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Mamallapuram
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First, a quick visual recap of my trip so far
Without Geography We're Nowhere |
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I flew into Mumbai, then went almost immediately to Pune, to stay for 10 days... |
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...at the home of Madhu, the father of Amolika, with whom I worked in New Jersey |
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I then trained it to Pushkar, for the camel fair |
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I caught a bus to Jaipur, where I spent a couple of fairly unexciting days |
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Then a couple days in Agra, to see the Taj Mahal |
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And over to Varanasi for nine days on the Ganges |
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After traversing the northern tier of India--Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh--I was anxious to escape to warmer climes
So I boarded a sleeper train for the 36 hour journey from Varanasi to Chennai. Two nights on the train and I was getting restless, though I had some good company in the persons of some Brahmins who are Vedic scholars |
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After disembarking at Chennai I boarded a bus for the two hour jaunt to Mamallapuram
You can see that I'm now solidly in the south of India and I'm warm
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Mamallapuram is a functioning fishing village, with a sizeable tourist area |
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facing the Bay of Bengal |
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Bringing in the direct-drive engines, after bringing in the day's catch |
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mending the nets |
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I stayed there two weeks, and used it as sort of R&R, such as New Year's Eve at Gecko Cafe
India is hard work, and occasional rests are welcome |
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If you had to choose one word to associate with Mamallapuram, it would be stone. Nestled against the town is a small hill profusely strewn with boulders |
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and exposed rock surfaces |
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One of the largest rock faces in this hill has been sculpted into Arjuna's Penance, a massive open-air bas-relief monolith 43 feet high, 96 feet long |
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| Here with a stage set up for their annual dance festival | |
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The cleft between the two portions is said to represent the descent of the Ganges River to earth |
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Check out those elephants, tending their young |
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Arjunas Penance showcases more than 100 figures of gods and flying celestial creatures, birds and animals, along with human beings and saints.
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Not far from Arjuna's Penance is Krishna's Butterball What keeps it there? If my boulder rolling days weren't behind me, I'd go looking for a peevee to dislodge it |
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The hill contains even more structures, known as monolithic architecture--carved out of single pieces of stone
Ganesa Ratha |
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These remind me of Petra, in Jordan (see my Jordan/Syria blog) |
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Ramanuja Mantaram
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| In addition to open-air canvases and monolithic architecture, Mamallapuram's love affair with stone involves over 200 sculptors working in the area |
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They receive commissions from around the world |
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Arjuna's Penance also provided the dramatic backdrop for Mamallapuram's annual festival of folk and classical dance I attended three evenings |
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One of the best was Uma Ramesh, who performed Bharatanatyam, a classical dance with very expressive gestures--something typical of Indians
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