MONKEY BUSINESS AND THE MAHATMA

Well its been another extraordinary day. I didn't sleep so well as my head was buzzing with images and memories from the day, so I woke up feeling a bit dehydrated and grotty. But never mind. I had a brief breakfast on the rooftop restaurant while hymns blared out to the accompaniment of an organ from the Church next door (an odd morning serenade!). Napoleon arrived at 10am and we set off into the country to see a famous Monkey Temple in the mountains.

I had gone to see the Puja in the Madurai Temple complex the night before. I got there about 8.30 but as the ceremony didn't start until 9/9.15 I decided to wander around a bit. It was very quiet and mellow. I ended up sitting on the steps of the enormous central Golden Lotus Tank, the swimming/bathing area in the middle of the Temple where Pilgrims and Devotees traditionally wash and bathe. It was pretty dried up when I was there but you could see how splendid it must be in season.

People were sitting all around it taking it easy. I drank in the atmosphere, wondering what the Temple must have been like back in the day when it was newly built. Here and there a few workers were clambering down scaffolds in the dark at the end of the day's work. As I relaxed an Indian guy came over to me and said 'Hello. Are you from the UK?'. No in the UK you would automatically think 'What's this strange guy talking to me for? Can't he see I am in my own space? Why can't he leave me alone? Should I call the Police? Or better still, the SAS?' but in India, its slightly different. He sat down and we started to have an amiable chat. He was businessman from Tamil Nadu who had been working in England and was back over to see his family for a little while. We spoke about our two countries and we compared notes. He pointed out how the British love peace and quiet and I was struck by how right he was. And not just the British. When you think about the West, you realise how we try to create quiet places for ourselves to relax - parks, cafes, other places. I had been shocked by the din in Mumbai, if you remember, having come out here to find the peace I had found in Indian Scriptures. For once, I felt we scored a point on that front!

It turned out the guy was, once again, a devotee of Sai Baba and he spoke about how he had been sceptical about him but had been won over by meeting him. I told him about my experiences at the school and how everywhere I went I encountered devotees and images of him. He nodded and said that he was admired by many in India and that he did a lot of good. It made me want more and more to visit the two places where he operates - Puttaptharty and Whitefield - and see for myself. I have felt him watching over me all on my journey from the first driver in Mumbai who had his image in his car to this guy and the massive picture of him in the foyer of my hotel here. Seems like everywhere I go he keeps popping up! Its nothing sinister, don't worry! Its just quite a nice series of coincidences and makes me think of the goodness of the people back at the school.

The man told me how he liked the British and felt that the two problems in India were the size of the population and the issue of bribery. Before we could go any further the Puja started and he took me to see it.

It was over pretty quickly. What you don't seem to get over here is the solemn slowness we associate with spirituality and ritual in the West. The Brahmins seemed to be in a bit of a rush so all the devotees were herded about double-fast. First, a series of hymns were sung while two Priests carried burning tridents symbolising the presence of Siva. Then a small carriage compartment was brought in by four more Priests, the curtains drawn outside the entrance to Meenakshi's shrine. In this was a statue of Siva, showing how the God was being bought to his consort's Sanctuary for their Lovers' Tryst. Out of Meenakshi's Temple came a procession of Priests and devotees, the latter of whom were being ushered out with much shouting and waving of arms. A small stool was placed by the carriage on which the statue of Meenakshi was placed and blessed with ash and scent. Then to the sound of more singing and chanting, the two statues were placed in the compartment and the Brahmins took them away. That was it. I make it sound rushed and a bit silly but it wasn't. It was actually very moving and powerful and one understood how the ritual relied upon the magic of the imagination believing the Lovers were both incarnate. At the heart of the ceremony was the Divine Marriage. It was quite something.

So the next day as we drove out to the Monkey Temple I had a chance to see more of the countryside of India. In contrast to the fantastical majesty of Karnataka and the lushness of Kerala, Tamil Nadu - or at least the area around Madurai - is dry and fiery, with high mountains straight out of the Wild West in the distance. It reminded me most of all of the landscape of Aragon in Spain near the Pyrenees. It was amazing and as I thought again of the enormity of India I was almost moved to tears.

Napoleon's rickshaw kept on overheating so we stopped for a cup of Chai at a roadside cafe while its engine cooled down. Eventually we arrived at the Monkey Temple in the hills. As it was a Sunday, a lot of families were milling around for the festival. Napoleon found a friend of his who was driving up to the Temple who offered to give me a lift up (you could only make the climb in an official bus or privately). As we made the ascent, I realised why it was a Monkey Temple as monkeys were everywhere, all looking like Hanuman. I could see how the Indians must have recognised our kinship with them centuries ago when the Deified Hanuman as the Monkey King as they were SO human it was uncanny. Eventually we got to the top, but instead of a huge Gopura as I had come to expect in India, there as a little stone Temple a little way up the hill.

I took off my shoes and made my ascent, being careful not to step in monkey poo which lay in little green splats everywhere. All along the steps the monkeys were bouncing around, eating food that had been left them by the pilgrims. At the top I was lead into the Temple, the floor of which was covered in water with people everywhere with their children drying themselves as if they had just had a swim. I had no idea what was going on until I got to the central area and realised from the crush of people down below that it must be the site of a sacred well as everyone was lining up to be washed in its waters. It was a chaotic, intense sight as the crowds of people were ushered through by the Priests. One spotted me and pushed me to the front of the queue. I found myself in front of a shrine. A garland appeared and was put over my head. I was blessed and holy powder was placed on my forehead. I gave a little money for the collection and was bustled out. I remembered that the Guide in the Madurai Temple had expressed his hostility to Brahmins, who, he said, 'Made a good living' out of collections of that kind. I later found out that this anti-Brahmin feeling is very common in Tamil Nadu, as the Dravidians feel that everyone should have direct access to the Divine and that the Brahmins were an imposition from Aryan North India.

I left the Temple and climbed up onto the roof where families were everywhere resting and drying out in the sun. It was a lovely atmosphere, like an immense family outing for a whole community and once again I began to be mobbed by children wanting to meet me and shake my hand. Everyone came up to me and expressed pleasure at my presence. A lot of them wanted me to take their photograph. At one point two Temple officials in white uniforms walked up to us and pushed through the crowd. 'Uh oh!' I thought, 'This is where I get thrown out.' But all they wanted was their photograph taken too, after which they shook my hand too with great warmth. Sad to say, it was the Sadhus who were really after my money. At one point three colourfully dressed bearded gentlemen rolled up to me and asked me for some rupees. I said I had none but could I take a photograph of them? The one in the centre shook his head and said, 'Photo - money.' so I said a polite 'Never mind', smiled, waved and moved on. I could see what Gandhi, Mahavira and the Buddha were getting at in their hostility to fraudulent, money-grasping Brahmins. Not impressive. But they were the exception. Everyone else was lovely.

This went on all the way down the hill as I walked back to the entrance in the heat. People were just overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming. Towards the end two guys who had met me up at the Temple passed on their motorbike and gave me a last lift to the end where Napoleon was waiting.

His rickshaw was still on the blink so he signalled me to go to another nearby Temple while he fixed it. This one had an equally splendid Gopura and was also swarming with people, many of whom greeted me and wanted to have pictures taken of me. A group of kids playing soldiers in the Temple grounds posed for a few snaps. I looked into the Temple and saw, once again, families everywhere, having picnics and resting with their kids while a few cows milled about. It was so different to how we do things in the UK! Can you imagine a cow wandering through Westminster Abbey during a service? And then I remembered some descriptions of Medieval Churches and the strange vow I had had to make while in Oxford not to drive my sheep through the Bodlean Library. I guess it was once as wonderfully informal as this where I come from too...

Napoleon had fixed his rickshaw and we headed back into Madurai. We stopped for some lunch at a roadside cafe he knew and I sampled a proper Indian meal served on big green leaves and eaten with the hands. I have to say it was the best food I have had in India so far!

My last stop of the day was at the Gandhi Museum, an impressive building on the other side of the river. Going in, one was presented with a historical overview of the struggle for independence for India. The perspective was fairly clear from the word go with the first placard entitled 'WHITEMAN COMES TO INDIA' with a description of how 'the Whiteman' first started to trade on the shores of India en masse since the Greeks and Romans in the late 15th Century. We were then taken through the miserable story (for a Brit) or the UK's involvement in India from early conquest to 1948. We were presented as in every way supervillians while everyone who resisted us was a superhero. Fair enough, I suppose. We shouldn't have been in India!

The struggle became more and more moving and tragic as it went and I became more and more ashamed of what was done by my countrymen in the name of Empire. It was, of course, a massive irony that while we were opposing Hitler and his Nazi racial politics we were conducting a racist regime in India at the time. All the same, I was upset to see the Indian National Army, the fighters who fought alongside the Japanese, glorified in the museum and the awkward truth that the Indian National Congress had sought help from Hitler and Mussolini against the British. Had they won, I wouldn't be here, as my father's family would all have been killed in the ovens. I guess ambiguity has always been the mystery of history.

It beggars belief that India should ever have been treated as it was by us and thank God they are free now. I felt awkward as more Indian schoolkids came up to shake my hands and ask where I was from. 'England' I replied, hoping they wouldn't associate what was written on the walls around them with who I was. Happily, it seemed they didn't. Like schoolkids all across the world, they clearly weren't remotely interested in the edifying things on the walls of the exhibition around them, or at least weren't connecting them up with the interesting living things before their very eyes. Nevertheless, I did feel a little aghast at the acts of my ancestors!

The historical part of the exhibition gave way to the part dedicated to Gandhi. I have been reading his autobiography out here so it was inspirational to read his words in this part and see pictures of him in action. What remains so inspiring was his conviction that the fight against Britain for Independence should be carried out without hatred for the British - 'to fight evil but not hate the evil-doer'. The stand Gandhi took is still almost unsurpassed, for he challenged his own people to be better as well as the British Empire and all its might. I thought of the children at the School, Untouchables still, in spite of all of his efforts and thought about how long ago Buddha, Mahavira and Guru Nanak had all spoken out against that injustice as well.

Like his successor, Martin Luther King, Gandhi having achieved what he wanted (or as close as) - Independence for India. What would have happened had he lived? I understand one of the reasons he was shot was because he had announced his intention to tour Pakistan and acknowledge its existence, something which infuriated Hindu Nationalists. The Partition of India broke Gandhi's heart, even though he clearly hoped to make the best of it. The Muslim leader, Jinnah, comes out badly in this exhibition, appearing as an implacable enemy of reconciliation with his Hindu neighbours in contrast to Gandhi's spirit of all-embracing tolerance. The hostility between the two countries is a lasting legacy of the tragedy of Partition, much like the even worse state of affairs that stands between the Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East.

The final part of the exhibition was the bloodstained robe Gandhi was wearing when he was shot by a Hindu extremist shortly after the division of India into separate states. It lies completely on its own in a glass box in an entirely black room with a fan in it. It was very moving.I stood there and just drank it in, paying hommage to this remarkable man, whose presence is honoured everywhere in India, even if many of his dreams for the nation remain unfulfilled. I won't forget it.

Napoleon drove me back to the hotel and that is where I am now, preparing myself to head off to Thanjavur tomorrow. It should be exciting. Wish me Godspeed and a safe journey!

Blessings to all!