took a turn-off past some blackened shacks on a road deep in mud from recent rain, came out onto mamallapuram’s east raja street. we offloaded onto the street and by autorickshaw got to our hotel, center, hippie-town. crusty hippies wandered about, along with clueless khaki-clad kids with wide eyes, tender mouths, guides clasped to their chests like shields.
sitting up in the hotel cafe, a gaunt man in a lungi garlanded with beads recounts his story as he cradles a puffy-eyed baby on his lap, the mother sitting across peaceful with wild long hair and baggy clothing. he has been ill, there have been visa issues, but ok, he’s been on the road who knows how long now, where in fact he met this girl and they became travel-partners, where to go they don’t know, maybe continue floating, baby added, really i worried for this baby. the woman takes the baby and lifts up her shirt to reveal her lack of undergarments and begins nursing where everyone can see, schmabil n i avert our eyes, father talks a good bit of all the coughing-up of blood and hospitalizations with a couple of sympathetic brits in short shorts, who seem to have had their own share of maximum-strength antibiotic injections or what have you, one begins to wonder why these people persist in staying on, why they all dont just go home.
with relief we depart that cafe, get out into the town to see the famous rock carvings. fine, not bowling-over impressive, pleasant to ramble around tho... the most impressive piece arjuna’s penance, a multitude of figures carved across a single wall, but ruined by would-be guides and postcard sellers that followed you all the way up and down all around, making enjoyment impossible... kids squatting down and relieving themselves in the park, dealers approaching us with offers of drugs on multiple occasions, dirty looks, overpriced tickets to all these attractions, finally we retreated into some french-run cafe, fresh lime sodas and cool away from the sun and dust and people. confusedly trying to figure out why the travel guide had said that this was the kind of place you could lose track of time in, failing to mention the shady dealings and ashram-dropouts or whatever who seemed really to be on their last legs ill and faded-out and lost...
the one thing about mamallapuram was the sea. rough and dark, we watched from a pile of stones sitting the crowds hanging about the edges of the sea, not venturing deeper than maybe a a foot or so in, mostly fully clothed except for a few boys who stripped down to their underwear, people in blue jeans or salwar kameez or sari getting soaked from top to bottom as the waves surprised them where they stood or as they pulled each other down laughing into the surf.
but sea or no sea, we decided it was time to move on, we had had enough, so a day early we left mamallapuram. early at a busstop on sunday, us and a jumble of other foreigners, across from a ramshackle church from which clanged and clattered out the joyful noise of its worshippers shouting out their songs, the clamour of tinny cymbals and the rough thumps on drums, interrupted only briefly here and there for a short sermon, perhaps some prayers, continuing the whole forty five minutes that we waited for our bus...which finally did come, crowded, we squeezed us and our monstrous large suitcase in and held on tight, as the bus took off, leaving musty old mamallapuram behind in a cloud of dust...
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