I went to Mahabalipuram yesterday and came away feeling sick. No, it was not water or something I ate or the blazing sun. It was the sights and sounds of Mahabalipuram that made me feel severely sick. Consider this- This city is the a treasure trove of caves, carvings, sculptures, temples that are at least 1300 years old and in cracking condition. If viewed aerially, it would look magnificent but alas my friends I was very much on ground and very much in of company of mortals, dirty mortals. I saw a group of people picnicking under the shade of the butterball and to my horror they were playing a game of ‘plastic bag racing’ wherein they would let loose a bag from the top and see whose bag floated to the bottom faster. Needless to say the bag contained the food of the picnicking assholes. Pickle, sambar, biscuits etc. The men were in baniyans, and the women were egging them on. Next to the butterball, a woman was selling cucumbers (open to sky and anything else like flies for instance). Her children had made themselves entirely at home on this site. One of them had a runny nose, so she wiped it with her bare hand, wiped it off on her saree and then touched the cucumbers to rearrange them to her satisfaction. Did I mention defecating dogs, pups, goats, touts, irritating hawkers of post cards, souvenirs and maps, they follow you from the minute you step in and leave you only when you growl at them or buy whatever it is that they are selling. It makes them only little better than beggars, unfortunately.
The next scene I saw was a cleaning lady doing her job diligently in the Varaha temple. To my horror she was sweeping the statues and the corner spaces they were located in with her harsh broom- the kind that is made of bamboo and used to clean terraces or open spaces. I had a heart attack. There is dignity and no awe surrounding this historical site that is amazingly intact in spite of 1300 years of braving the eroding elements of nature. There is no natural sense of wonder for these creations of the Pallava empire. There is no sense of drama and theatre only a persistent feeling of being nagged by the mundane and the pedestrian. Indians treat any open space as a picnic spot with a license to do as they feel and this spot of historic value was treated in the same manner. Next to each temple or cave I saw big blue boards telling me not to deface, not to photograph, not to indulge in any ‘rowdy’ activity etc but I could not spot any information boards telling me a story. On persistently looking for them, I found them shrouded in honeycomb like mesh that hid for most part what was written on them.
Did I not mention numerous plastic bags, plastic bottles that litter the stone receptacles like accumulated filth in the nook and cranny of the jewel?
I came away depressed. We Indians are ‘the mantally sick’. We have no sense of history, no sense of hygiene, no sense of cleanliness and certainly no sensibility that shies from public littering. And in this context the sleek BMW is no different that the state transport bus that regularly chucks, food bags, mucus, spit and vomit. Really we are to the litter born!
