I slept for a whopping two hours before getting up to watch the sunrise in Kanyakumari. Kanyakumari, formerly Cape Comorin, is the land’s end of the Indian subcontinent, and the southernmost tip of the mainland. It is straddled by the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and faces south towards the vast Indian Ocean I’m the furthest south possible in mainland India. Kanyakumari is, once again, a pilgrimage town for Hindus, dedicated to the goddess Devi. This was apparent by the overwhelming amount of small dark South Indian men with moustaches and black skirts, but no shirts. A huge crowd had gathered at the beach to watch the sunrise, and hawkers were ready to take your picture or sell you a conch, shell bead necklaces, or postcards. Sure enough, around 6 am, the sun quickly rose, painting the sky blue, purple, pink, and yellow against the wavy blue waters below. On rocky islands opposite from the cape, a huge statue and temple looked back at the crowd. After seeing the sunrise over the Bay of Bengal, the sun moved west and hovered over the Indian Ocean for the day, until dusk, when it disappeared beyond the horizon of the Arabian Sea. Men in sarongs and underwear occupied the otherwise pretty but rocky beach, which is a type of sacred bathing ghat for Hindus. We went on the bus a little ways out of town to a nearly temples with the usual corridors, face-painted Brahmins with white skirts, a bathing tank, and intricate gopurams. Afterwards, we were bussed back and the tour disbanded, over which the customers were screaming. We went to the busy Kumari Amman Temple right on the cape, which is the highlight of Kanyakumari for Hindu devotees. For me, it’s the thrill of being at the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent (I’ve also been to the Northernmost point in India that’s under Indian control, Kargil, in Jammu & Kashmir). For me, the temple was yet another money-hungry guilt-trip, with too many beggars, hawkers, greedy priests and pushy devotees. All the men had to, for some reason, remove their shirts to go inside, so I followed suit, or lack thereof. The inside of the temple was hell. First, cameras had to be deposited in a tray right next to the entry I exit line, free for anyone to snatch, which was obviously my top priority in life. Then, the line took an hour to get through, and was hot, smelly, dark, and noisy since these teenage pilgrim groups show up by the busloads and scream and clap for attention. Then, there’s always random people asking your information, since I’m obviously not a South Indian. But the worst is the fact that it’s a line in India. You stand in a place, and people will push you from behind and be right up against you, trying to cut ahead. Indians have a completely different conception of time and space, where neither exists. They like wasting time, and don’t mind not doing anything, and don’t feel like as time goes by it’s a negative. And in India, there is no sense of personal space. People will bump shoulders while walking the opposite direction, the person behind you in line’s potbelly will be resting on your back, and interlocking arms, legs, and hands is just being polite. I tend to get really frustrated with this aspect of India, and when I try to express this (by subtly grunting, shoving, or leaning) they don’t even register that anything is remotely wrong or that it’s uncomfortable. It’s like they have lost all their sensory nerves, honestly. Plus, the fact that I’ve been pick-pocketed here before doesn’t help. But anyways, after waiting in the pits of hell, also known as a Hindu temple, I finally entered the inner sanctum, with some candles, a Brahmin Priest, and people giving offerings, hands clasped in reverence to the deity. Rich people got darshan without waiting in line by buying a ‘Special Darshan’ pass, basically by bribing the priests. I hate this about Hinduism, the gods require offerings, the priests want tips, the Sadhus want money to subsist on their ‘Spiritual quests’, shoe-watchers demand money, and beggars line entrances. It’s not like I can’t afford these things, but what is this, the Pre-Reformation Catholic Church, with Salvation based on Donation? Plus also, they don’t allow non-Hindus to many temples and no pictures are allowed and it provides justification for India’s harsh realities like the caste system, but, when you have money and you’re in a generous mood these restrictions are conveniently ‘divinely waived’. The inner sanctum itself was tiny and did indeed have an adorned statue of the goddess Devi, who supposedly saved humans by conquering demons, and who for some reason, had a moustache. This might explain her martial abilities (just kidding, all you feminists and anyone who liked the movie ‘Mulan’) or highlight the pervasiveness of the almighty moustache in South India (on all temple gopurams all Gods have moustaches, all grown South Indian men have moustaches, and now goddesses even have moustaches). But an hour of waiting yielded nothing but a darshan (a glance at the deity tigure). It was like waiting in line for Splash Mountain, and just getting to see a robotic Brer Rabbit figure but not actually going on the ride. After the disappointing temple, I took the rusty old fairy from the concrete dock to Vivekananda memorial, on a rocky island off the coast. The Mandapam center was built in honor of the famous Hindu, Vivekananda, and has rooms for meditation to the sounds of ‘Om’. It was nice, and had good views of the Cape and Indian mainland across the way. Next, another ferry shuttled me and a bunch of annoying South Indian black-skirted pilgrims to the Indian version of the Statue of the Liberty, here it was of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar. It was 133 feet tall, also the number of chapters in his famous Thirukkural poems. The islands were really windy, which makes sense considering the cross-current and atmospheric conditions. But it was still really hot, especially with the sun beating down, which also maker sense considering the low latitude. This low latitude also has contributed to making Dravidian South Indians, Tamils in particular, very dark. Their skin is easily as dark as any black African-Americans I know, and much more so than their northern countrymen. Actually in the North, the prevailing race is Indo-Aryan, descendants of Central Asian Invaders (who also inhabited Persia, Arabia, and Europe), who probably somewhat mixed with the local Dravidian populations. This is why I don’t stick out very much in North India, but here, everyone is quick to call me ‘Angrez’, ironically the same ‘Asian/ Pacific Islander’ race according to the US government, and most US institutions of ‘Higher education’. I got back to the mainland and wandered around the busy ghats and saw the Gandhi Memorial, with pictures and and an urn that was used to hold his ashes. I crashed at the hotel since I got no sleep last night. I got up and ate at the same place, Hotel Saravana, basically a replica of my favorite restaurant, and just about as good because they give nine masalas, curd, banana, papad, rice, chapati, and sweet. I also learned that ‘Saravana’ is another name for Ganesh, the fat elephant God. Well their plan isn’t working, since I’ve gotten skinnier (I checked courtesy of the random scale in the restaurant, and I’m at 145 pounds). Then I went down to the waterfront to watch the sunset, this time on the opposite side of the cape as the sunrise. The sunset was beautiful and amazing because of the rapidity with which the sun descended, and the fact that in the morning it rose over the Bay of Bengal, it spent the day looming over the Indian Ocean, and it set behind the Arabian Sea. Soon after, the big crowd dispersed, and I got a parotha (heavenly) at a hole-in-the wall eatery, before catching my 7:15 train to Mamallapuram, near Chennai. I had to pay $18 for 3AC because my usual sleeper was all booked, which would have cost $6. Ok, this time I swear, this is the last train I’ll take on Indian Railways this trip.
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