The early morning train went through ethereally beautiful misty green country side, we changed somewhere and got another train to a town a few kilometres from Vailankanni. On that train ride we met an old couple who started chatting to Djalma and ended up inviting us for lunch, then to stay in their home and then to a relatives wedding that afternoon. It was the first true hospitality we'd been shown since arriving in India – people had been friendly but no-one had invited us back for food, something we'd become accustomed to in Iran.
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We ended up going with them to their new home (their main house was in Trichy, a bigger town/city) where I had a quick shower and washed the dirt from my hair before we went to the wedding. They were insistent that we stayed with them but after along day of travelling all we wanted was a mattress underneath a ceiling fan, their new house lacked a bed let alone a mattress and there wasn't a fan to stir the air so we decided to find a room after the wedding.
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We got the bus for the short distance from their house into the centre of town where the big church was and although we arrived after the 4pm start time we didn't miss the bride's entrance. She was decked out in a jewel encrusted and gold thread embroidered sari with a white veil dotted with colourful embroidered flowers and dripping with half her body weight in gold jewellery. The church slowly filled up with friends and relatives to watch the couple make their vows and listen to the professional singers (no-one else sang). It took just over an hour by which time Djalma and I were more than ready to leave – the service was in Tamil, not that we would have understood Hindi but we had no idea of what was being said and the audience wasn't exactly involved in the service (like most weddings I guess).
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
The best thing about the wedding was the women who attended, they were all clothed in their richest, most elaborately embellished, colourful saris and looked like exquisite human peacocks lined up on the left side of the church, the jasmine in their hair scenting the air around them. The men on the other hand looked drab and uninspired in white, grey and brown shirts and trousers, boooooring!
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We went to the reception were we were greeted by a couple of women with a small bowl of sandalwood paste and some dark waxy red powder and a box of jasmine strings for the ladies. We got painted and the beaming mother of the bride wound some jasmine round my messy ponytail (at that point I was grateful that I had had time to wash my hair). The father of the bride moved us from our seats near the back and put us in prized front row seats where we had a great view of the bride and groom being filmed and having countless pictures taken.
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We watched different groups of family join the couple of stage to have their photos taken, all in in true Indian style (strictly no smiling and hands neatly by the sides) before it was our turn, it was very exciting and we grinned like idiots while sweating under the hot video lights. There was a band playing, the guy on the keyboard making full use of the programmed synthesiser and some sound effects I remembered from my own keyboard that I had when I was a child (and was convinced that I would absolutely learn how to play properly) and some singers who belted our tunes that blasted from the huge speakers directly into our brains. After sitting in the big room watching the poor couple stand there in front of the lights, as group after group went in front of the camera, we were taken downstairs to a big dining hall filled with rows of tables, canteen style, covered with banana leaves dotted with pickle and raita. We sat down and were promptly served a massive lamb biryani, pork, gravy and other different dishes. It was the first meat I'd eaten since arriving in India (I did try a piece of Djalma's chicken dish ages ago but spat it back out because it was all fat so it didn't really count) and it was delicious. We both declined seconds (a proper thali is an all you can eat meal) me because I couldn't fit any more in and Djalma because he didn't want to be such a pig (a first), we also tried some Badam milk, a rich super thick orange liquid/paste which although is everywhere in India, we hadn't tried before.
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We rolled outside for some fresh air where we sat and talked to Maria (it's a man's or a woman's here) while we waited for Janya (no idea how to spell her name). When it came to leaving we had a very long and tricky process of extricating ourselves from their hijack hospitality. They were both very sweet but very persistent that we do things their way, stay with them, meet them in Trichy and stay with them for three days etc... Even assuring them that we could find our own room was a mission, but funnily enough having managed on our own for the last two months in India we didn't have a problem and even got a semi-deluxe room for the price of a basic room, result!
So we slept on a mattress under a ceiling fan and got devoured by hungry mosquitoes while we recharged our batteries. The next morning we saw the other churches grouped around the main church, the roads lined with icons and lines from the bible adding to the full on churchy atmosphere, which was a more than a bit full on and a wee bit scary. There were lots of people who had given their hair as an offering, a very noble thing to do as it degrades the beauty of a person, they had their heads covered with sandalwood powder to reduce the itching and redness of the close shave from the 'hair removers' lining the street to the beach. The church also had a huge system for receiving offerings, it was possible to buy special blessed oil bottles, blessed water, blessed oil, saris, silver, flower garlands and coconuts amongst other things, it all seemed very commercialised and profit driven. The mix between Christianity and Hinduism was quite startling, on the one hand we felt like we were on familiar ground and on the other hand things were done so differently it was hard to connect it with the religion we knew.
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We waited for two hours for Maria to come and meet us to take us back to their house which although was close we didn't know how to get to. In the meantime we walked along the town's beach and then sat and waited in the shade.
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
Back at their house we drank fresh coconut water and planted some banana roots. We got their address and ate the best thali I've tasted, all vegetarian. We had to say goodbye soon after that with promises to call, assurances that we would TRY and make it to Trichy to see them again and managed to confuse Maria with our internet address – he just didn't understand the concept of electronic mail via computer and not the usual mailing system, he looked dubiously at my email address and said 'but there are lots of Sarahs...'. It really drove home how differently people live. They were both pretty amazed that outside of India people don't generally use coconut oil in their hair, wear saris, have coconuts or curry...
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| From Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, India |
We caught the bus to a larger town with better transport links and from there got a bus to Tranquebar further up the coast. We arrived there and checked around for a cheap place to stay, there was a spiritual centre that had a hot room so we gave it a miss but the only other option turned out to be more than 1000Rs. We decided to move on up to Pondicherry a French flavoured town three to four hours away by bus.
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