This morning I woke up after a solid nights sleep and started packing up. After a few days of getting myself recharged on good food and quiet surroundings, I find myself wanting to get back out and experience the rush of life over here again.
I walked down to the waterfront and thought to myself, 'I've been here long enough. Surely I should be able to handle eating food from a street hawker.' So, I wandered along and as I passed one particularly busy hawker stall, a number of the customers seemed to notice my lingering gaze and looked up at me in interest. One of them, a young man who looked to be in his twenties, called out, "My friend, come. My friend.!" He pulled out a stool next to him and gestured for me to sit down.
So I sat down and had the "I'll have what he's having" plate. It turned out to be a tasty fish curry served with a couple of dosai. The price for the meal was less than half of what I've been paying for other meals in this, the tourist enclave of the town. As I ate, I thought to myself, 'Boy, I've been missing out. Why didn't I try this sooner?!'
My answer came as I was walking back to my guesthouse and started to feel the first sharp stabbing pains in my stomach.
Wonderful timing. Just as I'm getting ready to leave and I get my first case of...something. As I had not yet checked out, I lay down on my bed hoping the pain would go away. It didn't. I started to toy with the idea of staying another night. But my stubborness won out over my good sense. Check out time came so I checked out. But I still wasn't in any shape to move. So I sat in a chair to try to wait out the pain.
Meanwhile, a major cricket match between India and Australia was playing out on the TV. From my seat, I could also see out the front door to the old parade ground where school boys in blue slacks and short sleeve light blue collared shirts were scatttered about playing there own games of cricket. Drooling from the pain of indigestion, I sat and occupied my mind trying to figue out the rules governing this sport which so enthralls the male populations of India and Pakistan.
I never did figure out the rules for cricket, but for some reason, the pain eventually passed (without even a trip to the WC!). I grabbed my bags and (ignoring the advice of one of the people running the guest house to use a moto and make reservations for the bus leaving from the island) set off to catch the ferry for Ernakulum.
As I stood waiting for the ferry, somebody put his hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Ananda (Surya), a local poet and environmental activist, whom I had met the previous day when I wandered randomly into his wife's art gallery. When we met, he had noticed the copy of "Globalization and Its Discontents" I was carrying and had asked me about my thoughts on globalization. Just as our conversation was starting though, he had to run off to take care of some other business.
"I guess there must be a reason for us meeting again," I said without thinking.
"I agree," Ananda replied. He was there with his sister who had just returned on a flight from Germany earlier in the morning.
"We were not able to complete our meeting properly yesterday, so now we have our chance," said Ananda as we hopped onto the ferry.
On the ferry, Ananda had me pull out my guidebook. Turning to the section on Tiruvannamalai he said, "Here is where I live. This is my address and contact information. When you get the chance, you should come visit me so that we can perhaps deepen our relationship. And Tiruvannamali is a very spiritual place...even by Indian standards."
Oops. Out of time. More later.
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