India et. al. - Dec 2010 to March 2011



Perhaps...  a little late in getting to you!

December 31/10... to the end of my stay in India 2011

Somewhere around Dec. 21st the rains stopped.  Since then it has been breezy, bright and very pleasant.  Things have shifted gears.  The heavy work has started in the village… it stuns me.  I watch the brickyard in the fields on the west side of the house; and the equal sized open area on the east side the house, where there is heavy bush that has been cut with machetes.  There has been non-stop brutal (10 hr. days), heavy labour by both men and women, with more women on the job than men for close to 10 days.  The stamina is incredible.

It is hard to watch. It is hard to write about it. It is back breaking work.  They could be prisoner work gangs doing hard labour.  Yet, I know the people are eager for the work.  You can tell they have pride.  They come dressed in clean clothes every day.  Often young children come with their mothers.  Very seldom do I hear tears; and when they happen they are quickly quelled.  It is amazing how the children find things to occupy themselves... no toys.  I watched a woman today who was wearing a hot pink Punjabi outfit.  She wears the neck scarf too, using it to wipe sweat from her brow and nose, as well as to protect her head from the hot sun.  How it is not an annoyance I do not know, given it is hanging forward as she bends to her work. (I think she makes a subtle tuck in here or there?)   An amazing juxtaposition to see such graceful clothing and such brutal work:  India is always a paradox.  I have decided that the construction work I have watched at the house across the road is easier on the workers, most of the time.  For them there is a lot of lifting and carrying, but not a perpetual squat, working in mud; or a constant hacking and hauling.  The constant bending, and the hours of repetitive action must take an incredible toll.

So, the brickyard!  There are 4 open air kilns and on one side of each of the kilns are it’s ‘drying fields’.  Each field is about 20 brick lengths wide and 2000 brick widths long with about 5 major fields to each kiln.  To begin this gargantuan task, each field which had been turned to muck and begun to grow grass (all the bricks lost during the very long rainy season), had to be cleaned with a flat 10 inch edged, short handled scoop; then from truck loads of dirt to the west of the yards, more scooping of dirt into wheel barrows.  This dirt is brought closer to the fields and dumped, so bricks can be made on the spot and laid out on the field.  Water is brought from a nearby creek in a water container usually carried by a woman on her hip.  If a field is too far from the creek, a great hole is created in the nearest mountain of dirt; and a large hose and pump is set up to pull the water from the creek to the dirt hole to make a small lake… then she carries it to her mud pile.  Strange to see the use of the more sophisticated pump, along side the very primitive work style. (Must be a generator too… no plugs!)  

Essentially, the technology required is minimal:  dirt; water; and a loaf pan.  A man squats, fills the pan with mud and lays it out with a quick shake of the wrist.  In this squatting position he works until he is out of mud.  His creation, in the true sense of the word, is impeccable! straight lines of row upon row of wet brick.  The man usually works with a woman (also squatting), who is making the mud: a constancy of motion hour in and hour out.   Imagine the rhythm:  The sprinkling of water into dirt; the hands kneading the mud (the consistency has to be right, of course, or it won’t form properly); the pulling of dry dirt into the wet; repeating the process over and over; as the man to her left dips into the mud with his right hand filling the loaf pan in his left.  Their breaks come when more dirt or water is needed. There is also the 2 hr lunch break and nap... thank god. People arrive in the brickyard as early as 3:30 am; and leave at dark, about 6 pm.

With this breeze and strong sun it only seems to take a day to harden the brick so it is strong enough to move. There are already tremendous walls of stacked bricks beside each of the 5 fields by each kiln.  Day by day the walls get taller and wider: 4ft X 2ft at this point, in the field nearest to me.  They are stacked so there is an opening of 1 brick above each layer of 4??  The stacks are columns first, with spacing so that other columns can be added between them, after another 24 hrs.  This process helps insure all bricks dry fully.  How many bricks?  I cannot bear to count, even to estimate.  It is overwhelming.  I can only hope that this is so tedious to read, that the sense of tedious comes through. I can find nothing to illustrate the impact of watching this backbreaking work...  the constant hearing and seeing of it hour after hour, day after day.  The reading takes just a measly tedious minute, not a momentous tedious 10+ hours/day, 7 days/ weeks... perhaps months??

I haven’t even attempted a detailed description of constructing a kiln... when finished the kilns are at least 15 feet high.  The base is a 20 foot square permanent perimeter of brick arches; this ‘basement’ is stuffed with logs.  After the readying of the basement, comes the layering of bricks.  Each new brick is laid by hand, one at a time, on the layer before.  The layers are stacked with great skill allowing spaces for more firewood about every dozen layers so the fire from the bottom floor can gradually reach up to light the wood laid throughout the kiln.  After a full day of approximately 10 people building the kiln, somewhere around the 4ft level, stairs are constructed so the women with pans on their heads, can walk up the outside of the kiln and hand over about 10 bricks/woman for the men to place.  The whole kiln is then painted with mud. Next day when all is dry, the fires are lit in the bottom arches of the huge stack.  It takes 3 days of fire and smoke to bake the bricks.

This tedium is to my left, then there is the tedium to my right. You see! How can I go on to describe the brush cutting with machetes:  Men trimming the major branches; women hacking at the base of the two to five inch thick stocks (five plus stocks to a bush??).  I have been listening to that hacking for 10 days.  The fields are almost bare... strewn with the excess dried twigs (a fire hazard for sure, but safety is never an issue in India).  All the stocks have been cut into approximately 4 ft. lengths, then stacked into small bundles that can be carried on the head.  The stacks are gone at the end of every day (too valuable to be allowed to lay over night and possibly get stolen).  Where have they gone?  Sold to the firewood supplier, or to the furniture maker to be used for heating or maybe furniture making?  I have said there are stacks of dirt to the west of the brickfields; there are also great stacks of 5 different widths of ‘branches’ to the east of the fields.  The wood to fire the kilns seemed to suddenly appear… from these wood makers across the way? I had not noticed these new stacks until the last few days… no doubt arriving in the very early morning when I slept. What to say?  It is all too much.

I have made arrangements for my rickshaw driver to come at 4 pm.  His brother/cousin (families use the words interchangeably) is gathering information for me regarding the 5 star hotels in Pondicherry.  I have decided I need a rest:  Partly because I have been ill off and on over several months; partly because I need some solid protein; partly because I cannot watch this any longer.  This trip to India was to strengthen my meditation practice; it is turning into something else.  It has all been very hard. I have decided I won`t be coming back (must admit this was even a thought in early October).

I have been so enchanted with the medieval aspect of India.  Though we have the vestiges of the tribal, we do not have a hint of the medieval village in Western Canada.  It has all been a very new experience; yet somehow, deeply familiar.  I now find it incredibly distressing to bump into it, even in Europe.  Village life is organized, I could say civilized with still being real... human and earthy.  But there is such harshness, a ‘living violence’ in a way.  Why is this violence such a shock this year?  What is different?  Seeing the violence is not new. Yes.  I find myself in a strange state:  Finding I cannot stand the medieval village life; to meditate; or be near an ashram... close attendance being a vast disappointment.  So I choose a 5 star hotel, with swimming pool!!  So! not my choice over the past 10 years.  No logic.   I must need a rest!   OR ...

“Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries which we long for, occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be.” ~ Marcel Proust

March 7, 2011 ... writing from Andrea’s home in Alabama

Seven days at The Mango Hill Resort near Pondicherry turned out to be perfect:  French owned… charming; French guests… elegant; French food… yummy.  So beautifully relaxing, swimming in a beautiful pool every day; listening to the surf in the Bay of Bengal every night. To make it even better I had a friend from Canada turn up. My dear friend, Heather, from Courtenay was staying nearby at a yoga retreat center and loved coming over to the resort for a swim during her mid-day breaks.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to return to ‘the village’, but after the 5th day of resort life, all was well.  I came back to Tiruvannamali ready to trot, literally:  walks around the mountain; private yoga lessons; serendipitous meetings with ‘teachers’, old and new; dinner out with friends, old and new... much laughter.  Meditation is finished.  Good lord! who would have guessed.  Of course there is more to the story than the day to day:  psychological and spiritual shifts abound.  I would say there is a new beginning.  There is that old Zen saying, “At the beginning of the path one sees ‘the mountain’; then one sees ‘no mountain’; then one sees ‘the mountain’.”  Yes! ‘the mountain’.  How wonderful.

Arrived in London February 10th; off to Copenhagen with Caroline the evening of February 11th... a great visit with my friend Anne (Denmark was very impressive); and then back to London the evening of February 14th.   Caroline and I trooped around London for 10 days:  some fun time with Erin & Elliot; the ‘tube’ is great; the food very good; shopping overwhelming; a boat trip up the Thames and a walk over Hampstead Heath both a delight.  Must admit it was damn cold... burrrr.  Now I get to spend a month experiencing a beautiful, gentle spring in Alabama with Andrea/Seale/Zoey... plus 5 cats; dog, Scruffy; and horses, Katy and Randy.  Many days in the 70’s, thank god.  Will be back home March 25th

Hey!  A good thing I cancelled my trip to Egypt at the end of December. Don’t you think? It was planned for the 10th of February.  What WAS the motivation for that decision... tired of the 3rd world? premonition?  Matters not.  I got a refund! which took a great deal of effort on the part of my travel consultant and would have been impossible if I had left it to that first week in February, after the trouble in Egypt had broken out.  All in all a difficult but, as it turns out, a good winter.  On the other hand, there is no sense planning a trip for Zoey to visit Egypt next winter.  So be it!  ``The best laid plans....``.

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