But after one random wandering into Mylapore, I’ve got a certain jasmineoilbath-turmeric-Cuticura-vibhooti smell bottled up in my head. And each time someone swears that the city’s becoming a salon-manicured, pink-clothed, cappuccino-preferring person, I smell my Mylapore smell.
I had strolled into the place, staring up open-mouthed at the gopuram of the Kabaleeswaran temple. The temple is all I knew of the place, apart from some "in my bachelor days" wonderfully embellished stories from dad – about the Brahmin agraharams (streets set apart for Brahmins), the banishing of fish/mutton shops in the area, some political speeches, and my dad’s best reel off: the shocking saga of a maami (aunty) who used Milkmaid condensed milk for payasam ("What?! She didn’t stand over the stove mixing the milk for 24 hours till it got thicker?").
But I must’ve chosen a particularly busy day to walk in there because I realised, still open-mouthed, that there wasn’t an inch of road to spare for another tyre, or foot.
Right in the middle of all the Swiss ice-cream shops, cell phone showrooms, gigantic shopping malls, and BMWs trying desperately to park in auto stands, were three towering chariots swathed in flower garlands. As the ther (chariot) jerked forward, pulled by tight-muscled perspiring young men, the milling just-bathed crowd parted reverently to give way. Just as I was craning my neck to see what was glistening in the ther, I realised that apart from two policemen standing in a corner wolfing down free slices of pineapple from a vendor, no police was around to handle the masses.
Apparently, during the Panguni festival that happens every year in the Kabaleeswaran temple, it's like the temple priests fleetingly reclaim their lost authority. Every morning and evening, for 10 days in March, the temple idol of Shiva is brought out, mounted on different vahanas. And for those 10 days, one wave of the priest’s hand voicelessly directs hundreds of people. The minute he wiggles that little bell and the chariot lunges forward, folded hands and soft prayers go up in the air. Some children get to ride on the ther, prettied up in new shiny clothes, and appropriately ohh-aahing when gold-plated puppets come flying from all sides and shower flowers on the idol.
During these 10 days, people from villages around Chennai throng to Mylapore with plastic toys, beaded necklaces, clay pots, plastic flowers, matchboxes, kumkum, turmeric, merry-go-rounds, mini giant-wheels, blouse-pieces, idols of gods and goddesses…
And in the middle of it, I couldn’t help cheering along, especially when the little girl who wanted to see it all shifted herself coolly from her stunned dad’s shoulder onto my head. Each time the closely watched puppet angel swung towards the ther, the entire crowd watched, saying "Ippo vizhum. Ippo Vizhum" (Now it’ll fall), as if they'd be proven fools if they didn't guess right. And the fresh-faced boy hiding behind the electric pole, holding the puppet strings, would smile to himself, and tug the string just when everyone least expected it. The blood red flowers dropped on the idol, among mad clapping and cheering and hurried praying.
10 days of a locality turning into a complete chandhai (exhibition-cum-market). A day of impulse buys ("All for god only. Shiva, shiva"). My pick of the day: a big-headed plastic monkey in red painted T-shirt, riding a red cycle-rickshaw, at the back of which a proud sticker said "Hardworking rickshawman". It even has a key to wind the guy up so he can take imaginary people for 5 second rides.
Ok, so there were guys in Adidas shorts filming the whole thing in videocams. It isn't about saying shut-up to new things. It's about poohing to the self-congratulatory cool world that poohs to the sometimes similarly self-congratulatory old-world. But oh well, there ain’t nothing cooler than kudumi vaadhyaars (priests with pony-tails… oh yuck to English translations) on Bullets.
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Note to self: Find photoshop for size-cutting and posting more photos taken.
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