About 30 years ago, I participated in a six-month study program at the University of Mysore in South India. There were about a dozen of us from colleges all over the country. None of us had been to India before and we were quite overwhelmed by everything there.
My first glimpse of India has remained etched in my mind and I can recall it as if it were yesterday. We were coming in for a landing at Delhi and I was glued to the window. Below, at fairly close quarters, I saw a man plowing a field with a camel pulling the plow.
Initially, we stayed in New Delhi for about a week. We occupied six rooms at the local YMCA hotel near Connaught Circle. Only three of them were air-conditioned. As we landed in mid-summer, during the hottest part of the year, we drew straws. I drew a short one; hence, no A/C. This turned out to be good for the looser group as half our team developed a severe case of the sniffles. Neither were we spared entirely. We too would suffer digestive problems.
After a few days of sight-seeing in Delhi and Agra, we set off for Mysore by train. If I remember correctly, we didn’t do it all in one shot. I remember overnighting in Pune. Mysore University was sprawling. We were enrolled in a number of classes including one that was supposed to teach us Kannada, the local language. I’m afraid, our professors did not see much promise in us.
After a couple of weeks, our chaperone announced that we no longer needed to attend classes. We could return home if we wanted – or, we could stay. Nobody wanted to go home. Instead, we decided to travel. Everyone had a different idea about where they wanted to go. We decided to break up into small groups and hit the road to various destinations, always returning to base. Eventually these would evolve into regular odysseys of indefinite duration.
One of my very first ventures was to find Kanyakumari at the tip of India where three oceans meet. A friend and I took a bus and headed south. It took days and days. I remember sitting at the window cursing myself for not having attended to my vision. At one point, the bus stopped and someone pointed out a group of wild elephants crossing a ridge. I could barely make them out.
Eventually we would reach our destination. It looked a place as any other – somewhat isolated and remote. The sea was beautiful to look at.
Thirty years later, my wife and I were visiting Trivandrum – her birth place – and from there it was just another hop-skip-and-a-jump to Kanyakumari (on the map). We decided to go for it. I became concerned when this involved crossing back into Tamil Nadu where we were stopped at the border. I had forgotten to bring my passport. It turned out not to be a problem.
When we finally reached there, I found it was nothing like I remembered it, which was in some ways understandable. A lot can change in thirty years. Mahabalipuram (just south of Chennai) in Tamil Nadu had completely changed, even to the point of being unrecognizable. But there was something else: On two rocky islets just off the shore, southeast of the Kumari Amman Temple, are the Vivekananda Rock Memorial (built in 1970) and the gigantic 133 ft. tall statue of Tamil saint-poet, Thiruvalluvar. I do not remember seeing either of these on my first visit. Neither did I remember seeing islands of any kind.
The mystery remains: Where had we been when my friend and I thought we were there back in ‘72?
Peter Koelliker; pkoelliker8@yahoo.com
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