10

On the Coast of Coromandel

20 December. Tiruchendur.

Not being blessed with either a good ear or a good memory, I am sorely tried by many South Indian names. But one must look on the bright side. Things could be worse. For instance, until the sixteenth-century Tiruchendur was known as Tirubhuvanamadhevi Chandurvedhimangalam.

The landscape en route from Tisaiyanvilai was flat and harsh; gaunt palmyras stood erect in their thousands everywhere and the dusty grey plain was varied only by acres of thorny scrub, hedges of prickly cactus and occasional fields of plantains at all stages of development. (I am told the banana plant is not a tree but a vegetable which in six months grows from scratch to its full height of eighteen or twenty feet.)

We first saw Tiruchendur’s nine-storey temple from many miles away, over the plain, and by ten-thirty we had booked into the hostel (Rs.2 for a single room) and been told that non-Hindus are permitted to enter the temple only between 3.0 and 8.0 p.m. ‘Fair enough’, I thought; I have always deprecated hoards of camera-clicking tourists swarming through churches during services. Then, after paying our respects to the two sacred temple elephants – an adult and an adolescent – who are elaborately stabled in the precincts, we went to swim off the long, smooth, curving beach.

At one-thirty we made our way to the centre of the town through a mile-long arcaded bazaar that begins in the temple courtyard and is lined with ancient statues of the gods, their stone features blunted by the affectionate caresses of generations of devotees. Tea-shops are interspersed with stalls displaying a scatter of cheap trinkets or a few bunches of plantains and a small tray of fly-blown tidbits, and religious oleographs, framed and unframed, lie on the ground beside shop-soiled bales of cotton ‘going cheap’. According to the temple trustees Tiruchendur means ‘a sacred and prosperous town of Victory’ but nowadays one gets no impression of material prosperity. However, the atmosphere is friendly and the citizens seem in no way predatory, possibly because 99 per cent of Tiruchendur’s visitors are very poor.

It was difficult to get tea as milk is scarce and Indians refuse to credit the possibility of milkless tea. Eventually we found a cavernous eating-house beneath the arcade where a milk delivery was expected within moments, so we sat down to wait. (This lust for tea was caused by my having forgotten to bring our water-pills from Tisaiyanvilai.) The eating-house seemed without any stock of food and, as he waited for something to occupy him, the slim, barefooted serving-boy went to stand before a wall-niche containing a statue of Ganesh and prayed fervently.

‘Indians pray a lot,’ observed Rachel. ‘Why do they pray more than we do?’ To which I replied, rather ambiguously, ‘They are at a different stage of development.’

Happily a water-carrier rescued me by stopping his cart beside us at this moment, to deliver the day’s supply from the well, and Rachel immediately wanted to know why there was gold paint on the horns of the enormous pure white humped bullock. I explained (if it can be called an explanation) that pure white bullocks are very sacred and therefore merit gold paint, rather than the red or blue or yellow seen on the horns of lesser cattle. Then the milkman arrived, carrying on his head a little brass churn containing a gallon of no doubt heavily watered milk. As this was being boiled in a large copper cauldron over a wood fire we watched the bullock being unharnessed, tied to a pillar of the arcade, stroked reverently on the neck and given a bundle of paddy-straw. Next the water-carrier – a seemingly frail old man – emptied the gigantic wooden barrel on his cart by repeatedly filling a brass jar and carrying it on his head to a row of rusty tar barrels in a corner of the eating-house. And so life goes on, much as it did 2,000 or 3,000 years ago.

At present a most regrettable concrete extension is being added to Tiruchendur’s temple but, though materials have changed for the worse since the temple was first built, methods of construction have remained virtually unchanged. On our way back to the beach we saw nine small sweating men, 150 feet above our heads, hauling up a huge concrete roof slab which had been roped by four men on the ground. Three giant bamboo poles leaning against the wall provided support for the slab on its way up and, as a product of the Crane Culture, Rachel was fascinated by this display of muscular Hinduism. Indian physiques are often misleading, especially in the South, where apparent fragility can conceal the strength of an ox. Yet the effects of a vegetarian diet show in the lack of stamina, which is said to be one reason why so few South Indian hockey players are picked for the national team, despite their renowned speed and skill. (Another reason, according to our hockey-playing friend in Tirunelveli, is the deep-rooted anti-South prejudice of North Indians.)

The temple trustees’ leaflet, mentioned above, is a good example of the Hindus’ attitude – or perhaps one should say ‘non-attitude’ – to history. It is intended to be factual and informative and in Europe a comparable bit of bumph would concentrate on giving precise dates. But in India we are cheerfully told, ‘The date of the temple is hidden in the Puranic past. The nucleus of the structure however has been here for more than 2,000 years as the Tamil classics refer to.’ And again, ‘The Gopura is said to have been constructed about 100 years ago by Desikamurthi Swami, an Odukkath-Thambiran of the then Maha-Sannithanam of Tiruvavadutharai mutt.’ And also, ‘Kavirayar belonged to the Mukkhani comunity [sic] and lived perhaps in the eighteenth century.’

A people’s concept of time lies at the root of their whole philosophy and much incomprehension of India is probably related to the antithetical notions of time held by Hindus and Westerners. We see time as a conveyor-belt, eternally carrying the present moment out of sight for ever. But the Indian sees it as a wheel, eternally revolving, and can believe he will at some stage, in some reincarnation, return to the present moment. For him time is divided into ages (yugas) which perpetually recur in cycles. So nothing is new and nothing is old and even Hindus of high intelligence, with trained minds, find it possible to believe that 2,000 years ago their ancestors invented aeroplanes which in due course – as that yuga declined – ceased to be used.

Since Herodotus, creative minds in the west have been taking an interest in history. But naturally no such interest arose in India, where the most respected human being is the jivanmukta – the man who, having freed himself from Time, can perceive the nature of ultimate Reality. Hinduism positively encourages a man to forget his historical situation rather than to look to it, as we do, for guidance in the present, a deeper understanding of human society and some increase in self-knowledge. And of course this attitude is closely linked with what outsiders see as Indian passivity and fatalism. If ages recur, instead of passing, one obviously only has to wait long enough and the Golden Age will come again; an improvement in social conditions has nothing to do with the efforts of individuals or generations to better the age in which they happen to find themselves.

On the beach this morning I talked to a very articulate young man – a Tamil farmer’s son now studying medicine at Madras University – who told me his father has for some years been using the new rice seed, of Green Revolution fame, but has just decided to give it up because it needs too much expensive fertiliser. This snag had been interpreted by both father and son as a sign that, despite the starving millions, India’s rice crop should not be increased at present. To try to swim against the cosmic current of this yuga – to try to outwit Destiny – was avidya (ignorance), which might be described as the only form of sin recognised by Hindu ethics. This conversation did nothing to change my long-held opinion that F.A.O. are well and truly up against it in India – especially South India.

On our way up to the temple at three-thirty we were joined by a brisk, elderly little man, covered in puja after-effects of ash and coloured powder, who insisted on talking to us volubly in Tamil – which did no one any good that I could see. Tamil is the oldest surviving Dravidian language and has, I am told, a wonderful literature. It is, however, prodigiously difficult. Usually even I can master ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’, or words to that effect, but by Tamil I am totally defeated.

At the temple entrance a notice said ‘Admission Rs.1 only’ and here our companion held out his hand and indicated that he would get our ticket. At the time I believed he was being disinterestedly helpful and we followed him to the gateway to the Inner Sanctum, where two rough-spoken temple guards in khaki uniforms abusively objected to my entering. They thought I was a man (I was wearing grey slacks and a shapeless grey bush-shirt), and men are allowed in only if stripped to the waist. Our guide quickly signed that they must be given a rupee each, at which point I would have begun to argue had not Rachel’s tight grip on my hand told me she was terrified of the guards’ aggressiveness. So to spare her I paid up.

Then began a whirlwind tour around many brilliantly lamp-lit shrines through scores of worshippers. It is no exaggeration to say that I have never in my life felt so embarrassed; and I have rarely felt so angry. I had wanted simply to pay my rupee and quietly go wherever mlecchas are allowed, leisurely observing all I could. Instead, I was rushed around the entire temple, to the understandable fury of orthodox worshippers, and given no time to observe anything. And when we emerged – both striped on our faces and arms with all sorts of ash and powder – I was less Rs.12 and in that sort of choking bad temper caused by the realisation that one has been taken for a ride.

This was the best-organised exercise in co-operative conmanship I have ever encountered. As our guide took us to various forbidden places the guards or priests (or both) simulated anger and outrage, and the guide then quickly indicated that only by donating another rupee could I appease their alarming (to Rachel) wrath and make amends for having intruded. My puzzled readers may wonder why I did not simply turn around and walk out, but this temple is so vast and complex that we were soon lost and I had no wish to start a riot by inadvertently stumbling into some Holy of Holies. (Remember how the Mutiny was sparked off!) What most upset me was that so many genuinely devout people were distressed by our involuntary gate-crashing and must have been scandalised to see mlecchas going through the sacred rituals as – apparently – a tourist stunt. And the intrinsic beauty of those rituals heightened my frustration. If only we had been able to move around slowly, and as unobtrusively as possible, this could have been a wonderful experience.

Outside the temple our guide confidently demanded another Rs.10, as his personal fee. When given a few unprintable home truths instead he became speechless with rage and stood wordlessly opening and shutting his mouth, making funny wheezy noises like a toy steam engine. Then he followed us, at a little distance, up the beach; so I asked Rachel to sit guard over my clothes and money while I swam far beyond the surf to work off my ill-temper.

As I swam I thought how right St Francis Xavier had been when he wrote to his colleagues in Rome, after an encounter with the Brahman priests of this very same Tiruchendur temple. ‘There is a class of men out here called Bragmanes. They are the mainstay of heathenism, and have charge of the temples devoted to the idols … They do not know what it is to tell the truth but for ever plot how to lie subtly and deceive their poor ignorant followers … They have little learning, but abundance of iniquity and malice.’

Not that St Francis could afford to be too critical; he himself was hopelessly ignorant on the subject of Hinduism and chose always to remain so. He seems never even to have heard of such basic concepts as karma, yoga, bhakti and maya and his years on the subcontinent were devoted to loving the poor and lambasting idolatry. Yet even in his own century several distinguished Roman Catholic theologians had agreed with John Capreolus that idolatry need not be as silly as it looks because ‘God of His absolute power could assume the nature of a stone or other inanimate object, nor would it be more incongruous to say that God is a stone than to say that He is a man, because He is infinitely above both natures.’ (The Rev. Capreolus might have added, ‘It would be no more incongruous to say that God is a stone than to say that He is a piece of bread.’)

St Francis seems to have been in some ways singularly gullible for an ex-Professor of the Sorbonne. This is his own description of an encounter he had in 1544 with ‘more than two hundred bragmanes’ in the pillared courtyard (unchanged to this day) of Tiruchendur’s temple. ‘I delivered an exhortation on the subject of Heaven and Hell, and told them who go to the one place and who to the other. After the sermon, the bragmanes all rose and embraced me warmly, saying that the God of the Christians was indeed the true God … God gave me arguments suitable to their capacity to prove clearly the immortality of the soul … One must avoid scholastic subtleties in reasoning with such simple folk … Still another of their questions to me was whether God was black or white … As all the people of this land are black and like the colour, they maintain that God too is black. Most of the idols are black. They anoint them constantly with oil and they stink abominably. They are also appallingly ugly. The bragmanes seemed satisfied with my answers to all their questions …’ Poor St Francis! Clearly these ‘simple folk’ had a marvellous time pulling his leg, and no doubt they went to their homes chuckling over the primitive reasoning of this simple wandering preacher … Not one of them, I need hardly say, became a Christian.

As we walked back to the bazaar, in quest of more tea, Rachel noticed that the young temple elephant was having his make-up put on. Blue and gold circles were being painted on his ears and trunk, and white stripes on his forehead, and then (big thrill!) he was caparisoned in red, blue and gold tasselled brocade – his Sunday Best, as it were. Next a thick silken rope with heavy brass bells on both ends was thrown over his back, he was given a small piece of wood to hold in his trunk and off he went towards the main temple entrance. ‘Let’s follow him!’ said Rachel, almost stuttering with excitement – though a quarter of an hour earlier she had been complaining of acute dehydration. So we did.

On the way the proprietors of several little food-stalls came rushing out to present Babar – as I had somewhat irreverently named him – with bananas, buns or pastries. Before accepting these he had to hand (not quite the mot juste, but never mind) the piece of wood to his attendant, which meant a check was kept on what he ate: and I noticed oranges were verboten. When he received coins he carefully handed them to his attendant and then laid his trunk on the donors’ heads to bless them: so he, poor brute, has also been co-opted. I must say he is beautifully trained. On arriving at the main temple entrance, where he was directly opposite the image of Sri Subrahmanya in its central sanctum, he slowly knelt – giving an uncanny impression of reverence – then raised his trunk and solemnly trumpeted three times in greeting to the god. Being a sacred elephant his touch is greatly valued and Laksmi-alone-knows what he earned during the next hour as he stood by the main entrance with his attendant squatting beside him. Many people presented him with food, which he delightedly popped into his mouth, but he had been trained to give his blessing only for cash. I handed him 10 paise, to find out what an elephantine blessing feels like, and it is quite a pleasant sensation to have that sensitive tip of trunk laid gently on one’s head.

The next excitement started just after sunset, as I was trying to prise Rachel away from Babar. On the edge of the beach, near the temple, was a big, ugly concrete shed with padlocked corrugated iron doors – and suddenly these swung open to reveal, astonishingly, a glittering golden chariot. To it was attached a pair of prancing, life-size silver horses and Rachel stood transfixed, obviously half-expecting the fairy tale to unfold and the horses to gallop out of the shed. An Indian crowd gathers incredibly quickly and moments later we were surrounded by most of the townspeople and hundreds of pilgrims. A small boy who spoke excellent English (he attends one of the last outposts of intelligible English in India – a convent school) told us the chariot-shrine was a new acquisition costing 2 lakhs (Rs.200,000), and that it was to be used this evening for the first time to carry the temple’s most precious image of Sri Subrahmanya around the building three times in procession.

This elaborate example of the work of contemporary Madrassi goldsmiths proves that their art, at least, is not dying. In its every delicate detail Subrahmanya’s new chariot is truly a thing of beauty and the countless tiny figures adorning it are not mere replicas of traditional images but have a life and vigour of their own. Unfortunately, however, technology has overtaken it, in the form of electricity. One doesn’t actually see any bulbs, these having been so cleverly arranged that the whole mass of gold looks as though it were radiating its own light, but when the procession started four men had to push a clumsy, reeking generator behind the chariot. (I still have in my nostrils the warring smells of jasmine and generator fumes.)

It was a most memorable experience to watch the Lord Subrahmanya, wreathed in blossoms and enthroned in glory, moving slowly through the blackness of the night. The mile-long path around the temple is rough and in parts quite steep, so several torch-bearers held aloft blazing brands of oil-soaked wood. These gave off an incense-like aroma and both alarmed and thrilled Rachel by occasionally sending showers of sparks cascading into the crowd. Three bands of musicians accompanied the procession – but did not mingle with it, being Harijans – and all around us the fervent, unco-ordinated chanting of various pilgrim groups added to the atmosphere of elated devotion.

I was particularly struck by the number of young pilgrims, most of whom were completely absorbed in their worship. Then, observing the whole scene, I felt a sudden conviction that India’s civilisation will be the last in the world to capitulate to our sort of materialism. And I saw an analogy between the beauty of the golden chariot, locked away in that ugly concrete shed, and the worth of the Hindu tradition, guarded by a corrupt priesthood.

As the only foreigners present, we were not only permitted but encouraged to walk close to the chariot and when I tired of carrying Rachel piggy-back (at ground level she could have seen nothing) there were many volunteers eager to take her over. From the broad shoulders of a Trivandrum engineer she beamed down at me, her face glowing in the golden light, and said ‘Isn’t India fun?’

21 December. Tisaiyanvilai.

Before catching our noon bus we spent a few hours in or near a Parava settlement about a mile down the beach from Tiruchendur’s temple. The Paravas are a Coromandel Coast community of pearl-fishers whose ancestors were baptised en masse between 1535 and 1537, a few years before St Francis came on the scene. For many previous centuries these gentle, primitive people had been bullied and exploited by both Hindus and Muslims, so they were impressed when an Indian Christian from Calicut argued that conversion would strengthen their position by gaining them the protection of the then powerful Portuguese. But as no available missionary could speak Tamil the original ‘converts’ received not even the most elementary instruction in their new faith and, despite St Francis’s subsequent efforts (he was no great linguist himself), their descendants give the impression of being – shall we say – a unique sub-caste of Christianity.

Those whom we met today seemed not unlike their sixteenth-century ancestors, described by the Portuguese as a simple, humble, handsome race; they quickly made friends with Rachel but were rather shy of me. Their homes are cramped, palm-thatched huts built on the beach, well away from the edge of Tiruchendur, and they keep their antique catamarans – each sporting a pair of rough-hewn wooden horns on its prow – parked outside their front doors, as you might say. The evident ill-health of the little community was a surprise, where everybody must at least have enough fish to eat; but I suppose no unbalanced diet is healthy. This settlement is dominated by an incongruously large, once-white seventeenth-century church of obviously Portuguese provenance which has fallen into a serious state of disrepair. We found all the doors open and it seems to be in daily use, yet the interior was completely unfurnished and undecorated, apart from a few chipped, conventional plaster statues. About the whole settlement there was an unmistakable ghetto atmosphere, but I have been warned against generalising from this one example of how the Paravas live. Apparently many of their villages are lively and thriving, and their ‘capital’ – Manapad – is said to be an exceptionally prosperous and progressive little town with a fine, well-kept church.

As we left Tiruchendur my only regret was that I had seen nothing of Shanamukha, deliciously described in our trustees’ leaflet as ‘the Bhaktas Idol, the cynosure of all eyes and the Chief attraction of the commonality.’

The paradox inherent in Indian attitudes to animals is at present greatly exercising Rachel; how can a mainly vegetarian race be so callous about suffering animals? On the bus today she was very worried when she saw several pitifully bony cows whose horns had been tied to their legs, securing their heads in the grazing position so that they could not eat the young plantains. And she fretted too – quite unnecessarily – about the many goats we saw with long sticks attached horizontally to their collars to prevent them from breaking through fences of stakes.

To my mind, however, the treatment of small children and babies on pilgrimage beaches is far more disturbing. Both at Cape Comorin and Tiruchendur I saw many infants being carried into the rough sea, kicking and screaming with terror, and being dipped three times under the water, the parents pausing between dips to roar with laughter at the spectacle of their hysterically frightened offspring. Tonight those scenes are haunting me; there is something very disquieting about parents deriving amusement from the deliberate terrorising of small children. One hears a lot about the security enjoyed by the Indian young, who are breast-fed for years, and picked up whenever they cry (because crying is believed to weaken the whole constitution), and who spend so much time close to their mothers’ bodies. But how real can this security be if one of the most basic functions of the maternal instinct – to protect a child from fear – remains inoperative? And if some mothers actually inflict terror? And, most baffling of all, if they even enjoy inflicting it? This behaviour is perhaps connected with the Indians’ unawareness of themselves or other people as individuals – or it may be a symptom of acute frustration. Many young couples are still living in joint families, where they must unremittingly defer to their elders; and possibly those who resent this restriction find some release for their tension in bullying the only people with whom they can feel themselves to be independent adults, in control of a situation.

Or am I over-reacting? Most Indians, after all, regard me as a monster of heartless cruelty because Rachel is normally left alone in a bedroom from 6.30 p.m. until 8.30 a.m., without my even once opening the door to make sure she is still alive. In this household, the 3-year-old – who shrieks with terror every time she sees us – spends much of her day on mamma’s hip and the rest of it on grandmamma’s lap and all her night in mamma’s arms. She is a tiny, dainty little thing, no bigger than Rachel was at two and always immaculately dressed.

When one considers how most Indian children are reared, it is not really surprising that in their company Rachel should sometimes speak and act as though brought up under the personal tuition of Lord Curzon. An alarming number of Indians have an unfortunate way of provoking the mildest Europeans to behave autocratically, and for this the blurred outlines of the average Indian personality are very likely to blame.

22 December. Tisaiyanvilai.

This morning we went into Tirunelveli to mail-hunt unsuccessfully – but the postmaster is confident our letters will have come through by the 24th – and to do a little Christmas shopping, since Tisaiyanvilai’s bazaar offers no toys or gift articles of any kind. Tirunelveli, being the market centre for a wide area, was jammed with people, and across the main shopping streets hung banners wishing everybody a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Christmas is celebrated throughout this district much as Whitsun is throughout Britain, where little thought is given over that week-end to the Third Person of the Trinity.

Rachel is beoming increasingly critical of certain aspects of Indian life and today her comments on the treatment of Hindu women got us involved in the whole doctrine of re-birth. I explained that women are considered inferior because they would not have been born as women but for sins committed in a previous life, which means they deserve no better treatment than they get. Rachel didn’t think much of this theory but conceded grudgingly, ‘I suppose it might be true.’ Then, after a few moments’ silence (an extremely rare occurrence in our joint lives), she exclaimed, ‘Won’t it be interesting to be dead! Then we’ll know everything. Would you like to be dead?’

‘Not particularly,’ I said. ‘I’m quite happy with my mortal coil. And there’s always the possibility that far from knowing everything, we’ll know nothing!’ Which of course led me into still deeper waters, but these need not concern us here.

Another of Rachel’s current grievances – particularly since a gob of phlegm landed on her bare shoulder the other morning – is the Indian habit of spitting in the street. This is the sort of thing I took for granted on previous visits to India but, as I have already mentioned, my daughter is much more fastidious than her Ma. And now I come to think of it, it is a bit uncivilised at least not to look before you spit, if spit you must.

I used to assume vaguely that Indian spitting was simply a consequence of Hindus being inexplicably chesty and peculiarly devoid of any spark of Civic Spirit. Recently, however, I have discovered that the habit is closely linked with their pollution laws, which are complex beyond anything a simple Western mind could imagine. To us many of them seem outlandish, though others contain obvious elements of common sense. For one thing, all bodily discharges are regarded with extreme horror and fear; and saliva, phlegm and mucus, which are believed to be ‘spoiled semen’ (even today semen is popularly supposed to be stored in the head), are thought of as having an especially powerful polluting effect. Therefore the body must be cleared of these ghastly menaces at the first possible moment, and it doesn’t matter a damn where the discharge lands or who else is polluted in the process.

23 December. Tisaiyanvilai.

After breakfast we set off to walk the five miles to Ittamozhi. Having spent a week in this little corner of the extremity of India – one of the world’s oldest inhabited areas – I now feel quite fond of it. At least during this season, it has a certain muted charm. Mid-December to mid-January is the one enjoyable month, weather-wise; by March nobody ever feels comfortable and by May even the locals regard it as hell on earth. But that was hard to imagine this morning, as we walked under a gay blue sky, strewn with a few high, white clouds, and relished a pleasantly hot sun tempered by a boisterous wind off the sea. After the recent rain the wayside was studded with tiny, brilliant wild flowers and butterflies zig-zagged excitedly from blossom to blossom and the bird-life was so dazzling one almost doubted one’s eyes. ‘If there were monkeys here it would be perfect,’ said Rachel. ‘Why are there no monkeys?’

We followed a little road built under the personal supervision of Ernest’s remarkable Rajput mother during the heyday of his family but which has fallen into such disrepair that few motor vehicles now use it. It must be fascinating here when the toddy-tappers are at work, shinning up and down all those palmyras every few hours to extract the sap for making jaggery. Much ploughing of the rain-softened paddy-fields is now going on and several men, wearing only ragged lunghis and untidy turbans, were driving yokes of small, emaciated oxen along the road while carrying wooden ploughs on their heads: a measure both of the primitiveness of the ploughs and the strength of their neck-muscles. Turning to look back at one such man – young, neatly built, almost black-skinned – we found that he, too, had stopped to stare, and was standing using a hand to balance his plough while gazing at us not with curiosity, amusement or suspicion, but with an expression of the purest astonishment. For a moment we stood thus, on that wide, bright, silent landscape – Europeans of the twentieth century confronting an Indian of no century, a man whose life is contained in a mould that would be perfectly familiar to his pre-Aryan forbears. And then, wordlessly, we turned away from each other and moved in opposite directions.

Beyond a doubt one has to walk or cycle really to appreciate the flavour of a place. Bus journeys are all very well in their way, but they are not true travelling.

Between Tisaiyanvilai and Ittamozhi we counted five little churches or chapels of various Christian denominations and, this being Sunday, all of them were open. In an impoverished toddy-tappers’ village most of the children were suffering from malnutrition and/or worms, and many had that rough, dead, brownish-red hair which amongst people naturally black-haired means severe vitamin-deficiency. But even here one of India’s heroic malaria-eradication teams had sprayed and meticulously marked each wretched dwelling.

As we were approaching Ittamozhi we heard weird, rapid chanting and rhythmic handclapping coming from a well-built, palm-thatched house a little way off the road. There was no other building in sight and the chanting and clapping, accompanied by frenzied drum-beating and cymbal-clashing, created an hypnotic effect that seemed tribal African rather than Indian. Rachel and I were equally intrigued and decided to enter the compound through a little wooden gate in its high hedge of prickly pear. Then we sat on a rough-hewn chair placed, unexpectedly, just inside the gate, and went on listening in fascinated bewilderment until a young woman in a white ankle-length gown with long sleeves – which look very odd here – came hurrying down the road. She was carrying an armful of Christian prayer-books and I was irresistibly reminded of the White Rabbit as she hastened past us, her pace not slowing for an instant and her eyes fixed on the hut. However, her gestured invitation was quite clear and although her expression had told me that she suffered from some severe emotional disorder we followed her into the building – and none of the rapt congregation appeared to notice our alien presence.

The chapel measured some twenty-five feet by fifteen and neat strips of coconut matting were laid on the polished mud floor. A few biblical texts in Tamil hung on the walls and the only furniture was the preacher’s desk, behind which stood a tall, heavily built Tamil of about forty, wearing the sort of simple vestment favoured by Low Church clergymen in all countries. When we entered he was leading the hymn-singing (if you can call it that) in a not too abnormal manner, but I soon realised that the congregation’s odd lack of interest in our arrival had a slightly sinister explanation: all those present were in a trance of some sort, having been completely mesmerised by their clergyman.

It was not difficult to count heads. On the males’ side were four men – one a hideously deformed idiot – and two youths: on the females’ side were twenty-three women – the majority young, and all dressed in white – plus five school-girls and an assortment of sleeping (incredibly) infants. One of the men was beating the drum, one of the women was clashing the cymbals and everybody else was loudly clapping hands and singing while rocking to and fro on their heels. At first glance one might think the whole scene rather touching: simple folk expressing their devotion as best they knew how, and so on … But it soon became apparent that we were in on something very peculiar indeed.

At a given signal the tempo of the music, chanting, clapping and swaying quickened dramatically. Then, as it reached crescendo point, the preacher suddenly threw back his head, roared like a wounded tiger, thrust his clenched fists into the air and stood shaking them at the ceiling, and sweating and panting and heaving, and screaming in a voice that had become curiously shrill while his congregation went berserk.

Poor Rachel was so terrified by this Scene from Clerical Life (Tamil translation) that I had to take her in my arms. By now the women – shrieking like witches at a Sabbath – were gyrating cross-legged around the slippery floor, working themselves into a frenzy in which sexual excitement was unmistakably interwoven with religious hysteria. Meanwhile the ‘clergyman’ (by now I felt he had qualified for inverted commas) continued to scream, tremble, sweat and shake his clenched fists, never once taking his eyes off the ceiling. Several women now began to foam at the mouth and a few soon slumped into unconsciousness, overcome by the intensity of their emotion. I have twice witnessed Tibetan shamans going into trance, but that was merely uncanny. This morning’s session had a nauseating aura and when two women leapt to their feet and began to loosen their robes I decided it was time to go, before Rachel witnessed something not suitable for 5-year-olds.

When I asked Ernest to explain our experience he said we had attended the last half-hour of the regular two-hour Sunday morning service at the local chapel of the Pentecostal Church of Ceylon. I inquired if ‘service’ could be assumed to have a double meaning in this context, but he would not commit himself. It seems this sect is quite popular, chiefly amongst young women whose husbands belong to other Christian sects in the remoter regions of South India. The Pentecostals wear only white, eschew jewellery of every sort and condemn all fun and games except those involved in their weekly receiving of direct messages from the Holy Ghost, on the hot line described above. No doubt there is a link between the predominantly female attendance and the repression of Indian women. Whatever else may be said about this morning’s service, it certainly took the lid off everybody’s repressions.

Incidentally, Ernest has been enlightening me about the sexual morals of the local Harijans, Sudras and toddy-tapping Christians. Apparently pre-puberty intercourse is freely indulged in by both boys and girls, and tacitly condoned by their elders. But this means the girls have to be virtually imprisoned between the times of their reaching puberty and being married, since the majority do not revert with ease to chastity. The marriage age is often illegally low in this remote region, yet unmarried mothers do exist. However, contrary to the custom in higher castes they are treated leniently and ‘a little error’ – even of indeterminate paternity – is not considered a serious obstacle to matrimony.

This morning Rachel produced the Saying of the Week, if not of the Year. Having listened attentively but unprofitably to a breakfast-time discussion on the Bhakti movement in South India, she suddenly announced, during a lull in the conversation, ‘I think I’m too young to understand Hinduism. Will you explain it again when I’m eight?’