AIRCRAFT SEATS FOR MEDITATION

MAMALLAPURAM

A German couple arrive at the Sunrise Guest House from an Ashram on the Holy Mountain. Merely breathing the same air as the Maharishi was an uplifting and joyous experience. No need for talk. Nor for teaching. The Maharishi's presence was sufficient. Mostly they meditated, surely a suitable holiday for a designer of state-of-the-art aircraft seats. He presumes that I must know which Holy Mountain and which Maharishi. Disabusing him would be impolite. He is a vegetarian. They run a vegetarian household. She eats steak when they eat out and teaches handicapped children. I suspect that she hopes for more than meditation in the future.

INACTIVE OPTIMIST

MAMALLAPURAM CONVERSATION:
I chat with a young Indian couple, university sudents, in the Internet cafe during one of many power cuts. They share a hotel room – they must be liberals. Or is this common amongst the young educated in India? Asking would be impolite.
She doesn't talk much. Embarrassed?
He is vocal. His father is a senior military officer. The student believes India has a great future. Central Government is building new power stations in every State. Power cuts will be history.
And Indian salaries are the fastest rising world-wide. The brain drain to the US will stop.
Corruption is the greatest problem. Corruption amongst politicians is endemic. We must change everything. He doesn't know how. Neither he nor any of his friends vote. They aren't interested in politics. However change will come from the people. The people vote.

ROYAL ENFIELDS, ROMANTIC OR WORK HORSE?

ROYAL ENFIELD FACTORY, CHENAI:







































A day with Royal Enfield and priority for any long-distance traveler is comfort and I've bounce-tested each model: 350 and 500, military, Classic, the new low rider, single seat and dual. My favourite? The big broad single saddle mounted on coil springs. .
My final conclusion: Enfields look and sound as a bike should. This, of course, is the opinion of a biker born before the war. I hear my four sons chant in unison, “Which war, Dad? The Boer War?” Not kind, but I'm accustomed to it.
I rode a BSA Bantam in the early fifties. Cops were called Bobbies and patrolled on silent water-cooled Velocettes. Vincents were power with speed. Sunbeams were deluxe touring. AJS, Norton, Triumph - all deceased and gone to Heaven. Royal Enfield in Reditch was a casualty. What miracle saved Royal Enfield here in Chenai?
“Why buy an Enfield?” is a reasonable question to ask Royal Enfield's marketing manager, Sachin.
Sachin's reply is as off-beat as hand spraying gas tanks. “There's no logical reason,” he says. “Enfields are heavy. They're slow. They are not fuel efficient.”
“India's Hog,” I suggest.
“Not so,” counters Sachin. “It doesn't matter where, Harleys always dominate. The Bullet becomes part of where ever it is.” Originally British as fish and chips, the Bullett is now quintessentially Indian. T India's most lethal beer is named after it, BULLETT SUPER STRONG, and in Rajastahn you'll find a temple dedicated to a Bullett. Remove it from the temple and it will be back by sunrise – so they say
“So it is romantic,” I insist. “The Morgan of the bike world.”
Again Sachin disagrees. Morgans are in a high price bracket, status symbols. Bullets are workhorses. A horse rider feels the muscles bunch and flow and listens to the rythm of the horse's breathing. The rider of the Bullet feels the beat of the engine and the slow glorious thump of the exhaust.
And that is the Bullet's magic.
Sachin, of course, will disagree. Magic has no place in his vocabulary – strange, as he is so obviously a romantic.

JAPANESE FILM CREW

Determination to bring the writing up to date keeps me yoyoing for five days between a table on the roof-top restaurant at the Sunrise Guest House and an Internet cafe. The grass park below stretches some three hundred meters to the sea. I believe we camped in the palm trees to the left. We sat one morning on a stone ledge at the back of a temple cave and contemplated the God. Which God? I don't recall. Nor do I search. Memories are sufficient. A truck braked outside the cave. Four Japanese entered and set up lights and lighting screens and three canvas chairs one of which had DIRECTOR written in large square letters on the back. The Director arrived in a white Morris Ambassador (India's luxury car of the day). The Japanese filmed the God and left without once acknowledging our existence. Now stone walls protect caves and temples against future tsunamis. Buy a ticket to enter.

BED ROLES OBLIGATORY

Foreign tourists were a rarity in India forty years ago. Hotels existed only in major cities and state capitals. Government officials on tour stayed in Government Rest Houses. Stay in a Rest House and you brought your own bedding (including the mattress). Government officers on tour were recognisable instantly by the bulky canvas bed roles on the roof rack. Our bedding was a fat, King-size, cotton-stuffed paliasse rolled in Afghan kilims. Vanessa and I would check with different Government Departments, Indian Civil, PWD, Railway, Forestry. No Rest House available, we rigged a mosquito net to a tree and unrolled the mattress.
My memories of Mamallapuram are of a small village on a dirt track, shore temples, a few fishing boats dragged up on the sand and not much else. The cook and the owner of The Sunrise Guest House confirm that there wasn't even a bus service. Vanessa and I camped in the first lines of palm trees above the beach. I remember a cool sea breeze after swimming and that we built a fire and grilled fresh fish over the embers.

LONELY PLANET PRISON CELL

Mamallapuram is crammed with foreign tourists, tourist touts and Sunday day trippers. Lonely Planet recommends Tina's Lodge. The proprietor shows me a single room down a dank dark corridor. Were it a jail cell prisoners would complain justifiably to the European Court of Human Rights. The so-called bathroom? Ugh! A young Israeli woman in a marginally better room laughs at the speed of my retreat. An even better room will be available tomorrow. The better room has a terrace that the breeze can't reach. I peer through the open door at a heat-haggard tourist sweating on the bed, remount and go exploring. The Sunrise Guest House isn't listed in the guide book. Maybe it is too distant from the main tourist strip for the Lonely Planet researcher to walk on a hot day. I am offered a room three times the size of the Tina prison cell. Both room and bathroom are spotless. Wall to wall windows face the park and the sea. Open the windows and a splendid sea breeze lifts the curtains. Same daily rate as the hell hole cell and with satellite TV. Climb stairs to the thatch-roof restaurant and I can plug the lap-top into a power point. Fried rice with calamari is good. What more could I want?

FORGETFUL OLD FOOL

crash of the day






















Finished with Goa so back to the present and Kodaikanal. Next stop. Mamallapuram, a backpacker and tourist haven for twenty years. Idiot that I am, I left my wonderful Eicher road atlas in the lobby of the J Heritage Hotel in Kodai. Why do I imagine that Mamallapuram is north of Chenai? I have bypassed Chenai and am heading for Kolkata before realising my error and head back south through the city. Chenai bus traffic is fearful even on a Sunday. All locals consulted on the route have difficulty in differentiating left from right. Ironic that a bus labeled as heading for Mamallapuram is my saviour. I follow out to the coast road.

INSUFFICIENT COFFEE

GOA: FEBRUARY 12.
Fiona and Paul - is it sexist to put the woman's name ahead of the man's? Or the man's ahead of the woman's? Please excuse the digression. I have had only one cup of coffee this morning and my thoughts remain somewhat disorganised. The plains of Tamil Nadu in March are hot. Fortunately I am cooled by a strong sea breeze. I am writing on the roof terrace of the Sunrise Guest House in Mamallapuram. A grass park and a few trees separate the guest house from the sea. The sea is a pale greeny blue beneath a sky that is paler than pale. Surf breaks on the rock shore. Two small, narrow, high-bowed fishing boats rock at anchor. Four sister boats have chugged south down the coast. A junior teenage help is preparing fresh coffee. Ten minutes and my brain will be unscrambled.