Unique Above the Rare

In a country as unpredictable as India, I’ve been surprised that over the past week I’ve found myself feeling locally acquainted with this country. Whether its a bull causing a traffic jam, a two hour wait for an appointment or a packing an auto rickshaw with 7 people, I’ve finally walked in the shoes of the sub-continent, head waggling my way through obstacle and joy alike.

At the moment I’m sitting in Salem, Tamil Nadu. Relative to Bangalore, it’s distinctively South Indian. It’s a smaller city with a stronger sense of pride – a true locals city. People grow up in Salem, live in Salem and die in Salem.

South Indians refer to South India as the real India. Unlike the north of India which has been invaded regularly and dominated by foreign rule for many centuries (Aryans, Mughals, British), the South kept an unbroken culture until the coastal arrival of the spice traders in the 1500s. Even then, it seems that the Southern cultures is dense enough to take welcome any newcomer into its fold, so long as they can take it (South India welcomed the arrival of Jews as far back as 2,000 years and the same for St. Thomas who arrived with the gospel in the first century.) This fact brings a strong sense of depth and an enormous pride to the people, the kind of pride you find in people who date their culture in the thousands of years, not the hundreds. I had a similar feeling in Rome and I’ve never felt it at home.

This is unmistakably different from my last trip to India. Instead of cruising among the light skinned and tall folk of the north, I’m with the shorter and darker neighbors down south. The written language no longer hangs from a line like Hindi, but rolls and rounds with the swooping curves of Tamil. Cold plains and Himalayas swapped in for jungles and hot afternoons. Meals served on banana leaves and not out of the tandoori oven. Trading in naan for rice, chai for coffee and mughal cuisine for epic thalis.

It’s sunset at the Salem Social Services Society. I’ve wrangled a plastic chair and perched on the roof (one of the absolute gems of Indian architecture is that most buildings have rooftop decks). Scattered clouds canvas the sky and gentle pastels add gentle flavors to the sky. Palm trees dot the skyline – their leaves nest into a dense thicket all around the third story of this building. My friends Martin and Kannan practice their kickboxing in the shadows; Tam takes her photographs off all four sides. The local church blasts Tamil devotional music through speakers collected in the apse. It’s time for 6pm mass. The boys below practice volleyball. Smoke rises from the coconut grove as earth and paper and plastics burn away. Sets of small, young, jagged mountains draw out the horizon and bask in the fading light. Evening will pass into night momentarily.

This corner of the earth, unique above the rare, blends with me.