat eroded by wind, water, and sand.   Inscriptions in some presumably pre-Tamil characters are faintly visible here and there.    According to our guide these inscriptions run right to left, unlike Tamil, but I'm dubious.   The structures are mainly of sandstone, but some details are in a harder, darker black granite, which retains more sculptural detail after 1300 years.

Elsewhere in Mahabalipuram town are several other sculptural sites, contemporary with the shore temple but a little inland and hence much less weathered.     One of the most spectacular is the Five Rathas.   All five house-like structures and several animal figures were supposedly carved, not built up, from one immense rock outcropping.  

The  Five Rathas site points to a story in the Mahabharatha.   The famously beautiful and floral-smelling Draupadi married five noble brothers, the Pandavas, who collectively (individually would be asking too much) embodied five important husbandly virtues.  

Here is Draupadi among her husbands.  

At yet another site in Mahabalipuram are very detailed bas-relief carvings, in solid rock, of episodes from the Hindu scriptures.   The scene below involves Krishna, cows, and a great many female cowherds.

The carvings are intricate and charming, with elephants, monkeys, rabbits, snakes, and mythical creatures.

The emaciated chap with arms aloft is one of the five Pandava brothers, undergoing a 12-year ascetic period at the instruction of Siva, shown to his right.    In the possibly satirical picture below the Pandava ascetic is replaced by a rabbit, and Siva by a buxom snake-woman hybrid.

Nearby is an immense balanced rock, supposedly ancient and known locally as Krishna's Butterball.   But for my daughter's Sisyphean effort it might roll down the hill.