We visited the Chettinad – the next stop on our adventure – fourteen years ago but we wanted to revisit it. It’s an area full of villages settled by the Chettiars who built the most enormous mansions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century – we’ll write more about this tomorrow.
But most of today’s focus is the people we encountered on our trip up here which was pretty speedy on excellent roads and the market we went to this afternoon. We should explain that, in India, when I ask permission, people are delighted to have their pictures taken. Often I don’t have to ask because they just come up to me and gesture, asking only in return that I show them the result on the back of my camera. This is the antithesis of Japan where it doesn’t seem polite even to ask permission.
So, for example, we saw some guys beside the road piling the rice they had harvested into bags to be weighed. We stopped to see what they were doing and, when I gestured with my camera, they were delighted and obligingly modelled what they were doing:
When we stopped for a cup of delicious masala chai to break the journey. Sue and I were snapping each other and the woman working in the cafe insisted that I take her picture as well:
We were whisked off to a market at 2.00 this afternoon by our local guide – he didn’t want us to miss it as it is only once a week. And it was wonderful if rather hot. Everyone was so welcoming and pleased (proud even) to be photographed with their beautiful produce:
We chose this woman as having the best display in the market – or at least the neatest:
The market was absolutely immaculate with the smell of fresh vegetables and nothing else, but the usual opportunistic cows wondered around looking for food. The stall holders were having none of it, some armed with water bottles to chase them away and others with big sticks:
There wasn’t any meat but there were live chickens:
As for the vegetables – well, enough variety to keep one going for a long time!
We leave you with a funny story. We also went to a temple with terracotta horses today (we’ll explain about them tomorrow). Our guide couldn’t come in to the area because, he said, his sister had given birth to a baby girl recently and he therefore couldn’t visit the temple for a month.
Once we’d entered the area, we wanted to get closer to the horses to get a good shot. A woman called out to us to say that we couldn’t go further – ladies weren’t allowed.
When we told our guide, he realised what had happened: turns out that she assumed that we were of child-bearing age (clearly she was rather short sighted), though why they aren’t allowed was another mystery. But how flattering to be thought so young!
I feel very envious of people having access to such markets and such a variety of fresh vegetables and fish. I love looking at all the colourful clothes, jolly faces, not to mention the sensation of sunshine and heat!!
Completely agree – the vegetables look so good and you know they’d taste delicious – there was nothing in the market that I wouldn’t happily have put in my basket ( well, maybe not the chickens and I don’t know what to do with dried fish).
The very definition of silver linings
Yes, indeed – without even the black cloud?
I loved chettinad. The food was great too. We had a cookery lesson but I’ve forgotten all of it now. I think Indians not only (by and large) love having their photos taken but somehow know instinctively how to pose or how they want themselves portrayed.
Not sure what happened. – I thought I replied but it turned into a comment and I lost it. Anyway was saying that I loved chettinad. We had a cookery lesson cos the food is very different but forgotten it now. Also I think not only do Indians by and large love their photos taken being taken but they instinctively know how to pose to show themselves as they want to be seen. Loved the horse temple too. You have no idea how great it is to hear birds in the background. There are virtually no birds in most of Laos.
Sadly we missed the cookery lesson – had misremembered the time. Too late now! The food is fantastic and as you say, quite differently spiced and quite delicious. I love it that Indians are such confident subjects when a camera is pointed at them – they sort of draw themselves up somehow ( the men bagging up the rice were naturals). And the birds? We noticed the same thing in Vietnam – no birds. We had the slightly sinking feeling they might all have been eaten during some period of hunger and hardship…
Still are being eaten. Fried birds on a menu in a road side restaurant just yesterday. Also the bombing didn’t do much for them.
Oh dear god – what a miserable thought! We’ll definitely include any birdsong we can find in a future post for you!
What wonderful photos… the colours!
When the sun shines ( I say this because it was grey and drizzly today) it’s like being in a full on Hollywood technicolour movie – blue sky, reds and yellows everywher
Thinks ‘I’m never wearing grey ever ever again!’ But I probably am – those glorious Indian colours don’t look as good on pale skin. Too late for child-bearing (and not nearly enough attention to the lingam) but you both look young and lovely. And such alert, open-hearted travellers.
I don’t know why you’ve become anonymous either but I recognised the style and knew it was you! You’re right of course about the colours though M has been trying to ease me away from my tendency to grey or v pale blue. I say nothing about our ( decades long) failure to give full attention to the lingam…
Don’t know why I’ve gone incognito. R.
See above! M, I think, was changing something on the site – I too was anonymous for a while – feel ok now.
Such fresh vegetables – bursting with goodness. I remember the rows of chubby horses, all sharing a good joke.
I noticed two small painted elephants snuggled between the horses and some horses that seemed to be transitioning to cows ( maybe that was the joke?).
What fantastic pictures – really show off Miriam’s skills as a people photographer (as further evidenced by the pic, the other day, of two sadhus back-to back, wielding mobile phones). How odd that the temple sees women who menstruate as being unclean – not unheard of in other religions, of course, but unusual in India which generally reveres fertility.
Yes, it’s a mystery. I was confused that our guide couldn’t go in because his sister had just had a baby. Altogether puzzling – and why horses? What’s going on? Answers please to Bewildered of the Chettinads.