On Thursday, October 22, we went on an optional excursion to the pilgrimage town of Kanchipuram, two hours inland from Mamallapuram. During the Pallava Empire, which ruled Tamil Nadu from the sixth to ninth centuries A.D., Kanchipuram was their capital and Mamallapuram was their principal port. We visited two ancient temples dedicated to Shiva: Ekambareshwara and Kallasanatha. While the latter has more interesting architecture--elaborate sandstone construction, with many, many niches, friezes and statues, the former is more of a working temple, with crowds of worshippers. We saw part of a ceremony where a couple, who had raised their children and sent them off into the world, were, in return, given an elaborate blessing ceremony, to honor and reaffirm their marriage. A group of people from Mumbai insisted on having their pictures taken with us. A Brahmin priest of the goddess Kali, gave us individual blessings from the goddess, putting red dots on our foreheads and giving the women small roses that had been offered to Kali.
We met a bride and groom, age 28, who had met at work and talked their parents into approving their marriage, although they were of different castes.
We stopped at the house of a family of silk weavers and saw their beautiful work, then Mary Joy shopped at the neighborhood silk cooperative. Silk weaving on jacquard looms, as in nineteenth-century Lyon, is very common in Kanchipuram and the surrounding villages.
On the way back we visited a family of outcastes, squatting on public land outside a village, living in a collection of thatch huts. They had electricity, but water was available at a nearby pump for only one hour a day. The state had given them a TV and satellite dish, but in order to watch it they would have to subscribe to the satellite service, which was owned by the brother of the politician who had passed the law giving them the TV and dish. They were very poor and shunned by their neighbors, except when higher caste men would come around looking to rape their girls, which was a reason they gave for marrying those girls off at at puberty, age 10 or 12. One teenage girl had so far avoided pressure to marry, was still in school and told us that she wanted to be a doctor. We encouraged her to keep on that path.
We met a bride and groom, age 28, who had met at work and talked their parents into approving their marriage, although they were of different castes.
We stopped at the house of a family of silk weavers and saw their beautiful work, then Mary Joy shopped at the neighborhood silk cooperative. Silk weaving on jacquard looms, as in nineteenth-century Lyon, is very common in Kanchipuram and the surrounding villages.
On the way back we visited a family of outcastes, squatting on public land outside a village, living in a collection of thatch huts. They had electricity, but water was available at a nearby pump for only one hour a day. The state had given them a TV and satellite dish, but in order to watch it they would have to subscribe to the satellite service, which was owned by the brother of the politician who had passed the law giving them the TV and dish. They were very poor and shunned by their neighbors, except when higher caste men would come around looking to rape their girls, which was a reason they gave for marrying those girls off at at puberty, age 10 or 12. One teenage girl had so far avoided pressure to marry, was still in school and told us that she wanted to be a doctor. We encouraged her to keep on that path.
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