Jan 30th

Kaalai VaNakkam (good morning in Tamil)

We began the semester (on Sat, Jan 23) by learning a few very basic words and phrases in Tamil. Vanakkam is hello and when paired with Kalai, it's good morning, and with Malai it's good evening. Nandri is thank you, however, "you're welcome" yet eludes me. Even nandri is not a common expression though I notice that we Americans have a big need to say thank you. When nandri is said for something small, the response can be shy giggles, likely discomfort at being thanked for so small a thing!

Our first weekend was spent in the town of Mamallapuram, or for short, Mahabs, exploring the streets and the stone carvings, some of which had been covered by sand for centuries. It seems that the stories of the incredible soundscape of the village/city are mostly a relic of the past. It used to be that you could stroll through the streets to the pleasant clicking of 100's of carvers working their stone. While there were a few such carvers, many more wielded mechanized cutters, similar to chainsaws, making the stroll through the streets significantly less pleasant. The visual beauty of the carvings, especially the larger than life Buddhas and Ganeshas and the incredibly round-breasted goddesses, made up for this aural disappointment.

I, of course, loved seeing the troop of Bonnet Macaques swarming the carvings and the temple hill, busily engaged in their entire own social world while interfacing with ours. The herds of goats mixed in with the monkeys was also a delight, and really fun to see later climbing around above the dance performance as they settled in for the night.

Finally, we attended an evening’s performance of the Mamallapuram Dance Festival. Aaah, the colors and music and movement! 

Sorry to say that many paragraphs were lost due to technical difficulties, and they have not been re-written due to motivational difficulties.  I will post the accompanying pictures and perhaps at some later point will re-write the stories to accompany them! More likely not--enjoy!