from the horizon

After the course and before my flight I had one day in Chennai to have a look around. Here are some random photos:

Arrrrg! Here be pirates! Taken outside one of the oldest surviving British church in India.

Respect for Gandhi. Not only did they build numerous statues of him, but around this statue they built a scaffold for people to come up and put flowers around his neck for India Independence Day.

Also worth was the Tomb of St Thomas, one of Jesus’ Apostles. It’s kinda crazy to think that he made his way all the way to India back then. I was kinda awe struck by the small bone fragment of St Thomas, a physical connection to all those biblical tales.

Well it wasn’t all work and no play. Round the corner from the course was the Chennai Sheraton, complete with a Bar and Club. The club wasn’t really that good – until we got there. There was a fairly large group of us from the course, and we kinda took over the place. I must say us logisticians certainly know how to party!

Me and Jolene, who also worked in Banda Aceh

After spending so long in Aceh, I definitely appreciated the opportunity to break loose on the dance floor. Heidi, an Australian, had done Ceroc, so it was good to have a dance with her.

Heidi

The local guys show me some traditional Indian dancing, which is vaguely reminiscent of hoping on one leg while trying to screw in two light bulbs above your head.

Then there was the supply chain dance (read – Congo Line!) and the dance recital of the Mosiland Simulation.

Finally I couldn’t resist the urge. The marble floor of the Sheraton foyer. Ahhh, the memories….

Greg and Me. Greg was another New Zealander, who’s currently working in Nepal

See the comments for an explaination

Well the whole point of my trip to India (and why the NGO had paid for it) was for me to attend a four day RedR (Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief) Humanitarian Logistics Course.

I’ll go into a bit of detail for the benefit of those people who have no idea what logistics is about (this would have included me 3 months ago!). Read the rest of this entry �

After Pondicherry I made my why to the utopia of Auroville. Auroville was founded in 1968 by The Mother, who was a follower of Sri Aurobindo. It intended to be an experiment in people living in “progressive harmony”. Based on the idea that humanity is not the last rung on the evolutionary ladder, Auroville plans to be an accelerator for the next step. I should probably point out that Auroville isn’t really set up to accept “tourists”, and I only spent one day there, so my observations are really just first impressions.

The Vistor Centre

The Town Hall

The settlement contains around 1780 people from all over the world, spread over 20km. So I hired a bike and bravely set off to explore this new world. For the most part all I seemed to see were trees growing out of the red ground. One of the settlers later told me that they thought that their greatest achievement was the planting of over 2 million trees. It certainly is more luscious than the rest of India (at least what I’d seen). However I failed to see much more progress than that.

This may have been because the whole settlement was very dispersed. It was designed in the shape of a spiral galaxy; unfortunately no one remembered that galaxies are notoriously difficult to get around. I thought this was a rather large slipup which meant most people had to use petrol consuming motorbikes or cars to get around. So they’re not quite self sufficient!

I did visit the Cynergy, who were a small group that did computer programming outsourcing in the community. It was headed by a guy who was raised on the community. Definitely a different spin on Indian Outsourcing!

The highlight of the community is the Matrimandir, which is a temple/meditation center/ spiritual soul/giant golden golf ball in the middle of Auroville. Current it was undergoing extensive maintenance work, something to do with the gold panels not being attached properly. I managed to have a look around it, and then noticed that the Indian construction workers didn’t really seem to mind if I went inside (which I probably shouldn’t have!). I had heard amazing things about the interior, but it all seemed to be covered with plastic sheeting. I’m not sure if I made it into the main chamber, but it was an eerie feeling being inside. Kinda like I was exploring a lost temple!

Interestingly I met a couple of Dancers from California at Auroville who’d been in India training to be Yoga teachers. They’d had a lot of experience working in cooperative communities, egalitarian structures. They said it was very hard to make decisions, and often what happened was that the loudest person just got their way. They talked about consensus minus one, someone’s always unhappy!

Does cooperation really lead to the best decision being made? Can we have too much cooperation and not enough action?

Overall I was unimpressed with Auroville. I noticed that I always had this negative Hippy/Cult thought in the back of my head, despite my feeling that what they were trying to achieve here was very admirable, and important. I thought their was too much Yoga and Meditation and not enough Renewable Energy. I just got the feeling that there were too many spiritual types and not enough technical types.

Hippies on bike and windmills – kinda sums up my impressions

OK, there was some renewable energy

I thought about how necessary it is to have such a spiritual focus when setting up a community. I’m not sure how well spiritual, social and technical development can work together? I may leave that for another post.

Its worth mentioning about the guru phenomenon in India: Every place seems to have had its guru. Pondicherry has Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Chennai has Vivekananda and Krishnamurti. All the aforementioned Gurus are dead, but I’m sure there are some live ones around.

The Guru normally has had a mystical experience at some point and now what remains is their hangout (Ashram, Institute, or in Vivekananda’s case, an old Ice House) complete with bookstore featuring the dozens of books they’ve written, and maybe a tomb. Now, I just want to clarify that I think that these were probably remarkable people with a better understanding of the full human experience than I will probably gain. From what of their writing I have read, they have some very profound and valuable insights. However what really worries me is all the Guru Groupies I see. Maybe I don’t get something, but it just seems to be like people blindly following a charismatic leader.

Someone I spoke to talked about the importance of a Guru being able to share their mystical experience with others, which I guess is fair enough, unless they’re dead!

I probably should just cut old Krishnamurti a break. He did disband his gang of followers claiming that enlightenment was something organized religion couldn’t offer. Respect. I even brought a couple of his books!

Next stop on my trip was the town of Pondicherry. Just to indicate how much of India I was trying to see it is worth noting that my visit consisted of getting off the bus, wandering around for a couple of hours with my backpack on, then leaving!

Pondicherry was settled by the French, so there is a definite “Continental” feel to the place. Wide tree lined streets and the police wear funny Foreign Legion hats. Speaking of the police my most amusing experience in Pondicherry was when a police man tried to get a bribe from me, just cause he was a cop! It was rather amusing, because I didn’t really understand what he was asking for, as he was rather embarrassingly trying to ask for a bribe! In retrospect I missed the best opportunity to bribe a cop for a picture of him with his finger on his chin!

PS

There weren’t actually Curried Frogs Legs, I just thought that it was a catchy title!

In Mamallapuram I found myself in the middle of the Indian backpacker trail. I didn’t quite feel like I fitted in, I needed more dreads in my hair, authentic India clothes, or perhaps not to have arrived in the country the day before! It took me a couple of days before I really felt like a backpacker, and by that point my whirlwind tour of India was almost over!

Mamallapuram in famous for the stone carving around the city, dedicated to the some of the various Indian gods. There are some interesting temples, carved caves and other monuments which date back to the 7th Century.

It is amazing to think of the work the stone carvers put into these huge ancient carvings out of devotion to their gods. Now days the stone carvers still line the streets, chipping away making souvenirs, in worship of their new god – money!

Because it was a fairly touristy town, there were plenty of shops selling these statues, along with a variety of other gorgeous Indian handicraft. I’m sure I got thoroughly ripped off in some of my souvenir shopping, despite some shrewd bargaining (boy, can those Indians bargain back!).

One notable mention was one hawker trying to sell me some tacky “Karma Sutra” statues. I tried to explain to him that if I was caught taking them back into Aceh, I’d probably be whipped (Sharia Law and all). He then told me I should get them for my girlfriend. I told them if I did that I’d definitely be whipped! When another guy tried selling me the exact statues, I decided it was time to practice some of my Indonesian:

“Ma’af, saya tidak tau bahasa English” (Sorry I don’t know English)

Although this didn’t however deter him, he did drop his asking price by 80%.

I knew that cows were sacred in India, but I didn’t exactly what this meant .

Seeing cows decorated with painted horns or flowers around their neck wasn’t unusual.

It also seems to give cows the right to wander round towns unbothered. It’s kinda weird to walk down the road past a cow. However at the same time it puts them in the same class as stray cats, especially when I see them eating out of piles of garbage.

I’ve always wanted to come to India, and now that I am here, I realise why. There is a richness here.
When I got off the plane, I smelt a musty age in the marble airport. I realised that this place was old. Not the airport itself, but the culture here.
The smell on the street also tell me I’m somewhere different, a symphony of spices urine and incense.
I managed to avoid the taxi drivers hassling me, and telling me there were no buses, then I successfully navigated 2 bus rides to Mamallapuram, a little town 50km south of Chennai.
It is interesting, when I normally arrive in a new place it turns out to be nothing like I thought it would be, but India is different. It is how I thought it would be, but the sheer experience is overwhelming!
I am in awe of the culture here, everything is so vivid. However I might be a bit biased, I’ve always had a bit of a think for India.
Oh my god, a drumming, dancing funeral procession just went the internet cafe!
I better go, I want to catch a performance of the Dance Festival which is now on!

Well, I was planning on spending my 8 hours stop over in KL, in the airport, trying to get some sleep on some benches, but things don’t always go according to plan. This is how things did work out…

1. I met a guy working with the UN in Banda Aceh on my flight to KL.
2. He was cacthing up with some friends in KL, and invited me to come along, and crash in the spare bed in his hotel.
3. We got to the hotel at about 12.45am. I should probably point out that the hotel was the Mandarin Orient, five stars, right next to the Petronas Towers.
4. We caught up with his friends at the club, which turned out to be having a dance party.
5. We weren’t being allowed it the part of the club, until I “tipped” the bouncer. LOVE IT!
6. I danced my little socks off for several hours.
7. We then ended up at another bar, where I met a cool Australian guys, and two girls who were making out (I had to put this bit in, it makes the story sound cooler).
8. Finally crashed at the hotel at 5am.
9. At 7am my alarm went off, and I left for the airport.
10. At 10am a rather hangover, sleep deprived and generally worst for wear Michael boarded his plane for India