Why is the Western concept of beauty so pervasive?
We left one temple town to visit two others, which is funny as we aren’t really temple people!
Tiruchirappalli is known as ’Trichy’ which is a bit easier to get your tongue around. Our hotel - the first with a squat toilet - was right in the middle of the bustling Big Bazaar. Not sure if it was that busy and ‘festival’ like because it was a Saturday when we arrived, or whether it’s like that all the time? It was heaving with shoppers and people hawking plastic toys and the general melee that we’re getting used to!
Up bright and early (for us) in the morning to climb up the Rockfort, which is several Hindu temples built on and in the imposing rock that dominates the centre of Trichy. We looked down on eagles flying which was cool and had a bit of a view over the town, but it was too hazy to see much further.
After breakfast (yes…idli and dosa!) we headed to another temple - Sri Ranganathaswamy, which is the oldest functioning Hindu temple in the world. Again, it is more like city walls enclosing a working, noisy, bustling hubbub where people work and live, before you enter the inner walls with no traffic where it is much calmer! Hindus were worshipping so around the actual temple sanctuaries it was busy, but otherwise I quite enjoy the relative peace and there was a nice colonnaded, grassy walk around the outer-inner walls!
Of course, we were asked for selfies and had a few people wanting to chat with us and ask where we were from. One of the groups actually taught us a couple of Tamil words which is the local language that it seems most people speak and explains why my ’Namaste’ (Hindu for hello) isn’t getting much of a response!!
One hour on the train and we were in Thanjavur and off to another temple - Brihadeeswarar, one of the largest temples in India and a UNESCO World Heritage site. This was in a similar style (to my untrained eyes) as the other temples, but was not painted, so in its bare stone state which I quite liked. Again it felt very mellow, so although we have no idea what the history and meaning of the temples really are, they are pleasant places to wander, sit and people watch and to spot the Indian squirrels which scampered and jumped over the temples. Much smaller than British squirrels and with striped backs, but just as agile and fun to watch!
There’s hardly any Western (white) tourists about, but lots and lots of Indian tourists coming to worship as well as sightsee.
I lost count of the number of ’selfies’ we were asked to be in! ’Selfie’ is a euphemism for being in a photo with someone. I have never wanted to be famous and I have a new empathy for those who can’t move for people wanting photos and autographs!! We were asked by young lads, individuals and groups, as well as families who sometimes thrust their poor children into the photo against their will, although we only had one girl flatly refuse! In the end Chris started taking photos back, so if you watch his vlog you’ll see a bit of what we mean!!
A couple of older men came up and asked for a photo and I started getting ready to crack my smile again, so was completely confused to discover they didn’t want me IN it….they wanted me to take it!! That brought me a bit of humility!!
One lady could speak good English so we asked why people were so fascinated with taking our photos. She said:
‘because we think you look gorgeous’
She said it with no irony, which is quite depressing, because we looked anything but gorgeous. Dusty, sweaty and wearing creased clothes is not what the normal definition of ‘gorgeous’ is in any language!
Made me start to think about the definition of beauty. It’s not new, but it does drive me barking mad…the reason why we look ‘gorgeous’ I think is to do with our fair skin. It’s why people across Asia are so keen to cover themselves up and remain ‘pale’ and why shops continue to sell whitening cream. I even spotted whitening deodorant in one shop…you’d hate your underarms to give you away as not white, wouldn’t you?
Billboard posters and adverts hanging from lamp-posts are dominated with hirsute middle-aged men (not my taste) advertising the latest Bollywood film and women looking glamorous, draped in jewellery or clothing. Now I think about it, all the women are very fair skin toned. I don’t think I have seen a single woman with darker skin, which is ironic given it seems people in Southern India are naturally quite dark skinned.
What’s more, I can’t believe in a country of 1.3 billion people (yes…nearly ONE BILLION MORE than NZ) they can’t find models that represent the population for adverts for toothpaste, beds, ice-cream, hair-cuts, jeans or maternity services. When I think about the conversations I’ve had back in NZ about showing women role models for careers in the tech sector I know how important it is for people to see themselves reflected in communications that are trying to engage them. I think it is a shame that the world can’t reflect a more diverse range of beauty than the pale, white, Western-centric one which predominates even here.
Moving on from rant (for now!)
Amazing that we haven’t had to pay to enter any of these temples, but went next-door to the tacky, knackered park and had to pay!
Later we were looking for batteries for our water purifier….not the easy to find AA or AAA batteries….no, but short stumpy camera batteries! I lost count of how many places we went to and got directed elsewhere to this shop, or that, to this road or that! Anyway…we got them eventually and so deserved a beer!
Now, I know I make out we are constantly on the hunt for beer, but we aren’t! Honest!
This led to another interesting discovery. Bars are not only few and far between in the places we have been to, but they don’t have toilets for women! Bar one, I first got directed to the urinals until another customer pointed out to the staff member it was not for ladies (I think the staff member was actually happy for me to use it!), so then I got taken through the kitchen to the hotel restaurant where there was a very nice loo. Bar 2 - which looked like something from the set of Star Trek with white sofas and blue lighting, also didn’t have a girl toilet so I had to go out to the toilets in the adjacent hotel lobby, which incidentally was playing “Happy Birthday” on loop the entire time!
We also got told we couldn’t play cards in the bar as it could be deemed we were gambling. A crisis for us, so we've not been playing as much as normal...actually having to talk with each other!!
And then off to Puducherry.
