Field Trip of Irrational Spirit

Today is Cary's and my 3rd year wedding anniversary. In preparationof being a good husband i went looking for a good present (i'veresigned to myself that the prefect present would be impossible tofind). And this is my story...

Cary has class everyday 9-1 and lunch is 1-2 (which we eat together).This 4-hour time slot is surprisingly short given all the possiblethings that can go wrong while trying to go downtown Madurai. So ipatiently waited. Recognisance reported that Cary would have a "fieldtrip" Saturday July 10th and would be gone all day... this is when iwould make my move. [field trip is a euphemism for 'waist a perfectlygood day do things no one cares about or has already done'; exampleField Trip #2, Visit Bookstores, why? no one knows] After kissing thewife good-bye i ran upstairs to have my guest-mom boil water for adehydrated camping-food pouch i brought. Move, soldier, move.Brunch, check. Felt pockets, money check. Confirmed with guest-momthat city bus would arrive at bus stand ~300meters down the road.Left house 20min behind Cary with nearly full compliment of survivalsupplies (hat, bag, 1L water, lip balm, [no sunscreen, ouch]). So iwalked out to the major road then toward town. I walked, and walked.It must have been 105F that day. After way more than 300meters thebus stand appears on the horizon. I sit on the curb and wait for theSimakkal bus (a stop near the temple downtown). 30minutes, nobuses... the bus has been intercepted by anniversary hating spies.Plan B: I feel rested after some valuable curb sittin' so i walk downto the next bus stand. Wait 20minutes, buses not going my way. Fhaa. The Powers-that-Be, they're good i'll give em that. So, i decided tostay with Plan B code name "Irrational Spirit" and decide to walk allthe way downtown. Distance by my reckoning: 8km (~5miles) , timetaken: ? (don't have a watch) but i didn't get home until dark.The experience was one that, i think, most people tend to value inIndia. I met several wonderful people and saw things that gounnoticed from the autorickshaw. I stopped at a Western-type sandwichshop for a Marinda (like orange Fanta but more carbonated) and made aplan. Beardcut (if possible), Meenashe Temple, and anniv present.Immediately after i left Tornados, barber on my right. the tempo hasshifted, i feel it. Nice fellow; lots of hand motions. He tried tospeak but didn't, i think he was a mute... which is a little oddbecause growing up my barber was mute (in Bessemer). Freaky. Next irounded a corner and saw a little shop hidden off in an unmaintainedcourtyard. They (Gandi Sevi) sold only recycled paper products andhired people with rather sever disabilities to make handicrafts. Theowner and the resident artist sat me down and they served me tea; 2workers working on mats. The owner was a mechanical engineer who quitengineering, started working for call centers teaching accents (alsospeaks Japanese fluently). Ohh, and he had Polio when he was 2, so hehas to walk on his hands. His upper body was quite impressive. Theartist (speciality in bronze casting and nontraditional materialsculpture) helped the disabled create "something they were happywith". There are mostly handmade cards for sale. I went to buy anotebook and card, but the guys would not take any money. They said"we enjoyed talking with you, take these home, then come visit againand buy something that time." We talked for about 2hours.I pushed on. Walked across a bridge and watched women (and 1man)washing clothes from natural ponds in a huge vale which should havebeen a river. They would slap the clothes on slabs of rock untilexhaustion then re-wet clothes in pond (repeat process). In aclearing boys (and 1man) were playing Cricket. I stopped and watched. The batsman, once seeing me, started hitting the ball much harder.The children went crazy with my approach and yelled for me to come andplay. I was behind schedule and could not comply. Saw the templefrom the bridge and never noticed that the temple was west of thebridge, not east as i had previously thought. hummm. Went west. Gotlost. Asked. Overwhelming response. I asked a guard/policeman whowas sitting in an ice cream parlor if i should go straight or left. 2families stood up, as well as the cop, to walk me in the correctdirection. Woooh, excitement at whitey going to Hindu temple.Neighborhoods around (and in) the temple is a capitalist dream, or atleast Adam Smith's dream. Shop after shop, of everything you couldimagine. All competing with each other to get you inside their shop.A free-for-all that's overwhelming. So far, Cary and i have beengetting each other 'Traditional Anniversary' presents. For year 3 itis leather. So, you can imaging how, in a country whose majorreligion consider cows to be sacred, this was a problem. {if only icould have found some Italians and stole their leather, dang!}.Though i did look, nothing other than belts, wallets, and jackets;none of them said "I love you, Cary". So, ingenuity took over and theanswer was art. I found a wonderful sandalwood carving of a cow, andthough this is it. Cary laughed at its presentation and said it washer favorite.Two thirds mission complete. The daylight was waning. Temple, hoe!Not the best view of the grandeur but a good explanation be found at:http://www.indiaprofile.com/monuments-temples/meenakshitemple.htmThere are 4 walls, 4 gated entrance ways which are through the pillarseen on the website (although pillar is not the correct word, someonehelp me out here).Off go the shoes and in goes the ashley. There are several amazingarchitectural wonders inside, but the one most people tend to rememberis the "Hall of 1000 Pillars" (pillar IS the correct word here). Allcarved stone and each one is different (i think) from the others.Apparently if you bang on the pillars some of them resonate atdifferent frequencies and make different thuds. I did not know thisat the time, but was told later. I shall return to bang. Everyonecan go inside Meenakshi, only Hindus can go inside the temple insidethe gate/walls. So i sat at the entrance to the temple proper andwatched. A trained elephant was stationed there. Its skill was touse its trunk and take a Rupee coin from your hand and then tap you onthe forehead (then give the coin to the priest, of course). Everyoneloves the elephant. There is religious significance since one of thegods has an elephant head (Ganesh/Ganesha)http://www.hindunet.org/god/Gods/ganesh/. I left at dusk and found aautorickshaw home, exhausted.