1930-01-23: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
​This page is not a currently a stop in any Tour.  But it's still worth your attention!
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1930-01-23​: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
Sorry, I haven't yet recorded the document.
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1930-01-23: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
Madras.  Jan. 23, 1930

Dear Kathleen: You will think that I have not appreciated your letters, but indeed I did.  However, I did not find the vacation a good time for writing letters; there were too many things growing in the habitat, as Will would say.  Since I came back I have found myself more than busy.  My assistant, Sarasvethi, has been home this week, owing to the illness of her brother; her home is in Pal Ghat, in the S.W. part if India, 24 hours from here.  To-day I taught 6 hours in 5; I had two classes at once for one hour; I have folk-dancing at 6:15; and Natural Science Club after dinner - a full schedule.

This is the season of visitors; our guest room is full all the time; it holds two - I don't mean to imply that it is a third class compartment, holding 32.  As soon as one set move out another comes in.  That means we devote considerable time to showing guests the village, taking them shopping, or to see the city or to the beach.  I estimate that it take about 6 hours a week.  Sometimes we can combine the entertainment with something we really want to do, but not always.  This week I hope to get something out of it.  Friday afternoon I am going to the Adyar to the Theosophical School with Mr. and Mrs. Chandler and Miss Wyckoff.  I visited Miss Wyckoff at Chittoor and met her again at Kodai where the was staying with the older Chandlers, the brother of this Mr. Chandler; they are her uncles.  On Saturday we are going to the Seven Pagodas which is said to be the best trip around here; there are old temples, 9th century, cut in the rocks.  We start at 6:30 and have dinner at Chingleput on the way home.  Do your family take Punch; there was a good poem on "The Road to Chingleput" in Punch, September 11th.  I find that I have an extra copy so I'll enclose it.  It sound just like it.

Miss Coon, Miss Cosmey and two of our guests went to the Seven Pagodas last week and one of our guests has been in bed ever since - she would not wear a topee; she insisted that the sun was no hotter than at home.  She came back ill and has not been out of her room since; she intended to leave on Tuesday.  The Indian sun is hot.  I wonder how much the "touch of sun" is the effect of light.  It is so very bright.

The girls are agitating an change in the eating arrangements.  At present we have 3 kitchens: one for European food for the staff and the few students who prefer it and are willing to pay for it; it costs twice what the Indian food does; one for the ordinary Indian food - curry and rice ("raw rice" and "boiled rice"); and a Brahmin kitchen.  One of the Brahmin girls has general oversight of the Brahmin kitchen; there are only 2 Brahmins in the college, but there are 14 at the Brahmin table - a mixture of Hindus, a few Christians who prefer vegetarian food, and our oneMohammedan.  Now the girls want to run the cooking for the other Indian food.  They want two kitchens, one for Malayalam food and one for Tamil.  The Malayalams use coconut oil in cooking and the Tamils do not; they use gingelly oil, I think it is.  The food becomes very serious when there is so little variation as in the college diet.  Two of the meals are rice and curry with no dessert.  If the curries are made of the wrong kind of oil, the whole meal is wrong.  They do not seem to be disposed to acquire new tastes.  It is not so bad to acquire one thing at a time but perhaps it is hard to have to change everything.  The domestic problem in India is quite unlike that anywhere else.

Last week we took the B. A. Botany and Zoology students to the Pallavaram hills, 12 miles away, by bus.  They provided Indian food from the Brahmin hotel.  They asked me if I preferred sweet or hot.  I said hot.  The Indian sweets are very sweet.  This letter sounds as if it were allabout food, but it happens to be up for discussion at the present time.

I'll try to do better next time.  The bell is ringing for the mail and I have no time to correct this.

​Alma
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1930-01-23​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
Madras.  Jan. 23, 1930
Madras is now called Chennai.

2.
My assistant, Sarasvethi, has been home this week, owing to the illness of her brother; her home is in Pal Ghat, in the S.W. part if India, 24 hours from here. 
I checked Google Maps.  It says that the fastest route for driving from Chennai to Palghat (Palakkad, Kerala, India) is currently 9 hours and 35 minutes:  555 kilometers.  So, about 60 miles per hour.  Not bad.

3.
I have folk-dancing at 6:15
I periodically come across mentions by Alma of dancing, so she must have liked it.  I find it hard to imagine, since I knew her only as a very old lady, but one can't argue with the evidence.

4.
Friday afternoon I am going to the Adyar to the Theosophical School with Mr. and Mrs. Chandler and Miss Wyckoff.
This may be the Theosophical Society Adyar, which is still in existence, according to Wikipedia.

5.
​On Saturday we are going to the Seven Pagodas which is said to be the best trip around here; there are old temples, 9th century, cut in the rocks.
Wikipedia says:
"Seven Pagodas" has served as a nickname for the south Indian city of Mamallapuram, also called Mahabalipuram (old name), since the first European explorers reached it. The phrase "Seven Pagodas" refers to a belief that has circulated in India, Europe, and other parts of the world for over eleven centuries. The group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram, including the Shore Temple built in the 8th century under the reign of Narasimhavarman II, stand at the shore of the Bay of Bengal. Legend has it that six other temples once stood with it.
Wikipedia also says:
Immediately before the 2004 tsunami struck the Indian Ocean, including the Bay of Bengal, the ocean water otff Mahabalipuram's coast pulled back approximately 500 meters. Tourists and residents who witnessed this event from the beach recalled seeing a long, straight row of large rocks emerge from the water. As the tsunami rushed to shore, these stones were covered again by water. However, centuries' worth of sediment that had covered them was gone. The tsunami also made some immediate, lasting changes to the coastline, which left a few previously covered statues and small structures uncovered on the shore.
It's not relevant to Alma's visit to the Seven Pagodas nearly 75 years before, but gosh, it's cool.

6.
We start at 6:30 and have dinner at Chingleput on the way home. 
Wikipedia says:
Chengalpattu, previously known as Chingleput, is a city and the headquarters of Chengalpattu district of the state Tamil Nadu, India.
I looked for the Chingleput poem that Alma mentioned, but couldn't find it.  It may be available later, if/when more of Punch is available online.

7.
Miss Coon, Miss Cosmey and two of our guests went to the Seven Pagodas last week
I'm not familiar with Miss Coon, but I've got Bea Cosmey on the Non-Family page for India folks.
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