Excursion #6- Kerala and Kanyakumari

Excursion #6
21/10-24/10/2012
Kerala and Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu

After our 15 hour train ride overnight to Kerala, we arrived to our hotel. It was pretty fancy! I really wanted to get out though, so I wandered over to watch the fishermen bring in the catch of the day.

Note the baby squid in the middle left of the picture 

And my soon to be arch-nemesis, a jellyfish, being tossed by a fisherman unwanted from the net. Many others were previously discarded, as seen laying on the beach.

It got me. And it hurt. 

A lot.

A result of us being so excited to take a dip in the Arabian Sea...

 View from the beach of the Arabian Sea.

Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. This has been the site of controversy, enough to be covered through CNN and National Geographic, because of a large amount of wealth and gold stored in five rooms deep within. The conflict comes between the government and the gods... Generally, in the old times a king or royalty would have control of the temple or sponsor it, and then the wealth was accumulated. Thus, the belief was that as more wealth came, the more the gods favored the ruler and kept them in power.

The conflict, as such, is who does the riches belong to now, the government or the descendants of the rulers of long ago? The local area rulers are not in power now that there is the overarching government of India; so, what happen now?
Specifically about the temple, there are several gods enshrined. However I was not able to enter, only devoted Hindus were permitted. And as you can see, dress code was strictly enforced. Men went shirtless and women must wear saris. The white and gold trim pictured, are signature for the state that we were in, Kerala.

Hanging out in the rain: 

We were able to catch a parade, celebrating Vijayadashami, the triumph of good over evil.











These are the gods, being lifted on rods followed by devotees and descendants of the old royalty (rulers):

In the spice trade, Kerala is home of many spice growers. I'm sure this area was one of the stops on the trade route. And definitely the store smelled: mixture of cinnamon, cardamom, pepper (capsicum), cumin, coffee, anise, and more! 

Interestingly, unlike our spices that are ground, most of the spices are kept whole- Indians will use the whole spice when cooking. So, watch out when eating biryiani (spiced rice) or sambar (really thin gravy, soup thing for eating over rice), or really anything else. If you're not careful, you'll get a mouthful of cardamom and have a hard time tasting the rest of your meal! Yep, speaking out of experience.

Another walk along our beach. Lovely morning!

One collection of houses more or less connecting to each other, in a palace.

Indian toilet:

View from the palace, looking to the hills

 View from the top of the palace, to what else? The courtyard!

 Beautiful!

Kanyakumari-

Yes, it's true. Indians can fit anything into anywhere. Here is a large lorry (hauling truck) with a load going to the beach, right through the market. Before this, everyone was standing, crowded in the road. But, when the truck came, the crowd as always amazed me, and scrunched so close together to let it pass.

 The tip of India! Bay of Bengal on left, Indian Ocean middle, Arabian Sea on the right.

Thiruvalluvar Statue         

A peek into the life and journey of a MCC, SWD Student

15/11/12
Time sure flies!

By now, I'm guessing you all were wondering what it looked like to stay in a hall (dorm) on campus and what it was like walking around. *This page is especially dedicated to my father.

Here's a peek into, the journey of a Madras Christian College, Social Work Department student:

My hall, front door. No, wait; make that, the only door
Martin Hall
  
curfew for the girls: 6:30pm every night. Two nights per month they were allotted "Night-Out" where they could stay off campus, if they signed something and told the warden where they were going.
As a BCA student, we had a different curfew: 10:30pm. The doors were locked every night at 6:30 and unlocked in the morning at 6 or so, and guarded everyday all day, but if we wanted to go out late or come in late, we could. The guards at the door were always very kind and knowledgeable about this, and accommodated this arrangement.

Inside look at (what else?!)
THE COURTYARDS!

Love, love, love them! This is the most central, largest one, where I sat and enjoyed most of the time. I'd sit and read, write, talk on the phone, or just be quiet, and eventually enough people would be walking past and we'd strike up a conversation. :) Good times. 

Absolute PERFECT place to have afternoon chai.

As a side note, this picture is fuzzy because of all of the rain. This was officially the first largest storm I remember having (at least during the day-time). Monsoon!

We did go out on the stage and splash in the rain, and the thunder...

   

    

Ancient palm tree growing inside of one of the smaller courtyards, interestingly, called a coconut tree here:

And one of the two smaller, adjacent courtyards in Martin Hall. 

There were three total:

My journey to the Social Work Department




which always somehow reminded me of walking in a jungle..  

Slightly distracted, again :)

Crossing the campus library                







more jungle...














Now to the straight and narrow:

1.)                                                                             2.)

                                                                             

3.)                                                                         4.)

                     

Department??                                                             More jungle?

 
 Nope, we made it!

Hallways and classrooms

 And the outside, or would we say inside? It's the courtyard!
And to especially take notice of: there is grass! In the hall courtyards and anywhere around campus for the most part, there was only the sandy-dirt. I'm not sure why we had grass.

We asked our director why it was that normally there is no grass (we missed it, just coming here in the summer) and she concluded, that it wasn't a priority and that it was too dry any other time of the year besides monsoon season.








Plus, I think it was easier for the cleaning ladies to sweep the ground free of leaves if there wasn't grass. Every day, the ladies would be out picking up sticks from this dirt, and sweeping the leaves. It was important that it was always well kept and looking nice. A couple times as I was walking back to the main part of campus, I even saw them sweeping the road path as well.



And this is how I arrived at the department on campus. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I do believe we were the farthest department in MCC from the main block; in general, a 15 minute walk, 10 if you're running late. (Wait... late??) I suppose that's for a later edition.

It's pretty sweet. Definitely one of the best things about living in Chennai- the awesome, GREEN campus. :)


And to treat all of you who support randomness, also spotted on campus:

Exhibit 1: Beautiful staircase on the main block of classrooms on campus

Exhibit 2:
Chair graveyard?
                           

MCC was definitely my safe-haven staying in Chennai. While the whole city (of 8.2 million, I might add) was bustling outside, we were lucky and really couldn't hear it inside campus, which was amazing. Every so often we'd hear the Air Force's low-flying planes or their target practicing right behind campus, which was a little unnerving, but like most of the honking and other noise disturbances, I actually began to get used to it! Near the end, I remember even asking myself if the planes had just quit flying overhead completely. 

This was such a good campus to get out and walk in. Any time that I needed some quiet time or some "green" time, a good walk with my notebook did me a world of good. It sure was big enough, at 365 acres, and had enough flora and fauna for anyone's liking- over 1,000 different species if I remember correctly! Hard to believe we were right in the city. And as our professor Prince Solomon liked to point out, MCC was lovingly nicknamed the "lungs of Chennai".

And the more I got out, the more people found me and we'd stop to have a genuine conversation.

Beautiful.