Day 4: Imam Calling

Imams calling with megaphones from Muslim mosques are a typical element of the soundscape, and it’s captivating. I get up early to write while the others are sleeping. As I was waking this morning, I began to reflect upon what I had witnessed, sensed, and felt from the previous days. I then heard the rhythmic chanting of an imam out over the still dark city; a tin-sounding voice that seemed to emanate from an old Victrola phonographic record player and carry forever. I became overwhelmed and began to weep.

Approaching Goats Now (instead of dogs)

It’s hard to describe the absolute poverty I’m witnessing. The environment is filled with rubbish, filth, stray animals, homeless people, open sewers, and dilapidated buildings of infinite genres in juxtaposition. There are associated smells (prepared foods, sewers, and vehicle exhaust), sounds (lots of horns and motors), and motion (crowds of people and traffic that flow like rivers). Yet in this poverty there are modern cars (sometimes luxury cars), the most gorgeous clothing (especially cladding the Hindu women), cell phones, professionals, and shopping malls selling amenities.

Bongani tries a Nongu with Murugesan

Imagine tall busses that look as if they were built in the 1940’s pushing their way through traffic, and large water trucks next in the pecking order, and small cars, and motorized rickshaws, and motorcycles that come in waves filling every void that opens. Get the idea? Like putting rocks of the biggest size and then the smaller size, and then the smallest, and then sand, and then water until you have filled the jar. Really filled the jar. That’s how packed the roads through the city feel.

Drivers seem to make the rules up as they go, but I'm sure it is I who does not understand "the rules". We were passengers and witnesses in that traffic as it funneled through a narrow overpass. I looked over and saw this: A crippled man seated on a small moving platform perhaps 18 inches by 18 inches. It had wheels only tall enough to elevate him a few inches above the asphalt. He was in the road; on the edge of it, but still, on the drivable roadway. He was pulling himself along bit by bit using his open hands to palm the road surface and scoot himself forward against traffic. Prior, I could not even have conceived of nor made up such a scene as this.

Purchasing Nongu

Chris and I mumbled something about being hungry, and in response Murugesan pulled over at the next little shanty alongside the highway. I think we regretted our comments immediately, realizing we were about to be coerced into trying something that looked questionable. Jes/Manish warnings popped into my head. Warning #41: “Don’t eat from street side vendors unless it’s cooked." Warning #72: “Don’t eat cut fruit.” But how could we disappoint our gracious host who has dedicated two days to driving us, guiding us, befriending us? We could not, of course. We’d just have to risk sickness and disease.

First up was the nongu (a.k.a. “palm king”), which revealed three succulent wedges upon being husked. It didn’t taste really like anything I’ve had before; not even chicken. It had a firm, meaty consistency. I don’t know how Chris managed to do it, but he got one to squirt all over his shirt. Next we each received a green coconut with the top chopped off and a straw. After drinking the milk the coconut was sliced in two. The soft meat was dished into one half, which was served with a coconut shell wedge for the utensil. The husband and child of the women who prepared these items sat patiently in the sand behind us.