I am falling way behind on my writing. Last weekend was Diwali, which is celebrated by setting off fire crackers. Have you ever heard six million people set of fire crackers continuously for three days and nights? We have. Since we are in the center of campus, it was not particularly loud, it was just a non-stop noise, at times sounding like a heavy down pour, and at other times sounding like a shoot out. The department celebrated Diwali by having all of its computers turned off.

Living on campus continues to have the same set of "challenges". The giant flying cockroaches are back. Casey is getting quite adept at evicting them, so they provide a substantial amount of entertainment value. Mornings start out with the milkman ringing the doorbell at about 6:30 or 7:00. This is always an annoying way to start the day, since there is an argument with the milkman whether he wants money or milk coupons (or both). He has also been overcharging us substantially on coupons, but his English disappears whenever I try to resolve the situation. The milk comes in one litre bags, which are occasionly already open when they arrive. THe milk must boiled before it is used. The newspaper is delivered sometime between 7 and 9, although it doesn't show up about once a week, and the wrong paper is occasionally delivered. We get the paper that apparently has the largest amount of national and international news. The international news consists of tidbits about Michael Jackson, and a fair amount about US utterances on Kashmir, and not too much else. The national news has lots of details on the upcoming state elections, and must be fascinating for election junkies who follow the Cong (I), BJP, JD, JD (A), SJP, SWP, CPI (L), CPI (M), Cong (S) and a host of minor parties. Regional news covers Karnataka politics, which is dominated by a fight between the Congress party and the Congress party, as well as a few stories on strikes in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Yesterday, the state government of TN led a statewide strike which closed everything down. It is interesting to see the number of different words that are used for strike in India: Bandh, stir, agitation, Hartal, and quite a few others. The rest of the local news is a summary of the daily set of grisly road accidents. We were sufficiently desparate for international news that we got a subscription to the international edition of Newsweek. After a long delay, we received our first three issues earlier this week. It was interesting to read about the Conservatives getting creamed in Canada, and how lying in the middle of a highway is a big fad in the US.

Well, back to the travel log - this is to complete our trip to Madras. We visited Kanchipuram and Mahabilipuram after getting most of the professional obligations out of the way.

Kanchipuram is one of the seven sacred cities of Hinduism, located about 75 km from Madras, making it slightly over a two hour drive. Kanchipuram has temples spread out throughout the town. We started our tour at one of the largest temples, which is still an active temple. We entered through a large gateway (maybe 20 meters high), large enough to accomodate a giant float which is taken out for festivals. There was a gauntlet of beggers, followed by a few soft drink and souvenier stands. The main building had a very tall spire and a massive area enclosed in a walk way. Apparently, there are over one thousand pillars supporting the building. The entire inside was carved, with figures of the hindu gods on the pillars. The place was quite gloomy, and there were hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling. For me, the temple went by in a blur, since I was chasing a certain two yearold, who was treating this as a large indoor jogging track. Since this was a temple that was still in use, there were various priests in little alcoves with small shrines. The priests (or novices) were wearing the traditional skirt, and had paint on their faces. They were very young, and to my surprise very good humored. They liked Casey, and had no objection to him running back and forth and climbing up on the various carvings. We went to a second temple which was substantially older, and no longer in use. Casey again had a good run. The highlights of this one were the parrots that were flying around. The inside wall was full of little meditation rooms, which were small cubicals, maybe three feet in each dimension and had no light. The inner part of the temple was administered by a priest who showed us a couple of the statues, and made it very clear that we could leave a contribution for the upkeep. Our third stop was to visit the Swami who oversaw the college. This was a real surprise (since we didn't know what we were going to see in Kanchipuram) and was really, really strange. Our host first went in, and made sure that everything was set up, and then we went in. We entered the building through a corridor, and on one side was a cage area where one could make donations to the temple. There was a very long line of people waiting to get the Swami's blessing, however, we cut through the line and were taken through a side door and introduced to him. We sat down next to him, and our host acted as an interpreter, covering his mouth with his hand so as not to breath on the Swami. The conversation was that he said he was honored that we would visit his college, and I said I was honored to have an audience with him (although I had no idea who he was, but it seemed the right thing to say.) During the conversation, he would occasionally turn away and give blessings to a few of the people in the line. He gave Casey and I necklaces of cardamon and cloves (that he had apparently worn.) He also had large sugar crystals which he gave to Casey (and Casey quickly responded "More!"). The audience lasted maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Although Nancy was sitting next to us, she was very much in the background, and was virtually ignored (other than being instructed on how to sit properly by one of the assistants). Although the Swami was obviously an important religious leader, and this was a very formal situtation, I was struck by the air of good humor that he had. After meeting the Swami, we had lunch at a restaurant and headed off to the college for me to listen to the project reports.

The distance from Madras to Kanchipuram is about roughly equal to the distance from Kanchipuram to Mahabilipuram, so it seemed like driving directly from Kanchi to Mahabili would make sense, except that this meant driving on very minor roads through villages, as opposed to the two lane highway via Madras. The drive was great, since it was a chance to see the country side, and the roads were so bad that even busses couldn't drive very fast. When we arrived in one town, the driver started asking pedestrians questions, and I assumed that we were lost. The driver kept asking people questions, even after he seemed to get positive responses (not that I could understand tamil), however, I realized afterwards, that there is general tendency to ask lots of people directions, and hope that the majority give the correct way. What the driver was asking was whether or not the causeway across the "backwater" was still passable - and it was a good question to ask. After the journey, I would certainly have answered no. The causeway was fairly narrow, maybe about 20 feet above the water, with occasional "speed bumps" that were high enough that the car would bottom out. The central section of the causeway had settled drastically, which had a very steep descent almost to the water, and an equally steep ascent on the other side. My big worry was that we would meet a truck going the other way, and then have to back all the way to the start, and do it again. This was yet another short cut, which led to a very long drive from Kanchipuram to Mahabilipuram. When we finally reached the Madras - Mahabilpuram road, we were further slowed by road construction. The first step in upgrading the road is to cover the old road with several feet of sand, and then later build a new road on top. We spent quite a few miles slipping through the sand and the mud, but eventually made it to our destination.

The resort at Mahabilipuram was a little bit on the rustic side - apparently most of their business used to be Russian package tours. The resort had lots of palm trees and thatched buildings, and had a definite Gilligan's Island feel. When we had dinner in the evening, they presented us a platter with "Welcome Mr. Anderson" written in carved pieces of potato. The first morning, when they made up the beds, they covered them with flower petals. The weather was remarkably nice, cool enough that we could be on the beach during the day. We spent quite a bit of time just sitting at the beach side restaurant and watching Casey play in the sand. One of the main attractions of Mahabilipuram is the carvings left by a 8th century dynasty. There are many different sites with temples, and murals carved out of the rocks. These are among the best carvings in India, and are featured prominently in the tourist literature. We would be accosted by guides at these sites, who for a small fee would provide not particulary accurate information (for example, claiming that the dynasty ended by the Moslem invasion, while the Moslem's never got that far south, and they hadn't even got to N. India by the 9th century.) One of the guides was very helpful, because he carted around Casey for well over an hour. The best site was in the town of Mahabilipuram, which had a well known mural "Arjuna's Penance", and behind it several acres of builders, with carvings in many different places. Many of the carvings were unfinished, so their would be large areas only sketched out. The floors of the temples were covered with carved game boards for assorted games like chess and dice. Mahabilipuram did have a tourist environment which we had not encountered previously, but that was to be expected with the combination of nice beaches, interesting historical sites and proximity to a major city.