YERCAUD and OOTYCAMUND 
Nov. 19th – Dec. 2nd

Taxi to Yercaud

Yercaud and S. H. Y.

Taxi to Ootycamund

Ooty and the Good Shepherd School

Train to Conoor

The day after our return from Mysore, we had had a frank discussion with Mr. Mahesh, the Travel Manager at the St. John’s Hotel. Pat asked him if he had ever stayed at the Maharashree Hotel in Mysore and he had to admit that the establishment was known to him only by name. I suggested that he was not, therefore, in a position to claim, as he had done, that the hotel was the “same standard” as St. John’s etc etc – after all of which haranguing, he apologised (quite a rare occurrence from anyone in the service industry) and agreed to knock Rp400 off the amount due. More to the point, this put me in a strong position when it came to bargaining for a car and driver to take us on to our next destination. The drive to Mysore had been our first lengthy ride in the back of an Ambassador and we had found the seats uncomfortably firm. Mr.Mahesh suggested that he should book for us an air-conditioned Contessa (based on a Vauxhall model from the 70s). He even arranged for me to sit in the car on the following day to satisfy myself as to the level of comfort.

Thus it was that, at 10.30am on 19^th November, the car duly arrived and our driver, Ashok, presented himself to us in the hotel lobby. His podgy yet young face beneath a head of thinning hair reminded us very much of Santosh, our contact in Kathmandu. He was equally full of smiles as he relieved me of Rp350 “for the permit to travel across the border from Karnataka into Tamil Nadu”. Mr Mahesh had mentioned nothing about this when I had paid him and I was not sure how a Karnatakan car would be identified once across the border – and I could not imagine that there would be a border post. However… Sister Christine had arrived (to collect the exam results) and so she was at the door to wave us on our way. We had only just passed Cubbon Park and were heading down MG Road when Ashok turned and called over his shoulder “My wife is coming with us – with your permission, sir”. He was not to know that we had half expected some such request so, in case he received an unfavourable reply, he added “It is her birthday!” Since our No.3 (large) suitcase had been placed on the front passenger seat, Pat’s question – “Where will she sit?” – seemed a fair one. With the ubiquitous wave of the hand and slow shake of head, Ashok said, “Oh, we put the case here” indicating the gap between the seats over the handbrake. This was obviously not going to work but we were equally certainly not going to say “Sorry, your wife cannot come” especially as he had to make the five hour return journey once he had deposited us at Yercaud. His wife worked at the Neurology Hospital and before long we were parked in the very pleasant and spacious hospital grounds while our driver went in search of his wife.

The hospital environs were such that it could have been placed anywhere in England – lawns, trees and bushes (albeit poorly attended), groups of patients and relatives sitting on park benches. A young woman with one leg in a calliper and using a crutch emerged and, placing the crutch along its frame, mounted an especially adapted three-wheel scooter. Despite the slightly grimy appearance in terms of paintwork, we presumed that this institution was at the top end of the market. While we waited for Ashok and wife, I reorganized the boot making room for the third suitcase and placing our flight bag between us on the back seat. In the event, this was a clever move because we later discovered that the suspension on the Contessa was very springy, that the seats, though soft, were quite low and therefore the improvised arm rest was a decided asset in avoiding too much rolling on corners and a useful lever to prop ourselves up when casting our eyes over the scenery.

Mrs. Ashok (we were not told her name) looked older than her husband – greying temples and poor skin – and wore a good deal of jewellery including nose and ear rings plus a bright red sari, all indications, no doubt, as to her caste. She smiled broadly at us and was clearly looking forward to her day off from her work as an “attendant” at the hospital, especially as her birthday treat was to be a day out to Yercaud with her husband – at Trinity’s expense!

We eventually left Bangalore at 11am on the Hosur road – I had the road map on my lap and could confirm that this was indeed the correct route. The traffic was its own usual mayhem particularly at junctions that were invariably blocked. At one point, a large decorated truck was reversing across the road and in the scramble to get past, the traffic had formed four lanes which alternated in terms of direction with two wheelers filling any spare few feet of tarmac that appeared in the process. It was all mind-bogglingly stupid but nobody seemed to mind that it took at least five minutes to sort out. The slow pace gave us a chance to take in the features of the area – we were in the land of granite and marble depots and showrooms. We counted over two dozen such establishments over a mile or so, all with large hoardings declaring Marble Palace, Nadu Granite Incorporated, Marble Halls, Lakshmi Marble etc., all with enormous shards of their wares stacked in yards beside an office or showroom. Gradually the road widened and we moved more easily. A thirty-foot high bright green statue of the monkey god Hunuman caught our eye. This had been erected directly opposite a new set of luxury apartments. Called The Acroplis (sic), the estate was on a vast scale, three huge blocks of six storeys with an imposing entrance through ornamental security gates. The complex looked more like a new Taj group hotel and reflected the money that was flowing in Bangalore – India’s version of Silicon Valley.

For the next twenty miles the road became, mercifully, a two-lane dual carriageway. The advantage of not having psychopathic bus drivers hurtling behind us, air horns blasting, as per our Mysore trip, was partly counteracted by the speed the well-surfaced road allowed Ashok to travel. With inside over-taking a well-honed manoeuvre, the slalom round old Ambassadors and auto-rickshaws (all of whom seemed to prefer hugging the outside lane) was nerve-wracking. We were passing between light industrial sites where, again, the growth of the area was indicated by the large number of new buildings under construction or recently completed – car showrooms seemed predominant. Many of these bamboo-scaffolded sites were adorned with “scarecrows”, god-like effigies which the largely Tamil workers believed would ward off malpracticing spirits ensuring that the building, when completed, would become – the favourite term – auspicious. At all times, the cement advertisements vied for prominence with those for “Sunshine Coffee” and “Very, very, very, very Tasty Biscuits”. A variation on one of the Zuari Cement adverts showed a large, smiling Sikh looking adoringly at his trowel – the romance of cement-mixing and brick-laying.

Hosur, in common with most small Indian towns, had no proper road surface but the odd piles of hard-core and granite chippings indicated that plans were, literally, afoot. Ironically, the only surfaces properly maintained were the enormous speed retarders that, of course, were totally unnecessary given the traffic congestion. Perhaps, I surmised, they were built first and the road level would be built up to them since they were very steep-sided. As we banged and jolted our way out of the town, the sealed surface returned and the road began undulating through pleasantly wooded areas. Ashok’s driving continued to interest, amuse and terrify us in turn. While on the dual carriageways, he followed everyone else in completely ignoring the stop signs at cross roads. Traffic joining from left or right had to run the gauntlet of pulling out in front of approaching traffic (the customary manoeuvre) but with the added hazard of having to judge the speed of cars approaching on a straight piece of carriageway. Presumably, this was why the Stop signs were on the “main” road not, as would be logical to us, on the side road. Once the single carriageway roads became the norm, we could concentrate our concerns on Ashok’s positioning and his overtaking procedures. Indian drivers do not seem to have grasped the concept of dropping down a gear in order to overtake as quickly as possible and return to the left-hand side of the road. Therefore, overtaking was often quite a lengthy process and was often not completed before a bend – often we were glad that the road was wide enough for an improvised third lane. On long, straight, empty stretches (there were some), Ashok would often decide that the right hand side of the road had fewer pot-holes and there, to make our ride more comfortable, would zoom down that side. Inevitably, an approaching lorry would appear and, on one occasion, the vehicle behind that lorry, seeing an empty road ahead, began to overtake only to be taken by surprise when Ashok weaved back into the left lane.

As we approached and passed Krishnagiri, the landscape became dotted with isolated, bouldered hills – rocky outcrops similar to those we had seen on the Chennai to Vellore road. It was at this point that I suggested we might stop when convenient “to stretch our legs” and for some lunch. Ashok seemed surprised that after only two hours we would want to break the journey and seemed a little taken aback when I commented that it was “a little bumpy in the back”. But he just grinned and said “OK, you want tiffin, OK!” Using the old Raj terminology always seemed to amuse. The town of Kaveripattinam lay at the southern end of a quarter-mile-long bridge over the river Ponnaiyar and it was in the main street that we stopped. “Ten minutes” I said, in true Indian style knowing that the phrase meant very little in real time, and we re-traced our route back to the bridge. The latter was being renovated and there was a team of painters dealing with the metal railings. Their technique with the brushes was hardly skilful and a great deal of the silver paint was finding its way on to the floor, traffic, passers-by and, most noticeably, the bare legs of the painters – one man wearing a pale green lunghi was beginning to resemble a Christmas tree.

The bridge gave us a wonderful vantage point to observe Indian rural life. The river was wide, not full and thus many flat rocks were above the water line. A fair proportion of these were used as dhobi areas and there was much female pounding and slapping of clothes – the patterns of coloured saris and shirts laid out to dry provided photogenic mosaics amongst the brown of the rocks and the water. Individual men were bathing with large bars of soap in hand; one, naked except for a loin-cloth, was pummelling a stone against a boulder and, with his index finger, rubbing the resulting grit across his teeth. Another was, unusually, doing his own washing while his companion just sat in the water, his large brown belly ballooning above the water’s surface. Not far away, two bullocks were being driven, stumbling, into the river, the wheels of their cart disappearing alarmingly, first one side then the other, their driver balancing dexterously on the seat in the manner of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. Once in the main stream, the driver leaped out and, with a large pan, began dredging up the silt from the riverbed, depositing it in the cart. On the bank nearby, a man with his back to us was sublimely defecating. His apparent reverie was broken by a large black pig that wandered across, snout poised, to investigate the man’s bottom. This part of the bank was obviously the local latrine as, while we were there, several men stopped by to urinate before continuing on their way by foot or bicycle. The whole scene was Breughlesque in terms of activity, movement and colour and was a wonderful illustration of the importance of water in Indian rural life.

When we returned to the car, Ashok and his wife presented us with bananas, chocolate and Coke. I remembered saying that we would want to buy some fruit and chocolate as a means of explaining why we wanted to stop and we could only suppose that this was their way of thanking us for allowing Mrs. A. to accompany us. There was much smiling and thanking and so we sipped our Coke (neither of us can stomach the stuff) and we ate our lunch of Cadbury’s Crunch and bananas as we lurched our way out of town.

In a couple of the villages on the next stage of the journey we saw rope-making, with women and girls turning handles on Heath Robinson (but obviously efficient) contraptions some twenty feet long. The completed rope coils were neatly stacked at intervals along about a mile of roadside. As we weaved past broken-down lorries and parked buses (again, as in Tamil Nadu, marked out by large stones placed in the road as “cones”), we noticed brick-making kilns as well as spinning mills and we also noted that Ashok was now driving a little more circumspectly – perhaps my comment about the comfort level for us in the rear seat had been noted. Adding to the hazard of the occasional stray cows or goats on the road, we now noticed quite a few monkeys who responded with great alacrity to the sound of the car horn, disappearing niftily up the nearest tree or over a wall.

Now the Chittern Hills were appearing on our left and it was frustrating to see a road signposted off to Kadyampatti which seemed on my map to lead directly to Yercaud while Ashok determinedly remained on the main road into Salem which therefore meant that we would have to double back on ourselves to reach our destination. The spurned road was marked as “regional” and perhaps there was a good reason for eschewing it. Ashok’s English was not very fluent and knowing the Indian’s disuse of cartographical aids, I felt obliged to maintain silence. We followed several railway lines, criss-crossing by overbridges and once by a level-crossing manned by an elderly gentleman in a small sentry box – no railway uniform for him, just the traditional lunghi and shirt. The traffic built up as we approached the industrial city of Salem and we encountered some Mysore-type bus driving with one particular (late?) driver bearing down on all and sundry, blasting his horn as he carved a way through the traffic.

“Salem – Steel City” proclaimed the signs which, coming from Sheffield, gave us a feeling of home. It was apt that steel was produced here as, like Sheffield, Salem was surrounded on all sides by uplands – working from the north clockwise were the Nagarmalai, Godumalai, Jeragamalai and Kanjanamalai ranges. Confusingly, we later discovered that Salem was also known as Mango City and additionally diversified into the production of sago, the mining of bauxite as well as lorry-body building and handloom weaving. By now, we were some 20km south of Yercaud and my sense of direction told me that Ashok should have turned left on entering the city. Finding ourselves plumb in the centre, he began asking the way but after several noisy verbal exchanges with various Salemites, it was not difficult to ascertain that we were still rudderless. As it was still only 3.30 in the afternoon, we were not concerned and quite enjoyed taking in what there was to see of the city. We noticed many shopping malls and plazas alongside quite wide dual carriageways; the many glass-fronted air-conditioned shops were a gauge to the city’s relative affluence.

Eventually, after passing temples, parks and driving through side roads lined with faded but still elegant nineteenth century, brightly shuttered villas, we found a signpost announcing “Yercaud 24km”. Ashok’s relief was measured by the extra weight on the accelerator and we began a quick ascent through the wooded hills. The road was reminiscent of that between Bagdogra and Darjeeling except that it was wider and less steep. This meant that there were many more hairpin bends (I counted over twenty). The technique on left-hand hairpins took some getting used to – Ashok took the right hand side of the road and allowed descending vehicles to pass inside us. As the plain appeared below us, we could see hundreds of acres of bauxite mining scarring the amphitheatre surrounding Salem. Before long, however, as we rose, the weather worsened and clouds closed in restricting the longer views. There was plenty to observe close to hand though, with slender waterfalls crashing out of the mists down the sheer cliffs and tribes of red-faced monkeys sitting on the low walls that edged the road. There were literally hundreds of the little creatures, many just sitting as if traffic-watching. Some were in family groups, others in pairs, grooming, some sitting solo but all eyes moved along as the car swept by. “Ooh, there’s a Contessa, haven’t seen many of those today – tourists too, pity they didn’t stop for a picnic.” The erratic positioning of over-laden descending lorries and over-full buses were as much a threat to our safety as those ascending, the latter having to be overtaken which Ashok frequently did on corners. Large signs imploring “Time is Precious, Life is More Precious” or “Avoid rash driving” seemed to count for little and, not for the last time, Pat and I wondered why these signs were only in English. The vegetation thinned as we reached the 4,800 foot summit and the thick jungle/wood was replaced by eucalyptus trees and the sight of our first coffee plantations and peanut bushes. Suddenly, we were on a flat road driving beside the Big Lake and began our hunt for the Sterling Holiday Resort. It was now approaching 5pm and I was mindful of the fact that the Ashoks had to turn round, drop back down to Salem and then drive for four or five hours back to Bangalore. I was pleased, therefore, to see that the Resort was well sign-posted and, although some way out of the town, we soon found ourselves outside the hotel.

When in Bangalore, I had contacted the Yercaud TCL Representative, Sister Jennifer at the Sacred Heart Girls School and she had confirmed the hotel booking – I had arranged to ring her once we had checked in. It was with some amazement, therefore, that we learned at Reception that we were being transferred to another hotel as “ a large party was being booked in and your room is needed”. Ashok had by now deposited our luggage (hauling it all up several sets of steps with nobody from the hotel offering to help) and I was certainly not going to ask him to re-pack it all and delay still further his return journey while we found this alternative accommodation. Beside which, I was seeing a mild red at our treatment and wanted to discuss things with someone other than the rather gormless and ineffectual youth who had broken this news to us. We thanked Ashok, gave him a handsome tip, wished him and his lady a safe journey and turned our attention to the hotel staff. My demands to see the Manager produced nothing so I had to argue my case with the hapless adolescent. Why and how, I wanted to know, could a booking, made in August, be cancelled in favour of another party? You must find us a room, I insisted. The young lad was getting more and more confused, now suggesting that the hotel was closed. “But you have just told me a large party has been booked in …” Eventually, I made him ring the Convent and Sister Jennifer said she was on her way. She arrived, with her Principal, to welcome us and to explain that, at 11 that morning (after we had left Bangalore and therefore were not contactable), the elusive-to-me hotel manager had rung to say that the establishment was being closed “for Inspection” (why and by whom we never discovered) and that we had been booked in to the Shevaroys Hotel. She seemed mildly annoyed with the hotel (especially as she had satisfactorily double-checked only the previous evening) but she beamed a lot – she was tall, quite elegant and striking – and my ire, possibly related to tiredness after the long, stressful journey, was placated. She got her driver, John, to load our luggage into the school’s Mihendra people-carrier and drive us all back towards the town and through the promisingly attractive grounds of what a large sign announced was the “Shevaroy Hotel and Institute of Hotel Management”.

While I was having my confrontation with the unfortunate reception clerk at the Sterling Resorts, Pat had been giving the place the once-over and decided that the present establishment, The Shevaroy, if only by dint of being “closer to civilization”, was preferable. In many ways, the place resembled an out-of-season holiday camp in that accommodation was in separate “bungalows” scattered within the grounds and we were later to gather that, in the summer when the heat down on the plain was unbearable, many families would make the trek up at weekends to enjoy the climate, the walks and the amenities of the town (boating lakes etc.) In other words, it was an out-of-season holiday camp! We were shown to a spacious three-room unit and the Sisters settled us in and then left with a promise to pick us up the next morning for an orientation trip. We surveyed our home for the next week. The windows were shuttered and mosquito-meshed. The kitchen/living room had a grubby sofa and armchair, a marble floor, a small white sink in the corner, four 1950s chairs at the table, a fridge and a TV on a trolley. There was also a small coffee table bearing an empty vacuum flask and two glasses. The whole place was cold and damp with, in places, paint peeling from the not-too-clean walls. Carpets and mats in the bedroom were dirty. The bed smelled unpleasant and this was particularly noticeable that night as we wrestled uncomfortably with half-size sheets (made of rough, unbleached cotton) and single blankets which had been overlapped on the double bed. Before that we had sloshed through quite heavy rain to the cavernous, high-ceilinged, empty “canteen”, a hall devoid of any pictures or fittings, for an epicurean experience which gave us plenty of heartache in terms of hygiene – the bare table-tops were not clean, neither were the clothes or jandals of the “waiter” who gave us a fair imitation of neanderthal man and whose personal cleanliness, our noses told us, was also questionable. As we looked ahead to a week of winter in this establishment, we just hoped that we had hit the bottom in terms of hotel standards. We were, as it turned out, correct but, of course, we did not know that at the time. It was with somewhat heavy hearts that, after a poor night’s sleep, we waited next morning some forty-five minutes for Room Service to provide hot water (in the thermos flask) and some toast. Later, we learnt that a previous examiner had expressed displeasure with this hotel and the following year the Sterling Resort had been used for a female colleague who was likewise unhappy as the establishment was so isolated with unfriendly staff and poor food. No solution, seemingly, for the poor Rep!

I am sure that Yercaud could look quite charming in sunshine. But this was winter and so we had to rely on the charm and sunny nature of our companions the next day to set us on our way through what became a week of contrasts. Sister Jennifer brought along Sister Clarissa for our trip around the local environs. Driver John, whose hair was unusually tight and curly, had been associated with the Sacred Heart at Yercaud (hereafter SHY) since boyhood and his father before him had worked for the nuns. It was misty and wet at 10.30am when they picked us up for the drive to the top of Shevaroy Hill. We were able to see many coffee trees mixed in with orange trees which in turn had pepper vines wreathed around their trunks – John stopped and picked us some unripe peppercorns. There was, even at this time of year, an abundance of flowers – poinsettias, white daisies, roses, bougainvillea, hibiscus and bottle brush – among the silver oaks. The clouds snaking across the summit of the hill lent atmosphere to the Hindu temple that had been built into a natural cave, a large eucalyptus guarding the entrance. The cave apparently led to a deep tunnel left unexplored since, according to local legend, a priest attempted to penetrate its darkness and never returned. Nearby was a quarry and a large loaded lorry was on a weighbridge – we could imagine it careering down the hill to Salem.

On the return journey, we stopped at the Sri Roganjeshwari temple which was also the site of the Jyoteshmrti Ashram where joss sticks and incense were manufactured. Unfortunately, the establishment was closed Saturdays but the god of odours must have been on our side because, as we approached the town, we were hailed by a parent of one of Sister Judith’s charges at SHY. Mr. Singh ran the local perfume “factory” and shop, a business started by his father, and he insisted that we visit his establishment to be “shown” some of his “lovely smells”. His shop was in the part of Yercaud known as Ondikdai, which is Tamil for “one shop village”. Needless to say, there were four or five shops at this point. Outside Mr. Singh’s shop was a large “Welcome” hoarding in both English and Tamil advertising wares such as Black Panther Oil “(for sinusties – bronchitet”) and “Clove Oil ie Mouth Washer”. The interior was very cramped and stuffed full of cardboard boxes and assorted paraphernalia, but he quickly cleared a glass-topped table and, with the two Sisters, Pat and myself seated on a low sofa, proceeded to demonstrate his range of perfumes and natural oils. Wearing a flat, peaked cap (which was never removed), a black leather jacket and sporting a full moustache, he looked the epitome of an East London market trader and I could imagine him striking some rather dodgy deals with Del Boy and Rodney. He showed us letters of reference from satisfied clients. These testimonials, like the photos of his “factory” (and of his family plus Alsatian dogs), were housed in a rather tatty plastic wallet. The factory appeared to be on a hillside and consisted of “heated oil container” (one large rusty dustbin) connected by a pipe to a “distillery” (green oil drums) where liquid formed. There was a picture of (a much younger) Mr. Singh kneeling down and siphoning off the oil to be bottled – “all natural substances”. He pressed leaves into our hands that had been taken from the potted plants at the front of the shop – camphor, geranium, rosemary eucalyptus etc. and, from time to time, he   rubbed different potions into our palms or wrists with the claim “very good for …” practically every disease known to man. The shop itself was busy throughout our visit so it seemed that Bhavani Singh’s Perfumery was something of a magnet for Yercaud folk. He pressed us to buy sandalwood, black panther oil and boxed perfumes but we settled for some oil “for all joint pains” and some mosquito mat recharging drops at Rp320.

Some half hour later and smelling quite beautiful, we continued our exploration of Yercaud, walking through a small park and admiring Big Lake (there was, sensibly, a Little Lake elsewhere). This area was obviously rather quiet off-season but a few souls were on the water in pedaloes or small rowing boats. The main street which led up the hill from the lake, consisted of a muddy track lined on each side by open-fronted shops selling mainly fruit and vegetables, sweets and cakes or drinks. Sister Jennifer explained that everything needed for the school was purchased from Salem on Tuesday and Friday shopping trips – nothing was bought locally. We saw one or two other small hotels and the thought came into my mind “if the Shevaroys is the best …” On the end of the morning we reached Sacred Heart School – a large campus with extensive playgrounds dominated by the grey and white church and the cream-walled buildings of the school itself. We did not hear the school song but its reference to “Here upon God’s mountain set, Snug on her green hillside” was most apposite and the views across the valley, though limited because of the mist, would be impressive. Serving the area since 1894, the convent belonged to the order of Cluny Sisters as had the school in Pondicherry and now had some 400 pupils, a large proportion of whom were boarders. Sr. Jennifer took us in to lunch which was served by her helper, Doris, who had worked at the convent school most of her life. We ate alone in a small ante-room (near the music rooms where I would be holding the exams) and enjoyed a delicious meal with a plethora of dishes (the cauliflower in batter was especially tasty as was the apple and cinnamon sponge for dessert). The Sister responsible for this feast was Sister Simon, a trained chef, and she appeared at the end of our meal to accept our thanks – she regularly caters for anything up to 500 people. Sister Bernard also joined us and we enjoyed some “great crack” from this twinkle-eyed Irish lady from County Mayo. Most of her 55 years service had been at the school of which she was Superior in the 1960s. She reminisced about the period before the road up from Salem had been constructed and how the Sisters and their supplies would be carried up “on doolies – a chair on two poles borne by four coolies”.

The afternoon was quite pleasant so, while Sister Jennifer gave some last minute piano lessons, Pat and I strolled around the grounds. A small group of senior girls came up and, with unusual confidence, greeted us – they told me they were taking their music exams and that they were “very nervous”. The younger children were also very confident remembering that caucasians were a rarity in their town. I was even asked to untie a skipping rope, which had become hopelessly tangled and we took photos of the children playing. When Sr. Jennifer rejoined us, we wandered out along the road to the Novitiate House and met up with Sr. Lisa from Pondicherry who was on a fortnight’s retreat. We were so pleased to see her and spent some time wandering round the beautiful garden, admiring the bottle-brush trees, the hibiscus, roses, papaya trees full of pendulous fruit and a very old tree with fungus-like protuberances on its bark which we discovered were figs. Sister Sabina, who was in charge of the seminary, joined us and passed over to Pat a timid kitten (recently chased up a tree by a large Alsatian). Pat was able to ignore the fleas as the little mite snuggled into her chin.

Before we were returned to the hotel, we had to go back up to the school “for tea”. Neither of us could manage to make inroads into the pile of sandwiches and mound of cakes (we tried) so the sisters packed a doggy-bag for our supper. Perhaps Sr. Jennifer knew more about the Shevaroy than she was letting on because, on the way back through the main street, she stopped and bought us bananas and some coconut oil, the latter for use with Mr. Singh’s mosquito drops. As it was still light, we walked around the hotel grounds – full of wonderful plants, shrubs and trees plus, inexplicably, a large group of geese – and then walked back down to Big Lake. Despite the stares, we felt totally safe – in Shillong, we were mindful of the police presence and thus always had the area’s political instability in the back of our minds. But here the environment was quiet and relaxed and we agreed, this being so very different than any of the other centres, that we would enjoy the experience despite the poor hotel. In the shop we bought some savoury biscuits and some chocolate having decided that breakfast over the next few days would be “do-it-yourself”.

It was on the return to our unit, which we discovered had not been serviced, that we first met Prasaad, our (middle-aged) room boy. He responded to my call to Reception and proceeded to make the bed and make a half-hearted attempt at cleaning the bathroom. Prasaad had quite good English but it seemed that when there was a job he either could not or did not want to do, limitations in his grasp of our language became apparent. Hence, that evening he could not provide us with a bathmat nor could he wipe up the water that was flooding the bathroom floor. He was, however, able to sing the praises of the Chinese Restaurant within the hotel but we explained that we had eaten at the Convent and, because the evening was getting cold, were quite glad to turn in early.

Sunday morning was very wet and, after DIY breakfast, we read and wrote until lunch. This took the form of soup and sandwiches that Room Service delivered fifty minutes after Pat’s telephone order. At about this time, we discovered that there was no water in the taps and the toilet was not working and, just after Srs. Jennifer and Lisa arrived (as arranged), Prasaad and three besom-bearing ladies in the brightest of bright saris arrived to clean the room. Prasaad said that he would get the water problem fixed and when he and his entourage had disappeared, Lisa looked through our Pondy photos and we chatted away until about five. The Sisters left before it was dark and it took the next hour, with phone calls and exhortations, to fix the water problem. Prasaad kept insisting that the “service man” would be coming and when he did, it was discovered that, during the cleaning of the room, someone had switched the water off at the stop-cock!

With the rain still falling heavily, we realised that, for dinner, we would have to brave the Shevaroy chefs in one form or another and decided that we would seek out said Chinese Restaurant. In the dark and with only brollys to keep off the rain, we stumbled around until we found a sign and dripped our way inside. At least it was what could be called a restaurant rather than the canteen we experienced on our first night. There were Chinese lanterns, the tables were laid up for dining and, as such, the place was almost welcoming. Only a few of the lights had been switched on (was this “ambience”?) and thus the corners of the room were very dark. During the meal, various people drifted through these shadows, the wind gusted, opening and closing an unsecured window and there were random thumps on the roof that startled us. At this point, Prasaad manifested himself and, indicating their size with his hands, he pointed to the ceiling and grinned: “Cats – jungle cats – jumping on roof”. “That’s alright then.” Neanderthal man was again our waiter. But we had to admit that the fried rice with sweet and sour vegetables was tasty and arrived promptly to order. Perhaps the students at the Catering School were being taught by someone qualified, even if they had not yet reached the lectures on presentation and personal hygiene.

A major leap forward was made at Reception when we discovered that, although hot water bottles were not available, it was possible to hire an electric fire. Armed with this, an extra eiderdown and flask of hot water for bedtime tea, we made our way back to the unit hoping the “jungle cats” were friendly. What could have been a cosy evening was then marred by persistent power cuts caused, no doubt, by the high winds. Pat blamed the jungle cats.

                                     ************

My three days of examining at SHY were very pleasant. The standard of work was high, particularly in the supporting tests (sight reading, scales etc.) which are often neglected in favour of the set pieces. The days passed easily and smoothly. The exam room was spacious with the candidates using the little parlour (where we had had lunch on Saturday) as the waiting room. A door on the far side of the room led to a toilet and “rest room” in which there was a pair of beds complete with mosquito nets, two easy (cane) chairs and a pair of writing desks. Pat joined me each day since the hotel environs were so damp and miserable (like the weather) and she installed herself each day in this “suite” and read, wrote and even started the Christmas cards. It occurred to us that accommodation here would have been much more pleasant than at The Shevaroys but we could understand why the Sisters would not want to undertake the role of hotel management.

The strain of children’s voices from the classrooms singing Silent Night and other carols floated up to Pat as she read and relaxed and she watched the Sisters, some in all-white habits and others wearing saffron saris, flitting to and fro, all pulling shawls or navy cardigans around them against the cold. Groups of bare-foot women carrying baskets of neatly folded and ironed clothes would disappear into the dormitories. She would join me for mid-morning and afternoon breaks, as well as, of course, for the splendid lunches. Sister Simon prepared an enormous meal each day (even on the day when she was in Salem supervising the buying of weekly provisions) and, to make sure there was something that we fancied, she would include everything from soup and salad to chips, parathas, curried vegetables, curd and rice followed by delicious sweets. Her caramel egg custard out-Delia-Smithed anything we had at home. My visit coincided with St. Cecilia’s Day and, at the end of that day, some senior girls who had taken singing exams, came in to take our photo, performing their birthday greeting - “… Happy Saints Day, dear Sir” while presenting me with a beautiful rose from the school garden. One lunchtime, we met Sister Grace, the blood sister of Sister Lisa from Pondy. Sister Grace had brought a group of (very good) candidates up from Salem and she told us how the children “from the plains” found it very cold on the heights of Yercaud but that they always enjoyed their day out. Other pupils were brought to the centre from as far afield as Erode and Coimbattoire, the latter three hours away by car. These teachers were very keen to take photos of their pupils with the examiner – one had a camcorder, which I thought was a sign of the times. Each day we had to take tea (with gorgeous pastries and neat sandwiches) before departing for the hotel.

On our return journeys, we noticed many children trudging home from their various schools, their bare feet incongruous below immaculate school uniforms (often beautifully braided), the girls with orange ribbons in their hair. We passed the huge Montfort Boys School where there were, apparently, many pupils from Thailand – “Very musical, too,” said Sister Jennifer “Such a pity that there is no music teacher there”. We were grateful to the staff at Montfort for passing on an e-mail from our daughter Jo although we never quite discovered how it finished up there instead of at SHY. Sometimes we would stop in the main street to buy bananas for our breakfast. (Although they were having a disastrous effect on any bowel activity, I felt this was preferable to the breakfast served up by the Shevaroys.) On one occasion, we went to the Post Office and were fascinated by the staff working behind the counter clerks. There were three people, each working at desks which were piled high with paper and yet, on the end of the tables were one-bar electric fires – a fire officer’s nightmare. The mail was in elastic-banded piles placed in plastic washing-up bowls.

Prasaad, our room boy, continued to infuriate us with his inconsistency and by his habit of walking in to the unit unannounced even by a tap on the door – we took to locking ourselves in. But one evening we were grateful to him. We returned after dark, to find that he had lit small lamps at each door in celebration of the Hindu festival Karthagi Deepam. This important festival in the Tamil calendar celebrates “the day when the Lord Shiva appeared before Goddess Parvati in the form of light and gave half of his body to her. This is said to have happened in a place now called as (sic) Tiruvannamalai. To symbolise this, a huge lamp is lit atop the hill near Tiruvannamalai Temple in the evening. All devotees of Lord Shiva light lamps at home and offer special pujas. It is believed that lighting lamps at home brings good luck, keeps evil spirits away and are blessed by Goddess Mahalaxmi.” This information came, not from Prasaad, but from Mr. Ravi, the Receptionist after P. had tried but failed to explain the significance of the lamps to us. However, we were able to thank Prasaad for his symbolic good wishes. At this, he launched into a mini autobiography, assuring us that he was a true Hindu, a strong supporter of the Tamil DMK party and proved this by showing us the tattoo on his right forearm of the present Chief Minister, Mr. Karunanidhi (“I love him very much”) and the balancing tattoo of the party’s symbol on his left arm.

Another aspect of Hinduism manifested itself at the Shevaroys. I noticed that the women sweeping the autumnal leaves from the drive were bent over almost double and made no attempt to acknowledge one’s presence passing by. These were people from the lowest caste once known as Untouchables, called Harijan (Children of God) by Gandhi but now known as Dalits. It would only have been a century ago that these people would have been forced to wear a besom or brush of some kind around their waists to trail behind them so that their footmarks in the dust of a village street would be immediately covered up. The alternative was to walk backwards brushing away the offending evidence of their presence. Sometimes they were not even allowed by the other castes to walk through a village at all but would have to circumvent the main roads. With no ownership rights, the Dalits were made to live on the outskirts of villages (denied social contact through the village tea shop) on the poorest land, near the latrines, the cleaning out of which, often by hand, was their main occupation. Many of the Dalits were attracted by the claims of Christian Missionaries working in India and were converted. And yet, when they attended church, they would find a wall down the centre of the building to separate them from the other castes and they would always have to take Communion last as nobody would drink from a cup used by a Dalit. For these Christian converts, worse was to come because, after Independence, the secular Congress government introduced positive discrimination to help in areas of housing and jobs but the Dalits discovered that they did not qualify as they were no longer Hindus therefore no longer had they any caste status – they were in fact dispossessed even of their “lowest of the low” position. This, to me, is the unacceptable face of Hinduism and yet I recognise that the caste structure is the basis of Hindu belief – if the caste system was destroyed, then the Hindu faith itself would disintegrate. These women, silently sweeping the grounds of the hotel, reminded me of how much there is to understand and how much has to be accepted in this country of so many contrasts and contradictions.

The whole of our visit to Yercaud had been one of contrasts. The dingy, damp hotel with its slow, unresponsive service was worlds away from the bright, clean premises and welcoming smiles and pleasantries at the convent school. The town itself was so much quieter and rural in contrast to other places we visited (or were to visit). And thus it was with the weather when, on my last working day, we woke to a sunny, bright blue sky. Sister Jennifer and John picked us up early that morning and took us up to Lady’s Seat, the local beauty spot and viewpoint, where in the company of hordes of monkeys we were able, at last, to appreciate the views down into the valley. It also made us realise that the town was much more of a spread than we had imagined when peering through the rain and mist of the previous days. Sr. Jennifer suggested that there were about 5,000 families in Yercaud – I later found an “official” figure of 36,000 souls – and she told us that there was a sizeable proportion of Sri Lankan (Tamil) refugees in the area. On the end of the day, after making our goodbyes to Srs. Bernard and Mary, we went even further out, beyond the (now closed) Sterling Resort, past yet more jackfruit trees and coffee bushes, to Gentleman’s Seat. Here, the view was limited because we were looking due west into the evening sun but, again, we were able more fully to appreciate the surrounding terrain.

The morning of our departure also broke dry and sunny although the latter could not be applied to Prasaad’s mood when he discovered Pat had inadvertently packed two green plastic hangars that had been in the wardrobe. In their place she had left two rather more substantial white hangars but Prasaad insisted that “they” would “take them out of my wages”. We tried to placate him by pointing out that the white hangars were a suitable replacement (Pat not feeling inclined to unpack a locked suitcase to retrieve the green ones) at which he marched away to Reception to show the offending articles. On his return, he said nothing but proceeded to look in every corner and every drawer in the unit (even under the bed!) looking for what we never discovered. Jennifer and Sr. Jocelyn had come down to see us off and to ensure that Mr. Rajah, the taxi driver/owner had arrived as arranged. I had met Rajah one afternoon at the school when he was collecting his daughter and Sr. J. had explained that she had booked him for our onward trip to Ootycamund. At the time he had made great play on the fact that he himself would be driving and that his assistant/co-driver would drive back. “I must make sure personally that my guests arrive safely” he enthused. I was, therefore, a little surprised at our departure when he climbed into the front passenger seat, leaving Rashekar to drive us away to waves from the sisters, from John and from the now-grinning (Rp100 baksheesh in hand) Prasaad. Our first port of call was Mr. Rajah’s house “so that I can write receipt”. He lived near the Big Lake and so we did not mind the diversion especially as, at last, we saw the lake in sunshine and could appreciate its size. We were not totally surprised when Rajah reappeared with not just a receipt but also another passenger in the shape of Mrs. Rajah, who beamed a lot but said nothing. “I have business today in Salem and she is coming with me” he explained. He asked me to pay in advance “because he” pointing to Rashekar “will need money for fuel” and he promptly handed the lad Rp1,000 from the wad of notes I had given him. It was obvious that Rashekar would be driving for the whole of the six-hour journey to Ooty and then back – so much for “making sure personally my guests arrive safely.”

At last, we moved off down the hill, the roadside full, as on our ascent, of marauding monkeys. When about half of the twenty hairpins had been negotiated, we stopped to take photos of a small temple built into the side of the road. I could not imagine who would come here to make pujah as it seemed a long way from both Yercaud at the top and Salem at the bottom and there were no signs of any houses in the vicinity. Rajah kept up quite a stream of chit-chat – we were beginning to be glad that he would be leaving us at Salem. He checked the name of the hotel we were making for in Ooty (the Holiday Inn) and that we had been provided with some lunch by the sisters. Before he disembarked, we insisted that he made sure Rashekar, who had only a little English, understood that we did not want to travel over 60kph and that we might want to stop to take pictures and, of course, to have our lunch. All of this was conveyed to Rashekar in Tamil – “He will obey your commands, sir” said Rajah.

And he did. It was 11.15 by the time he had filled up in Salem and thereafter I was aware of him watching the speedo and moving his foot off the accelerator to keep to a steady 60kph on the open, well-surfaced road in front of him. Road signs were mostly in Tamil but, with my road map open on my lap, I was able to identify Vennandur where, at each end of the village, there were twenty-foot high warrior gods with masked faces, very much the figures we were beginning to associate with the state of Tamil Nadu. Rashekar probably was bemused by our interest in the Hindu temples and figures. “I Christian, sir, my family Hindu” – the rosary beads and the cameo of the Virgin Mary around the driving mirror had been something of a giveaway. Near Sankaridrug we were able to photograph the coir rope-making we had witnessed on our journey to Yercaud. A little girl, with a captivating face and smile, was turning the handle at the end of a long frame and the bicycle wheel-and-ratchet mechanism twisted the three separate strands, each some thirty feet long. Holding the ends of the strands were three villagers, one of whom was a very old, bare-chested lady. (We saw quite a few of these elderly souls who belong to a particular tribe whose women, until fairly recent times, all sported themselves thus – obviously, in changing times, it is now only the older ladies who retain this traditional mode of undress.) The little girl smiled even more broadly when we took her photograph and handed over a few coins – child labour was obviously not an issue in this village.

As on other road treks, we noticed that every road-facing wall was covered in advertising hoardings, signalling how much the free-market, consumer economy was making inroads into the national psyche – we hoped that Sandkar Cement had paid handsomely for the privilege of brightening someone’s gable end but somehow doubted it. Once again, cement advertisements predominated.

The landscape was now dotted with the same type of rocky hills we had seen before but now much higher. Most had some sort of shrine or temple on the summit – in one place a 100-foot high sign of Vishnu (a white V with a red vertical stripe between) had been painted on the rock face, reminding me of the ancient white horses cut into the chalk downs of my native Wiltshire. By now, we were passing through Bhavani where we were also taken with the dyed yarn being hung out to dry on rows of twenty feet long, five foot high frames. Presumably, each house specialized in certain colours and the mass of blue one side of the road, red the other and, further on, vivid lilac, pale green and orange considerably livened up the landscape. All of this yarn was presumably making for the large processing mills we were soon to pass. It was at Bhavani that we crossed a quarter-mile long bridge across the Cauvery river This was the river we had last seen at the Brindavan Gardens near Mysore and which wound its way into the distance on its way to the Bay of Bengal at Chidabaram.

Our lunch stop was at Perunduvai. We stayed in the car and enjoyed the delicious sandwiches prepared by SHY’s Sister Simon while Rashekar wandered off to find some refreshment of his own. Then, a short walk took us to a temple, outside of which were ten or a dozen rows of statues, mostly horses but also figures of adults and children, some in modern/Western dress, all with their hands in the “greeting” position – namaste. Behind, hanging on poles, were long black spears and sets of bells. Some of the horses had lost their heads and there was a particularly battered, black Ganesh, his head covered in red powder from the pujahs. As we took our photographs, locals watched with polite curiosity, including a peripatetic tailor who crossed the road pushing his circa 1930 Singer sewing machine on to which he had ingeniously fitted a set of wheels.

Soon after we had resumed the journey, Rashekar told us we would shortly be leaving the main road and, at Avanashi, he turned right on to a rougher, though still sealed, road towards Annur and Mettupalayam. On this narrower road, there appeared to be the same number of buses and lorries and thus our 60kph seemed more like 160 as we swerved and jolted our way between the road-rajahs. Before long, the Nilgiri Hills were looming on the horizon telling us that we were in the final stages of our 170-mile journey. In the busy town of Mettupalayam, we crossed the Bhavani river and soon, 43k from Ootycamund, a large sign informed us  “Ghat Section Begins” i.e. the climb up in to the hills. With adverts for the Black Thunder Water Theme Park and for OOTY – FUN CITY, we were made to realise what LP meant when referring to all the changes in the area over the past ten years. The road was very similar to that up to Yercaud – monkey-lined walls plus many hairpin bends. The views, though, were more spectacular as we seemed to be amongst hills rather than, as at Yercaud, climbing up the side of one hill. We saw water falling hundreds of feet sometimes close to the road, at other times glimpsed through the trees as we craned our necks to look up at the rain-forested hills. Indian drivers seemed nonchalant about stopping on what was obviously a dangerous road and Rashekar volunteered to stop so that we could photograph some of the waterfalls. Other drivers were similarly unfazed by the additional obstacle of a parked vehicle and at one point, the occupants of an obviously overheated car were sitting on the roadside beside the steaming radiator, casually eating peanuts and playing cards while lorries labelled “Vegetable Express” thundered past within a few feet of their toes.

On several occasions approaching Coonoor, we glimpsed stretches of the narrow gauge track of the best-known tourist attraction in the area. The Blue Train winds its way up through the Nilgiri Hills from Mettupalayam to Ootycamund and this particular stretch was the steepest on the route, as was evidenced by the rack and pinion mechanism in the centre of the track. By 4 oclock we were stuck in a tailback approaching a set of road works that, ideally, should have been controlled by temporary traffic lights. But, Indian style, each driver decided that he could just squeeze through even if it meant flattening the carefully piled up red soil beside a trench. Eventually, of course, even their skill/lunacy ran out and everything ground to a halt. For twenty minutes we watched resignedly as two-wheelers filled every available space between cars and lorries, at which point various drivers and passersby, without seemingly any note of anxiety or frustration, called (no shouting) to each other with suggestions as to who should reverse where. At one point in the tail back we waited near a hoarding advertising the Holiday Inn at Ooty and we sighed with relief when we recognised the distinctive yellow lettering on a green background of the international hotel chain – I had been having nightmares dreading that we would find some unscrupulous hotel owner was using the title for his Shevaroys-type establishment. As we eventually moved through, we noticed a lone policeman, whistle in mouth, attempting to control matters from the other end.

We cruised into Ooty six and a half hours after leaving Yercaud and the busy, bustling streets we found filled with the usual clutter of traffic, people, bullocks, carts, donkeys, horses and cows. There seemed to be a larger than average ratio of yellow auto-rickshaws buzzing like hornets in and out of the traffic. Reminders of the strong Christian tradition in the area were on many of their windscreens, often with quaint mis-spellings – “Prise the Lord” and “Jesuss is myne”. We also passed the Infant Jesus Two Wheeler Works where, presumably, scooter owners could expect some divine servicing. The hotel took some locating but we eventually decamped, waving off Rashekar as he turned straight round to begin his long trek east and north back to Yercaud. The lobby was spacious and tastefully decorated with a profusion of flower arrangements alongside large wicker chairs and sofas. As we checked in, we practically whooped with delight at the prospect of clean, dry rooms and fresh, white, sweet-smelling sheets for the next eight days.

*************

The new Tamil name for Ootycamund is one which even the locals eschew in favour of the abbreviation, Ooty. I tried hard, as no doubt had Ooty-ites, to get my tongue round Udhagamandalam but without success. Of the three main hill stations in South India, Yercaud is the least known (we know why), Kodaikanal claims to be the most beautiful but Ooty is undoubtedly the most famous. The altitude of almost 7,000 feet provided a comfortable climate for the British officials who established the station in the early nineteenth century as the summer HQ of the Madras government. The building of such hotels as our present abode had, it seems, changed the character of the town but, perched on the top of a hill overlooking the valley, with Doddabetta, the highest peak in Tamil Nadu, dominating the view from our window, we were very content with our surroundings. At the rear of the hotel was an indoor pool (temperatures can drop to zero in the winter), beautifully maintained gardens and lawns. There was a large farm on the lower part of the hill that sloped gently up and away from the hotel. Here, people were digging up and packing carrots, potatoes and other vegetables, while further up the hill, there were tea bushes alive with pickers. In the foreground was a small (farmer’s?) bungalow with its own mini temple and a few cattle munched contentedly in a small field. Sitting here, on a covered swing seat, watching the rural activity, in the clean, fresh air of the heights and in bright sunshine, rivalled the Mayfair at Darjeeling for sheer peace and tranquillity. Or so Pat told me as, while she was enjoying days of this curative quietude, I was working my way through examinees from one of Ooty’s best-known educational establishments, the Good Shepherd Public International School.

On my first day, as on succeeding days, I was picked up in the school minibus by Messrs Xavier and Marcelles, two of the music staff. The latter was generally quiet during the journey but Mr Xavier chatted away in a nervous, high-pitched, staccato voice. He almost immediately began belittling present Ooty saying  “We preferred it when you British were here, sir. We may have been slaves but at least everything worked and there was not so much corruption”. I wondered how much of pre-Independence India he could remember because he could not have been much over sixty. He answered my unspoken question by telling me he was born in 1940 and therefore his memories of the British were childhood ones, although he added that many ex-pats stayed on and these people, he felt, “kept thing ticking over very well”. Like his colleague, he wore grey trousers and a smart blue blazer with the school’s elaborate crest on the pocket. Throughout the whole week, indoors or out, I was never to see him without his flat, green cap from under which a few strands of grey hair obtruded. (I developed a theory that baldness in India is looked upon as a social handicap and this may have been the reason for his irremovable headgear.) He told me that he had taught the violin at the school for three years and before that worked in a camera factory – I did not, therefore, enquire as to his musical training preferring to remain in ignorance. When I answered his queries or made a follow up comment, he would be muttering “Acha, acha, acha” in a quick-fire manner reminiscent of Mutley the Dog, the cartoon character my children watched many years ago. The term itself – “Acha” – is a sort of “I see/Yes of course/Exactly” type of phrase but I sometimes found it difficult to chat to him over this hissing sound. (And when Pat, who had been warned of this idiosyncrasy, joined us one afternoon, we both were close to corpsing as he Mutleyed both of us in turn.)

The school lay some way beyond the centre of town, on Fernhill – we passed the former maharajah’s palace, now the Taj Lakeview Hotel, as well as a stretch of the railway line – and it was some twenty minutes of driving before we approached the large archway proclaiming the name of the school. Under this was what can only be described as a guardroom (Pat later thought she was entering Colditz.) Uniformed security people with hand-held frisking devices and looking more like military police than Group 4 employees, peered at its passengers before allowing the car to pass under the by now raised single pole onto the campus. The military ambience was underlined by the neatly painted bricks along the edge of the scrupulously tidy roadside flowerbeds. I remembered the somewhat dry, matter-of-fact “greeting” I received from the Headmaster when I had phoned form Yercaud – technically he was the Trinity rep but he obviously knew little of the exams and suggested, somewhat dismissively, that I rang the Head of Music, Mr. Prasaad. It was this gentleman, wearing a suit rather than the blazers of his colleagues, who came to greet me at the music block. I was shown into a fully equipped department with practice rooms, orchestra room and dedicated classrooms. The examination room was spacious, efficiently laid out with drumkit, keyboard and piano; a music stand, seat and footstool had been separately positioned for the guitar candidates. I had been provided with a capacious desk.

Something told me that the best had by now happened i.e. the set-up was good, exam conditions favourable but that what was to follow would not match the environment. And how right was my instinct. The standard was uniformly poor. Electronic Keyboard candidates were especially weak and I wondered how much preparation had been done. In one or two cases that Friday, and in the days that followed after the weekend, the candidates came in, sat at the Keyboard as though they had not seen it before and I had to show them how to switch it on! All of the days seemed short on the timetable (“We like the exams to be leisurely” said Mr. P.) but I fancy this loose timetabling was to allow for the fact that it was impossible to carry out any of the exams in the time allocated, particularly as I had to more or less explain matters such as the Ear Tests before the youngsters could attempt them. Mr. Marcelles attempted the piano accompaniments for some violinists, woodwind and brass candidates as well as for some singers. The only bright spot came at the end of the session when a lady who had also done a little accompanying (most effectively) took (and passed) Grade 8 on piano. I discovered later that Felicia taught at St. Hilda’s school (which was next door to our hotel) and was, in effect, the only pianist of any note in Ooty. Pat, who met her later in the week, was able to tell me that she had three sons with her but her husband was in Saudi Arabia – his contract as an orthopaedic surgeon had been completed but the Saudi authorities were not allowing him to leave through the simple, treacherous expedient of holding on to his passport – we both felt very sorry for her.

Frankly, the exams at the Good Shepherd were largely a waste of everyone’s time but it was only at the Teachers Meeting, which I held on my final day, that the situation became clear. Unfortunately, the teachers were not able to speak out too strongly because the headmaster’s wife infiltrated the meeting under the guise of “showing interest”. Nonetheless, I gathered that both the Head and the parents were very keen for the exams to be offered a) because they could not see what harm it could do and b) because there was some kudos attached to being examined by an International (above all, British) Examining Board. But Mr. Prasaad was given just the three weeks prior to the exam to prepare the students – which explained the appalling standard – and he appealed to me to write to the Head explaining what is involved and how at least a term’s worth of lessons should be given … (I did, but I doubt if my words had any effect.)

As often was the case on this tour, it was Pat who was able to get a more complete feel for the school as a whole. She joined me, by invitation, one afternoon and, once Mr. Prasaad had shown her the music rooms, she was passed into the hands of a tall, very beautiful 6^th form girl. Parvathi had a slight transatlantic accent and explained that, although the family was originally from Andra Pradesh, her parents, Shiva and Shamla (both computer programmers) had taken the family to New Jersey when Parvathi was six. Her English was excellent and she took Pat on a tour of the school, into small classrooms with barred windows, science labs, the gymnasium, rifle range, “parade ground”, admin offices etc. Not a blade of grass was out of place in the gardens, shoes in the dorms were all in perfectly neat rows, books were immaculately stacked, even the rain cloaks hanging in droves on hooks seemed in apple pie order. The male staff all wore the blue blazers and grey slacks as sported by Xavier and Marcelles – the many noticeboards were emblazoned with religious and philosophical thoughts for the day. Parvathi told Pat that there were 800 boarders at the school from Bhutan, Thailand, UK, America, South Africa, Tanzania and Nigeria as well as from the various states of India itself. All the teachers were Indian and the only language spoken was English. Public exams were British GCSEs and A-levels … “because the British system is best”.

When Pat was taken in to meet the Vice Principal, much of the somewhat soulless, tightly-disciplined ambience was explained. Brigadier Singh was dressed in a very English manner (tweed jacket) although from his generous beard to his neatly turbaned head he was all warrior Sikh. She felt that his gaze and  his general manner were supercilious and patronising. Apart from saying “Oh, I suppose Parvathi has been saying what ogres we are”, he had little ability to instigate conversation and Pat soon excused herself on the grounds that he must be very busy – he did not demur. (In fact, Parvathi, Pat decided, obviously loved the place – or was a very good liar.) Pat’s guide also spoke very warmly of the Principal and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, but neither was available that afternoon and Pat was not particularly keen to meet the Headmaster who had been so off-hand with me on the phone. One or two of the teachers she met seemed quite pleasant and polite but were either too busy or too reticent to become involved in why Pat was there or indeed what was her interest in the school. Parvathi admitted that discipline was strict and quite unlike English or American schools where pupils could bounce concepts off their teachers and become involved in their own ideas and views on the subject under discussion. This was presumably why her parents were happy for her to be at school in Ootycamund and not New Jersey. The pupils here were not allowed off campus even to visit the town although Parvathi had been into Ooty recently when she went to an orphanage with some clothing and other gifts.

Behind the attractive senior school (formerly a maharajah’s palace), Parvathi showed Pat some kennels. The dogs belonged to the Principal and the large Labradors, a Doberman and a St. Bernard leapt up and barked furiously as they approached. On Sundays, pupils were allowed to walk the dogs within the grounds and Pat, with her usual concern for animal welfare hoped that such large dogs had rather more exercise than a weekly walk around the campus – perhaps they roamed around at night with security personnel ensuring none of the older pupils crept out to enjoy the night life in Ooty.

************

With the feeling that I was working at a military establishment, the awful standard of work and the uneasy attention from a tense and unconfident staff, I was very glad that the hotel proved such an antidote, with its relaxed environment and friendly staff. It was by no means busy – this was off-season – and the restaurants were generally very quiet. We enjoyed some excellent Chinese cuisine in the Jade Restaurant, quite as good as anything we had encountered on our many trips within S.E.Asia. The main restaurant was named after the indigenous locals, the Todas. This tribe, which embraced polygamy and animism (they particularly worshipped buffaloes), had been vastly reduced in numbers during the 20^th century and present estimates suggested that only some 1,500 remain. I was shown one of their “encampments” when the school driver brought me back to the hotel via an alternative route. During dinner in the Todas Restaurant, we were serenaded by a four-piece band playing 60s and 70s tunes – perhaps The Beatles will become immortal through their medleys which seem to be stock-in-trade throughout the world. Being often lone diners, our meals were frequently punctuated by conversations with the many waiters who were on duty. They felt that the hotel was so quiet because people were worried about the Millennium bug (despite the fact that December 31^st was still a month away). It was only on the Saturday evening that the place seemed to buzz. There were three “parties” in, one of which was in honour of Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister for Sport. Occasionally, we were able to get into conversation with guests. A Singaporean couple were delighted that we knew their home city so well. The husband had studied at London University some 30 years ago and was as keen on the UK as we were on Lion City. We discovered that they, too, had been to Mysore and stayed in the same hotel – their opinion of that and the Brindavon Gardens matched our own. Pat explored the hotel shops and even purchased a dress for Rp300 (£4.50) despite pressure from the owner to look at clothes ten times that amount which he felt sure she could afford – “You have a credit card, yes?”

Getting on line to send e-mails was not easy either in the town or at the hotel. We were very pleased, however, to discover that faxes came through safely and, even if we forget the hilltop position, the views, the Todas or Jade Restaurants et al, we will remember the Holiday Inn at Ootycamund for the facsimile machine. One evening we came in to find the young receptionist grinning from ear to ear. “A fax for you, sir!” he called, before we had even approached his desk. He must have read the details before putting the message into an envelope so was not surprised when Pat and I hugged each other, practically in tears, and jumped around in joy. “Your first, sir?” “Oh yes, our first!” The scene must have cast aside all of his preconceptions about the quiet, restrained, buttoned-up English. The fax from our son Robin told us that his wife Julia was pregnant! Our first grandchild – and we learned the news in Udhagamandalam!

************

One of Ooty’s unheralded claims to fame is associated with “The Club”. Unlike in Chennai and Bangalore, we had no opportunity to enter its portals but it was in this building in 1875 that a young subaltern called Neville Chamberlain decided to add a black ball to the billiard table thus inventing the game of snooker. We explored the town during the late afternoons, after I had been brought back from work, and at the weekend. The main features were the racecourse, the lake (home to the town’s untreated sewage – we did not go boating), the bus and railway stations, the bazaar area, and, the gateway to Ooty, Charing Cross. This we found at the junction of Coonoor, Kelso and Commercial roads. Our visit coincided with an article in The Hindu newspaper that sums up what the visitor can expect:

Alas … Charing Cross … is now a picture of neglect, with insanitary and chaotic conditions prevailing throughout the year. Though it is the “gateway” to this premier holiday destination and plays host to the best-known landmark (Adam Memorial Fountain), Charing Cross is today a congested and stinking area which discerning visitors tend to shun. The irony is that Charing Cross is the place where VIPs, political leaders etc. are accorded a “warm welcome” whenever they visit. To highlight the historical importance of Charing Cross one may hark back to August 16^th, 1902, when the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, left Ooty after a three day visit. A public farewell was organized at Charing Cross. In reply to an address from the Municipal Comissioner, Lord Curzon had declared that he “came, saw and was conquered” by the charms of Ooty. … The nearby Municipal shopping complex … is surrounded by over-flowing sewage and the resultant stench is so overpowering that pedestrians prefer to risk walking on the main road where the traffic is chaotic.

Perhaps because it was not summer, we found the stench “normal” rather than overpowering and, possibly for the same reason, saw no evidence of LP’s dire warning about Ooty being a “dreadful place full of vacuous yuppies and day-trippers with their ghetto-blasters, throwing litter everywhere”. Hence, no doubt, the plethora of signs in the Botanical Gardens – Do not pick flowers … touch hedges …walk on the grass … smoke …drop litter …etc. However, there still seemed to be plenty of flowers and trees for us to admire, and neat lawns on which to stroll. The only noisy, boisterous groups in the Gardens were young men who would rush up to us and insist that we joined in their group photographs. We were, however, aware of the “fading atmosphere of leafy seclusion” near the lake and, on the very pleasant walk down form the hotel, we passed an enormous “English” church complete with tomb-stoned graveyard. The racecourse had a scruffy dirt track edging an unkempt centre of longish grass – not quite Kempton Park. Alongside the racecourse railings were dozens of pavement hawkers selling bangles, clothes and other tawdry gifts.  Some of these poor purveyors of not very much, sat alongside a filthy, ramshackle building that proclaimed itself, in two-foot high lettering, to be “The De-luxe Pay and Use Toilet”. The municipal covered vegetable market was located directly opposite, a maze of walkways and alleys with tarpaulin-covered stalls selling what looked like excellent fruit and vegetables. One stallholder was delighted when I took a photo of him beside his carefully arranged piles of fruit and vegetables, most of which were mundane potatoes, carrots etc. but which also included several unidentifiable species. Those traders who could not afford the rent to be inside the market were spread around outside, often squatting beside a pitiful pile of tomatoes or peanuts and always attended by groups of seemingly malnourished women and children.

We discovered a branch of Higginbotham’s, a bookshop we had intended to visit in Chennai but never made the time. Here, I bought two books by Mark Tully, the former BBC correspondent, one of which is a “must read” for anyone trying to understand India today. No Full Stops in India is a collection of essays/stories which bring very sharply into focus, the problems faced by today’s Indians, many of whom would like to escape some of the more traditional Hindu or Muslim customs and attitudes. It was in Higginbotham’s that an assistant assured us that English newspapers (as distinct from English language papers) could be found in a nearby shop. Since I was suffering from Guardian withdrawal symptoms (I would even have bought a Daily Mail Weekly, if only for the football), we followed this lead from shop to shop but there was nothing to be found. We attempted to get “online” in the most unlikely of places (one was a gents’ outfitters) but, as at the hotel, we drew further blanks. “We have to rely on a line from Chennai”, said the earnest young man in the clothes shop “but they are not very reliable”. Some of the shops in Commercial St. had glass fronts, the large supermarket was quite imposing and there seemed to be a disproportionate number of clothes and shoe shops. We climbed steep steps to a photographer’s booth where I was surprised and delighted to find the right battery for my APS camera. A road gang was labouring under considerable difficulties, repairing a small patch of highway, not more than eight yards square. Two of them were operating a Heath Robinson concrete mixer, two more, carrying large, flat dishes, were distributing the concrete to the final pair who squatted on the road, smoothing out the deposited piles with small palette knives and the help of what looked like a homemade spirit level. The final member of the party was armed with a long-handled “stamper”. With the general state of the road services around us, it was obvious that the men had a job for life.

************

Our main “tourist” trip in Ooty was a train ride to Coonoor. We had half-planned a taxi ride to Dodabetta but the Sunday dawned rather damp and misty – clouds across the hills and a grey sky. Thus we decided that the rail experience was a better bet. The Blue Mountain Railway was used in the shooting of the film A Passage to India and I was interested to see how it compared to the Toy Train in Darjeeling. Because of the time restrictions, we knew we could only travel on part of the line, (as in Darjeeling) but, since we had managed to avoid the legendary Indian railways thus far, we both felt that a ride on the quaint yellow-and-blue carriages as far as Coonoor was a “must-do”.

When, at 11.30am, I ordered a taxi at the Travel Desk in the hotel foyer, I was asked why I wanted a taxi so early for the train at 2.50pm. I explained that I had been at the station on the previous day (obviously a very wise move) and had ascertained that a train left for Coonoor at 11.55 meaning that we could complete the return journey before dark. When the taxi arrived, both the travel representative and the Duty Manager jumped into the front seats. “You don’t mind if we come down to town …” There followed some excuse about a driver having had an accident and they both laughed heartily when I said “No, I don’t mind – but who is paying the fare, the hotel or me?” My irony was lost on them. I wondered what would have happened if I had given the taxi driver Rp50 and said “The hotel will pay you the other 50”.

The station forecourt was alive with disembarked passengers and our train was filling up. As I was buying the tickets, Pat was approached by a smartly dressed gentleman wearing what I shall always now think of as a “Xavier” cap. He had very good English and proceeded to explain, in very deferential terms, how “the railway was built by you one hundred and one years ago” etc. expanding on how much “you” (by which he meant the British) had done for India. He then conducted us to the First Class compartment, a section at the rear of the four coaches in which there were plastic instead of wooden bench seats. He exhorted us to sit on the far side “for better views”. Climbing in beside us and closing the door behind him, he then produced a logbook of donors, from many countries, to his Disabled Children’s Society. He produced an official looking certificate (which, of course, I did not ask to study in detail) and I found myself signing his book and giving him Rp100. I did not have the energy (for £1.50) to quiz him more about the organization and, in any case, I felt sure that he would have plausible explanations in response.

If I was conned, I was conned. One feels helpless and vulnerable in this situation. A point-blank refusal would be either mean or would suggest that I did not trust the man and was, therefore, insulting him. Imagine if I had “checked” his credentials with the railway authorities i.e. the stationmaster. The latter could claim he did not know the man and had seen nothing – and he had not since nobody saw the logbook or money change hands. What if I had called the police? Even if he was a con artist, he would know that Rp100 into a policeman’s hand would see him safe from the law and I would be risking making a complete fool of myself. Perhaps I was right to be suspicious because at Coonoor station, as I ran along to buy the return tickets, a similarly smartly dressed man (in a Xavier cap) called out “Excuse me, sir …” but I was anxious to find the ticket office and so moved on with a “Not now …”.

As we sat in our First Class compartment, our tickets were checked no fewer than three times, the final inspection being made by an official (i.e. he wore a peaked cap) who wrote something on the back of each ticket. The train departed on time. We were at the rear of the train but with windows facing back down the track. There were two compartments separated by a wooden partition which did not quite reach the ceiling so that a luggage rack could be accommodated – there was, of course, no corridor. The wooden wall at the back of the second compartment did reach the ceiling thus preventing any unofficial incursions from Second Class passengers. All ten of the windows could be lowered by the simple tactic of lifting the bottom off its ledge and dropping the whole frame into a slot, carefully withdrawing fingers at the last moment – a sort of upright version of Arkwright’s till in Ronnie Barker’s Open All Hours. On a platform at the back of each coach stood a brakeman – the incline was often fierce for this one metre gauge line and the diesel engine therefore needed extra braking from each carriage. When crossing viaducts or on particularly sharp bends, all four brakemen could be seen leaning out and waving green flags. Likewise, they all signalled the “ready and off” at each of the stations along the way – Lovedale, Ketti, Aravankadu and Wellington (a lovely mixture of Raj and Tamil names).

Our sole travelling companion was a Canadian who was working his way across South and South East Asia. From our conversation, we gathered that, as a retiree, he spent up to eleven months of the year travelling and walking (he wore wonderfully stout hiking boots), had survived five cancer operations (including lung and colon, showing us the scar for the former!) and that his wife, a nurse, was happy with his prolonged peregrinations. Previous jaunts included Australasia, Thailand and Malaysia. He had a theory that, because of the Indians’ propensity for things sweet they probably had a real problem with diabetes. “You can smell it in the urine in some of these places.” He might have had a point as we had been aware of frequent advertisements on TV for insulin injection kits.

The scenery was beautiful. The track was often lined with tall eucalyptus trees beyond which we could see tea plantations on the terraced hills. We passed through villages where young lads were playing cricket. When they saw our white faces in the train, they shouted and waved. There were one or two short tunnels cut through the rocks. At other times, the view widened to include broad hillsides and wide fields of vegetables. The sun shone through the trees creating a startling patchwork across the track and the only noise seemed to come from the brakeman’s klaxon when recalcitrant cows shifted ever so slowly from the path of the train. Crossing a fifty-foot high viaduct was hair-raising. I could locate the extra “stiffening” of the track – extra pieces of rail beside the main rails and additional steel ties. This would be to ensure that no wheels slipped off which, on this simple construction, would spell utter disaster. The pace was very slow and the concentration of the four flag-waving brakemen was intense.

At Coonoor, we pulled past the station itself and also past the engine sheds in which there were four locos, two in steam. These are used for the steep rack and pinion section down to Mettupalayam. That day they were idle because there had been a landslip further south and the line was blocked. We then reversed into the station but pulled up away from a platform. I had expected the same train to make the return journey but another set was awaiting us and we had to disembark. This was not easy as, despite being a small-scale railway, the drop of three to four feet on to the trackside had to be managed with great care. We located the First Class compartment, only to find that prime position was held by a Sony Camcorder-wielding man, together with his wife and boisterous two-year-old son. Later, I was to ask the gentleman about a factory which lay in a hollow near Ketti but he had little or no English. However, with the windows wide open, I was able to take the photos I had planned coming down, from what was now the front of the train. This position brought us closer to the erstwhile somnambulant cows and, one animal, responding too slowly to the klaxon, had a slight nudge from the buffer, much to the amusement of the horn-blowing brakeman, Mr. Narayanam. Until this point, I had not made contact with this gentleman other than to thank him for opening the windows for us but, later, I was leaning out almost beside him on his platform, lining up a (hopefully masterly) photo of the terraces, some people working in a field, all framed by a stand of eucalyptus trees. “Carrots!” he barked in my ear. “You take pictures of carrots.” It was neither question nor statement but it felt like an admonition.

When we glided into the terminus at Ooty, there was noisy, good-natured mayhem on the platform. The last train to return down the line was, on a Sunday, obviously popular with students and, almost before we had disembarked, the carriages were as full as any buses seen on Indian roads. Rain was falling lightly as pieces of luggage were thrown in first to claim a space, and people competed for room with tatty sacks of carrots and other vegetables. There were many vendors of everything from cakes and candyfloss to magazines and books. Mr. Narayanam asked me if I would like to see the engine and so I was invited into the driving cab with the two drivers. To equoferrumologists (trainspotters), this is known as “cabbing”.

Because of the rain and because of the absence of taxis, we decided to take an auto-rickshaw back to the hotel. The young driver did not stop smiling the whole way back up the tortuous hill to the Holiday Inn. He was amused by our attempts to keep out the rain and made many futile attempts to waterproof the side where Pat was sitting, clinging on for her life as one has to in these contraptions. He finally tied some additional tarpaulin in place and we eventually laughed and bundled our way into Reception, tired but very pleased with our day out to Coonoor.

************

We often discussed, either while sitting outside in the hotel gardens or over the excellent meals the hotel was providing, how very different our experiences in Yercaud and Ooty had been. Both were hill stations but one a very rural and basically poor, environment, the other a bustling “important” town. The Yercaud hotel was as awful as the present one was palatial; the standard of examination work at SHY Yercaud was as heart-lifting as that at the Ooty school was depressing; the Yercaud representative and her colleagues were as attentive and relaxed as their Ooty equivalents were uncomfortable and diffident. We could not help wondering what was in store for us as we moved further south into Kerala and the final stages of this prolonged but fascinating tour.

************

 e had lots of Hindu friends and would be able to answer our questions.

What greeted us as we moved inside was breathtaking. The twenty foot high outer walls of the temple, each with its own gopuram/gateway, enclosed an area about sixty yards square. In the centre was the sanctum sanctorum and the covered walkway leading to this had elaborate paintings on its ceiling and on the supporting pillars. Huge arc lights illuminated the scene and we gasped as we turned to our left and saw a line of fifteen elephants, fully caparisoned with painted trunks and foreheads, one mahout sitting on the floor directly under the beasts’ bellies, another sitting astride. In front of the central elephant was a small bowl with an image of the deity. Separating the elephants from the crowd of people were four priests holding flaming torches – the lighted cross beam was held at shoulder height on a wooden staff. A semicircular area had thus been cleared and across this, presumably under the direction of the priests, members of the crowd would walk to put money or other offerings in the bowl, making namaste as they left. At the far side of this area there were eight trumpeters, playing fully circular instruments, bleating out fanfares, competing with the recordings of Carnatic song blasting from enormous wall-hung speakers. Occasionally, we were aware of large bunches of sugar-cane and palm leaves being dumped in front of the elephants who fairly nonchalantly stuffed them into their enormous mouths. Many people were just standing watching the proceedings while others stood with their heads bowed, their hands against their foreheads in namaste. Yet more milled around in conversation, lads further over played football. Other people sat in little groups chatting – men, women and children together.

Nobody seemed to mind our presence, in fact many people smiled at our obvious fascination, some of the amusement being caused by the very ungainly way I picked my way barefoot across the gravel areas before making the comfort of the paved pathways. People often made way for us to take photographs of the elephants, the Brahmins, the trumpeters et al. Antony introduced us to a friend, Mr. Nair, who explained that the festivities would go on until 4.30am and that the next stage would be the arrival of the drummers. As we spoke, we were aware of being swept back by the crowd as the elephants were moved some ten yards forward and we found ourselves in the middle of an enormous group of chenda players and cymbalists who were preparing to add their musical weight to the proceedings. With the trumpeters being reinforced by the addition of some twelve shenai, the sound, once they began their performance, was incredibly loud and raucous, the wind instruments playing antiphonally with the percussion. Antony wanted to move us up to a balcony along the outer temple wall but we discovered that it was for “private use of royalty”. I was not sorry to remain in the thick of the action – it was one of the most exhilarating musical experiences of my life!

We moved around the back of the sanctum to admire the carvings on the stonework of the northern gate and with the central building between us and the “orchestra”, it was possible again to hear the Carnatic vocal ragas being broadcast over the PA system. Returning to the front, we noticed that ever more devotees were flooding into the sanctum to make darshan in front of the resident god. Meanwhile, the organized musical cacophony was becoming more and more hectic. This was because, with the animals lifting a hind leg to form a step, priests were climbing on to the elephants’ backs and opening enormous plumes of feathers and leaves. We gaped in amazement at this beautiful choreography. We gathered that the music would get more and more frenetic until, in a frenzy of drumming, the climax of the event would come with the deity being paraded round at the head of the procession of elephants. But this would be at about 1am and we had already been in the temple for two hours. The time had flown by and we both felt we could not impose on our hosts any longer so, regretfully, we found our shoes and made our way back along the ever-more-crowded street to the car. Antony wanted to buy Pat a necklace “for your reminder of this night” and she chose a simple but very attractive piece with small clusters of scrolls at the front.

As if they had not been generous enough of their time (as well as gifts), we now moved on to find a restaurant. Several we tried were closed but eventually, at midnight, we were in a vegetarian establishment tucking in to plates of dosas with their accompanying pickles and spices and washed down with plenty of tea – the night was still quite warm. Simi and Antony were both surprised and amused by the way we had been practically struck dumb by the temple visit and I explained that, apart from the fact that it realised an ambition we had both harboured, the surprise element had made the evening all that more memorable. At the same time, we felt that they were pleased to have made our last evening so very special.

************

As one who is interested in (though not obsessed with) railways, it was a little disappointing to have come so far in our tour without experiencing rail travel Indian style. True, we had had short trips at Darjeeling and Ooty but these were of the tourist variety only – no booking of seats, dealing with luggage, meals and squat toilets. We had discussed this with Simi and Antony and suggested we might make our final move between centres, from Cochin to Trivandrum, by rail. They were both immediately discouraging. “If you travel air-conditioned, the windows are very small and usually dirty – you will not see anything”, said Simi. “And if you go first class, the carriage will be very sticky, hot and crowded” added Antony.” “We will find out about the train times if you wish but …” and this rather hung in the air. Although we were often horrified by the dangers of road travel, we nevertheless appreciated the flexibility it gave us to begin the journey at the time of our choosing, to stop whenever we saw fit – for photos, lunch or “comfort breaks” – and generally to feel more in control of our journey.

Therefore, on Saturday 11^th December, we bade fond farewells to Simi and Antony and set out in a spanking new Ambassador, driven by Vimalkumar, for the six-hour ride to Thiruvananthapuram[3] (Trivandrum) where my last group of candidates would be making their final preparations. Vimalkumar proved to be an excellent driver, keeping the needle hovering on the 60kph mark and we were able to sit back and enjoy close encounters with scenes of Keralan life that would have been very difficult from a railway carriage window. Coir mills abounded with the matting hanging out to dry on the central reservation of the dual carriageway of NH47 as well as filling areas in the mill yard. At Shertallai, we noticed elephants working in the sawmills – doubtless, their lives were less harrowing than those of the temple elephants we saw on the previous evening or those chained up at the Punnathur Kota compound. At Alappuzha there were glass factories, film studios and, next door to a large Homeopathic Pharmacy, a cathedral-size Roman Catholic church with a large grotto/shrine to the side of the walled frontage. To remind us of Christmas preparations, the shops here were full of huge, five-pointed, three-dimensional highly-coloured cardboard stars.

Kerala seemed to be spending a good deal of its resources on up-grading the roads. Near Ambalapulai (as well as many other sites) there were masses of road workers. The men beavered away with what looked like garden hoes. The women carried on their heads flat basket/trays full of stone chippings, moving in a human chain to and from the heaps of rocks where others were squatting, hacking away at the large rocks, reducing them to ballast. These migrant workers worked alongside their “homes”. The open-sided shacks were made of blue plastic sheeting and inside we could see children sitting, while others played outside.

At Purakad, the smell of fish told us the sea was nearby and before long we could see the Arabian Sea glinting through the coconut palms as the road ran parallel with a ribbon of fishermen’s shacks on the beach. Fish sellers were walking in the road with their wares on platters, hoping to attract custom from the car and lorry drivers. Others kept their fish fresh in plastic tanks the size of milk crates that were either on the roadside or fixed on bicycles. Spinning mills marked the approach to Kayankulum where we stopped for a Limca and banana lunch.

Much of the clear blue water we saw was that of inland lakes and backwaters. Thus, after lunch, it was Kayankulum Lake which sparkled through the trees on the coastal side of the road while later we crossed a bridge across the entrance to Asthamudi Lake which stretched away inland, its palm-sided banks lined with cashew nut plantations and with many small fishing craft drifting like leaves across its surface. We were now passing through Kollam (new name for Quilon), a typical small Keralan market town. The narrow streets were lined with wooden houses with red-tiled overhanging roofs. In front of some shops, we noticed pepper laid out on coir mats to dry – various shades of green, brown or black. The scene was made even more colourful by a passing funeral procession and we were able to catch the smell of the burning oils and incense as we passed. Again, we reminded ourselves that this sort of experience could only have come our way in a taxi and we were glad of Simi’s reluctance to send us by train.

The first undulations in the terrain appeared after Attingal where the road had crept slightly inland. The blue and yellow (global colours, obviously) of the cement company advertisements abounded and I was amused to see that many nearby hammers and sickles had been painted in blue, doubtless not to waste the paint or miss the opportunity to fill a space on nearby fences or rocks. As we approached Trivandrum, passing the University of Kerala, the Communist Party flags began appearing in traditional red often fluttering alongside the yellows of the Janata Party.

Our original booking was at the Kovalum Beach Resort, ten miles south of Trivandrum and, on reading LP, we had not been looking forward to “thousands of tourists from Britain and Europe on chartered jumbos for a two-week dose of ozone, UV and a sanitised Indian experience… chaotic beachfront development, an uncontrollable avalanche of garbage … “ and so it went on and on. Therefore, when we pulled in to the front of the South Park Hotel on MG Rd. (“…a swank, new, centrally air-conditioned hotel (with) one of the city’s best restaurants” LP) we said a silent prayer of thanks that the booking had been changed. The hotel was buzzing with activity since it was hosting the Inaugural Conference of the Global Alliance for Justice in Education. This was declared on huge banners across the foyer – I had no opportunity to talk to delegates to discover on whose initiative this movement had begun still less to find out what was meant by “justice” in this context.

We met the TCL representative that evening. Sister Mary Raphael was a gentle, slightly hesitant lady with the lovely face and welcoming smile we had come to expect from the sisters. Trinity had recently appointed an Englishman living in Kerala as co-ordinator (on a temporary basis) for the area and Sister Mary explained that “Mr. Michael Mott had suggested you would be more comfortable at this hotel in town rather than marooned on a beach”. He was right, of course, especially as Pat, when I was working, was going to be far happier close to shops and temples in the vicinity of the hotel than sitting under a coconut tree near “desperate souvenir sellers and hordes of ogling sightseers” – LP again. Sister Mary was less happy about Mr. Mott’s insistence that “the examiner will want a rest day on Monday and therefore exams should be held on Sunday” and, initially, nor was I. But I have learned to be sanguine about these things, knowing that there was probably local politics involved in some way and that it is best not to get involved by asking any supplementary questions.

Thus, I spent my Sunday examining Sister Mary Raphael’s pupils at the Holy Angels School – all Piano (and one Electronic Keyboard – “I am trying out the exam” said Sister MR) and all very well prepared, most gaining Merits and Distinctions. Pat came with me on the Tuesday and was looked after by a very attentive elderly (retired) Sister Audrey whose cataract operations had left her wearing glasses with half-inch thick lenses and who, when she smiled, reminded Pat, somewhat unkindly, of comedian Dick Emery. Nonetheless, she took Pat on a guided tour of the school but then saw it as part of her companiable duties to talk, endlessly throughout the day, about her experiences in Kenya. Much of the talk was of a Mr. Simpson (“Do you know him?”) and “all the good work he does for our poor Catholic boys. It nearly broke our hearts when we had to return to India.” Pat was looking forward to, perhaps, sitting outside in the attractive school grounds, reading. But tales from Kenya continued and, unfortunately, were all repeated to me during an over-abundant lunch at which we could only pick. When Sr. Mary had a chance to talk t