A hell of a day. After the long hard trip up from Chennai, I slept like a rock. Awoke at a 7:40 and walked outside to see what there was to see, and to take pictures. On the street the villagers well preparing for a festival—the summer festival was today—men were sweeping the streets and sidewalks, brushing away trash from some areas and leaving it in others, according to a plan that was not apparent to me. Mothers set out fruits, toys, and cheap jewelry to sell along the sidewalk and children ran and played excitedly in the street. Fires were built along the side of the roads—some in grills or steel pans, some on the ground, and great steel and iron cook pots were set over them. The smell of cooking meat mingled with wood smoke and added to the festive atmosphere. Strings of lights went up and a man with a basket filled with white chalk walked down the streets blotting his basket down to leave a white dot every three feet or so along the road on each side. I turned onto a side street and took some pictures of the fence posts, which I noticed were made of stone. I saw turkeys behind a fence of barbed wire strung on stone fence posts, and colorful little mandirs—one to Ganesha and I don’t know who the other honoree was. I met a man who wanted me to take his picture. We traded names and agreed that Yelagiri was very beautiful. I felt like he wasn’t getting everything he wanted out of the conversation, and I had no idea what else he might want. More pictures taken? Him to take a picture of me? We shook hands and I extricated myself with an awkward namaskar and moved on. I’m sure that his intentions were entirely friendly, and he seemed like a nice fellow. He was excited to find a phirangi walking down his village street at 8:00 in the morning on a festival day, and I could have given him some more time and attention. But it just wasn’t in me. My introvert impulse was strong this morning, and I had not had any time to myself in a week. Since June 30, I have been travelling with 17 people, eating with them, sleeping with them, riding busses with them, attending lectures and visiting sites with them and I did not want anything but a long stretch of time during which no one would bother me. The walk was nice, but the village was bustling and I couldn’t stay too inconspicuous as the only white man on the street—one of the group of strange white people who were staying at the hotel on top of the hill. I tried to sit outside and journal but it was time for breakfast. Robert picked up on my mood. He said “you seem a bit pensive this morning.”
I didn’t want to be rude, so I explained, “I am by nature an introvert.”
“And so this has been hard on you, especially yesterday.” He got it. That helped.
I was still in a grey funk when we arrived at the SCINDeA offices but was distracted by a group of Dalit women from a self-help group who performed a drum and dance ritual for us and bestowed a rich garland of flowers on each of us.
Then we had introductions and met Dr. Sheila Benjamin and Dr. Bennet Benjamin—The Doctors Benjamin, as Aditi called them—or Bennet and Sheila, as Sheila herself preferred. They run the SCINDeA: South and Central India Development Alternatives, a network of NGOS focused on a variety of efforts. We got a good overview of cultural, political, economic, and social forces at work in Tamil Nadu and in the Yelagiri Hills district. Their umbrella group supports and coordinates groups that are seeking alternative or unorthodox solutions to development problems. We got a lot of general information and a sense of their organizational culture--well organized but mission focused.
Lunch with the group was delightful and I began to feel more sociable. I talked, chatted, and chuckled my way through a tasty razaam—a soup that had black pepper and ginger and I don’t even know, tamarind maybe, lemon juice certainly, but I wouldn’t mind getting the recipe. Afterwards I explored around the compound a bit and met a man who told me he had earned certificate in pastoral counseling in New Jersey. He was Episcopal, I learned and we talked a little about New York and New Jersey. I took some photographs and returned for another lecture, this time from Sheila Benjamin, and got back on the bus to the hotel. We went out as a group in the evening to explore the festival. I’ve just spent some time working on my description of the festival but I’m going to post this much and come back to it. It’s almost time for dinner and I have a lot to describe.
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