Road works
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“On a Mamallapuram roadside we find yet more ancient skills, here the Sthapathi’s are carving stone sculptures of gods and deities. Amidst the clouds of stone dust we see sculptures destined for temples in India and overseas”.
The roads we are travelling on have also become trade routes of India. The roadsides are places of work. What happens by the roadside tells you a lot about a place here.
Somewhere in my mind there has always been a connection with railways and trains and India. Indian Railways with its ten thousand and more trains running each day, with its 25 million passengers every day, with its almost one and a half million employees, vast amounts of freight, its railway culture and society, whichever way you cut it, the numbers are staggering.
"We pass accidents, recently overturned cars and burnt out buses, perhaps pilgrims, who will never reach their earthly destination".
But this time this way, the railway is not for us. This was to be strictly a road journey as railway tracks were crossed and railway stations passed by.
The roads in India, as well as the ever present danger, the corners, the suddenly oncoming lorry or bus, the myriad of smaller vehicles and people, are also places of enterprise.
We pass accidents, recently overturned cars and burnt out buses, pilgrims perhaps, who will never reach their earthly destination. We weave our way across the country east to west, from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, then further south and back again to Chennai – in all five weeks on the road.
This is winter and the sunburns brightly, the middle of the day is hot, the road dusty. As we arrive at a city’s edge, the population denser now, here the ever present diesel fumes thicken and we cough our way through the black smog.
All along the road there is hard work and clusters of enterprise. Even the remoter rural roadside places will suddenly reveal a workplace and intense activity. A sculptor here, a brickmaking family, a coconut seller, small market stalls, potters, carpenters, workshops, a goat herd, furniture makers, onion processors, all spread along the road's edge.
We would often stop to buy coconuts, the man, and sometimes a woman, under a small shady structure of sticks and palm leaf thatch with a very sharp machete and the telltale bunches of coconuts. Then holding the coconut in one hand, slicing off its top with the machete so we could drink its milk. Milk gone, then another dangerous process to cut the coconut in two so we could eat its soft and jelly like flesh. The coconut is held in the palm of the hand so the hand becomes the chopping block, this is a skilled task and a dangerous one. A chop misjudged can have serious consequences.
Near each of these small structures and by the roadside there is always a pile of coconut husks, the sign of a successful days business. We stop at one small coconut stall and here the danger of this business is revealed. Machete sharpened too well, coconut softer than expected, the sharp blade slices through the coconut with ease and into hand and fingers of the seller. We stop to patch up his finger, luckily the damage on this occasion is not too bad, and then back on the road again.
I ask one man how many coconuts he sells each day.
“Summer is best, the intense roadside heat makes people thirsty. On a good day I might sell 500 coconuts”.
We think to ourselves doing this work every day, year after year, chop, chop and chop again and again, the odds of losing a finger or two must be very high.
In Sera we are invited into as mall roadside banana plantation, the Puttachari family eager to meet us. Again this is hard work and the returns are small.
Then there are the businesses that use the earth for their making, the brickmakers of Thene on the road from Madurai. This is an ancient tradition, earth, water and fire. The handmade bricks are dried, made into a kiln and fired. The process takes many days. Here we visit Kannan, the owner of this brickworks, and Veermalai, a skilled brickmaker.
The potters too use the road to sell their work, on the road from Trichy (Tiruchirappalli) we meet potters Jeevanandam, Kavitha and Tamil Arasiel. Here they are making clay cooking stoves and pots. The roadside full of earthenware, Tamil Arasiel sits on her white plastic chair in the middle of all she has made.
On a Mamallapuram roadside we find more ancient skills, here the Sthapathi’s are carving stone sculptures of gods and deities. Amidst the clouds of stone dust there is great skill here, sculptures for temples across India and sculptures for export. The sculptors working here must understand the meaning of and how each god or deity is to be represented and each and every work, if it is to be used for meditation and worship, must conform to long held principles of form and content. Many of these sculptures are complex works, today carved in stone using power tools. Here there are many orders to fill and everyone works nonstop.
Here too are the herders with their cattle and goats, onions so important to Indian cuisine, are everywhere. The women sort their onions by the roadside.
In Puducherry we find a flute man walking the road and shore playing his flute and holding a pole, skewered Porcupine like, with flutes of different sizes. He somehow reminds us of Corfu and Gerald Durrell’s rose-beetle man (My family and other animals).
And as the sun fades over the Arabian Sea, so go we on the dusty road once more.
Somewhere in my mind there has always been a connection with railways and trains and India. Indian Railways with its ten thousand and more trains running each day, with its 25 million passengers every day, with its almost one and a half million employees, vast amounts of freight, its railway culture and society, whichever way you cut it, the numbers are staggering.
"We pass accidents, recently overturned cars and burnt out buses, perhaps pilgrims, who will never reach their earthly destination".
But this time this way, the railway is not for us. This was to be strictly a road journey as railway tracks were crossed and railway stations passed by.
The roads in India, as well as the ever present danger, the corners, the suddenly oncoming lorry or bus, the myriad of smaller vehicles and people, are also places of enterprise.
We pass accidents, recently overturned cars and burnt out buses, pilgrims perhaps, who will never reach their earthly destination. We weave our way across the country east to west, from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, then further south and back again to Chennai – in all five weeks on the road.
This is winter and the sunburns brightly, the middle of the day is hot, the road dusty. As we arrive at a city’s edge, the population denser now, here the ever present diesel fumes thicken and we cough our way through the black smog.
All along the road there is hard work and clusters of enterprise. Even the remoter rural roadside places will suddenly reveal a workplace and intense activity. A sculptor here, a brickmaking family, a coconut seller, small market stalls, potters, carpenters, workshops, a goat herd, furniture makers, onion processors, all spread along the road's edge.
We would often stop to buy coconuts, the man, and sometimes a woman, under a small shady structure of sticks and palm leaf thatch with a very sharp machete and the telltale bunches of coconuts. Then holding the coconut in one hand, slicing off its top with the machete so we could drink its milk. Milk gone, then another dangerous process to cut the coconut in two so we could eat its soft and jelly like flesh. The coconut is held in the palm of the hand so the hand becomes the chopping block, this is a skilled task and a dangerous one. A chop misjudged can have serious consequences.
Near each of these small structures and by the roadside there is always a pile of coconut husks, the sign of a successful days business. We stop at one small coconut stall and here the danger of this business is revealed. Machete sharpened too well, coconut softer than expected, the sharp blade slices through the coconut with ease and into hand and fingers of the seller. We stop to patch up his finger, luckily the damage on this occasion is not too bad, and then back on the road again.
I ask one man how many coconuts he sells each day.
“Summer is best, the intense roadside heat makes people thirsty. On a good day I might sell 500 coconuts”.
We think to ourselves doing this work every day, year after year, chop, chop and chop again and again, the odds of losing a finger or two must be very high.
In Sera we are invited into as mall roadside banana plantation, the Puttachari family eager to meet us. Again this is hard work and the returns are small.
Then there are the businesses that use the earth for their making, the brickmakers of Thene on the road from Madurai. This is an ancient tradition, earth, water and fire. The handmade bricks are dried, made into a kiln and fired. The process takes many days. Here we visit Kannan, the owner of this brickworks, and Veermalai, a skilled brickmaker.
The potters too use the road to sell their work, on the road from Trichy (Tiruchirappalli) we meet potters Jeevanandam, Kavitha and Tamil Arasiel. Here they are making clay cooking stoves and pots. The roadside full of earthenware, Tamil Arasiel sits on her white plastic chair in the middle of all she has made.
On a Mamallapuram roadside we find more ancient skills, here the Sthapathi’s are carving stone sculptures of gods and deities. Amidst the clouds of stone dust there is great skill here, sculptures for temples across India and sculptures for export. The sculptors working here must understand the meaning of and how each god or deity is to be represented and each and every work, if it is to be used for meditation and worship, must conform to long held principles of form and content. Many of these sculptures are complex works, today carved in stone using power tools. Here there are many orders to fill and everyone works nonstop.
Here too are the herders with their cattle and goats, onions so important to Indian cuisine, are everywhere. The women sort their onions by the roadside.
In Puducherry we find a flute man walking the road and shore playing his flute and holding a pole, skewered Porcupine like, with flutes of different sizes. He somehow reminds us of Corfu and Gerald Durrell’s rose-beetle man (My family and other animals).
And as the sun fades over the Arabian Sea, so go we on the dusty road once more.
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