XXIII - Land's End
We have travelled through Kerala and on to Tamil Nadu and the end of the world as far as India is concerned. Our journey South is complete with just its Eastern epilogue to complete. Prior to Alleppey, we had strayed already into Tamil Nadu, as Kerala is such a strange shape, enjoying some camping in the mountains past Yellapetty, which means “the last village”. Kerala is a heady mix of religions, officially just over 50% Hindu, a quarter Muslim and less than a fifth Christian, despite the interesting Christian heritage, unique to India. Worship for each is visible and often audible. The region we’re in at the moment is called Kanyakumari, literally “the unmarried girl” after a goddess (not, sadly, “an unknown god” from which more could be made), famed for the southernmost point on the Indian mainland, graced by a little island populated by a temple and a great big (41m) statue of wisdom embodied by Thiruvalluvar (as well as a million overheated people coming and going on overpacked boats), but more intriguingly for the geographer the point at which the Bay of Bengal, the Laccadive Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean meet.
The large toes of Wisdom
But, as far as our adventure goes, it’s most striking for the dominance of churches everywhere you look, reflected demographically in a population that’s nearly two thirds Christian to one third Hindu. The houses here are delightful for their rainbow colours, with many preferring pink, which gives the churches – in bright white, often flat-faced like Portugese churches, and with an incongruent gothic style – a sort of Disney quality. This is frequently exacerbated by very large, colourful hyper-real figures of saints. We’re a song and a dance away from the raincloud-grey dinosaurs that stalk Britain, speaking of age, authority and decrepitude.
From the world of Western monotheism we are culturally entrenched in a suspicion of idolatry. Scripture is saturated with the gravest of warnings. Many of the historic temples we’ve visited, especially in caves such as on Elephanta Island off Mumbai and in Badami have that elemental feel of deep earth magic. Some are steeped in symbols of fertility and virility, others have clear transactional mechanisms where particular blessings are promised and cash plays its role.
If you look for them, these traits can also be found in our churches. I was stunned visiting a Hillsong church in Sydney at three collections being taken, the final one “challenging” us to actually empty our wallets and purses (this definitely wouldn’t work today, but I’ve no doubt little contactless machines abound with preposterously high “suggestions”). A Hindu procession of a god in Hampi was immediately recognizable from a Corpus Christi procession in Exmouth Market, London. Variously lewd images can be found to delight tourists in our austere cathedrals. I like the practice common to all places of worship here of removing your shoes before entering. There is great Scriptural warrant but I suppose the British would be put off by cold feet.
Looking down on Apollo over the glass bridge at Kanyakumari
In theological discussions, in academic or clerical environments, spiritualizing and intellectualizing abounds: idolatry is desire for anything which takes us away from God. Sin is ordinary selfishness, failure of duty, or some version of inappropriate sex. And queue-jumping or being “too big for your boots”. I’m often struck in conversation with actual Christians how attitudes to magic, superstition, and God fall outside conventional boundaries of orthodoxy. As a parent, however, I have a truly cavalier attitude to magic with my children desperate to enlist at Hogwarts, but it is self-conscious at least insofar as I would be more upset by their disenchantment, than by alternative sources of wonder. Our ease with magic and heterodoxy is no doubt led by the other greater concerns that our religion and churches are consumed by.
Big Cross in little boat on the edge of the sea. Oil, salt and pepper in front
I certainly have friends with greater devotion to Mary and the saints. But I love the roadside shrines that populate Europe and are few and far between in Britain. There’s something striking about seeing iconography overlooking the ocean. Down the road from where we’re staying there’s a great historic cross stuck into the headland. At high water the ocean comes around it. More recently it has been encased in a dubious looking faux-wooden boat. Next to it has been placed a shrine to the Blessed Virgin. In front of the cross are bags of salt and pepper and a jar of oil. To me this is a reminder in an ordinary setting – lest church just become the place of our Sunday hobby – of God and he whom even the wind and waves obey. And to be able to crunch the salt – which delighted Oberon – and anoint ourselves with oil in a place dedicated to prayer, but also physically resonant of the great images and stories of faith in the wild ferment of the ocean – is a more meaningful act of faith than entering an empty church. Having said that, it stands alongside a great act of profanation, as so many of these Indian beaches and waters are ruined with immense piles of garbage lining the headland. Having grown up by the sea, there is something about the ocean that is cleansing, the intimation of endless eternity in salt and water, especially as the next solid ground due south bypasses the entire Southern hemisphere until Antarctica. Placed alongside this degradation of humanity it's an unwelcome reminder of our species' flaws and our enduring need for penance and the work of redemption.
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