Into the great wide open

If you want to go to Pulicat, also known as Pazhaverkaadu, do not go online. The transport, tourism and forest department websites, of Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh have nothing to offer.

Pulicat Lake is a backwater on the Andhra-Tamil Nadu border, 90 km from Chennai. Most of it is in Ponneri taluk of Thiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu. It is known for Flamingoes, Painted Storks and Pelicans. The route is motorable, as most of it is on National Highway 5.

It is on route 58C of the state’s transport corporation. Five buses go there from 8.15 a.m. to 8.45 p.m. One can also go to neighbouring Ponneri town by bus or train, and take a connecting bus from there. Public transport from Chennai and back only costs Rs. 28.

On Sunday morning, the 15th of February, The 8.15 bus pulled out of the Koyambedu bus terminus with the mild golden sun and thin mist creeping through its windows. The noise of vehicles horns and the smell of petrol fumes fade away as the driver changes gear and darts onto NH5. Dry wild grass lines the highway. The drowsy muffled roar of the bus has caressed most passengers into blissful slumber. The bliss does not last.

An infant sitting beside me wakes up to a distant hammering of an engine piston. The hammering gets louder and soon a rapture of hammering roars past the bus. Men in grey t- shirts race along NH5 on beautifully painted and polished Yezdi motorcycles, with the words “Roaring Riders” emblazoned on their backs. Gazing at the bikes riding off into the horizon, the young father of the infant turns away from his wife and smiles, slowly.

After Ponneri, the bus turns right onto State Highway-104. The road gets bumpier and a lady vomits out of the window. State transport buses desperately need to be cleansed. Ground nut shells and dirt are all over and betel spitting colours the windows.

At 10.40 a.m. the bus reaches Pazhaverkaadu bus stand which is in a garbage dump cum open toilet, opposite the 400-year-old dutch cemetery. The smell of dry fish overwhelms me.

The cemetery’s entrance is a stone arch with skeletons sculpted on both sides and a skull on top. A haunting air prevails in the cemetery. A beggar lies drunk under the dome of a mausoleum. Another beggar, who looks like Hagrid from Hogwarts, melts way behind a tomb. There are 20-feet-tall pyramids atop two tombs. Graves bear coats of arms of Dutch nobility.

The Dutch Fort Geldria at Pulicat, traded with the East Indies, from 1606 to 1690 A.D. Locally woven coloured (check-pattern) handkerchiefs and lungies were the chief items of trade, apart from medicinal herbs, silk, diamonds, spices and donkeys, procured from the hinterland. Only ruins of this fort exist.

The town is quite dirty and there are no public toilets. Avoiding restaurants is advisable. If hunger overpowers you, the safest cooked meal is Sambar rice at Jamaal’s.

SH104 ends at a jetty-under-construction on the Buckingham Canal. The place is filled with blue metal and rusty iron rods. The earth is carpeted with shiny silver fish, drying under the blinding sun. The Yezdis of the Roaring Riders line the entrance of the jetty.

Boats offer to take groups of people around the million-year-old lake, for Rs. 500. I choose to walk along its banks to reach the sea.

A tall fair chap wearing a Roaring Rider t-shirt stands beside a petty shop in the shade. He looks like Aurobindo Ghosh. He is Sachi, moderator of the riders.

“We are a club of Yezdi and Java riders from in and around Chennai. We ride to places near Chennai, once a month, besides meeting at 7.30 every Sunday morning on Elliots Beach. There are a 157 of us,” says Sachi.

The riders are a colourful bunch wearing hats and stylish helmets. They offer me a banana which energises me for the walk ahead.

I pass through quiet streets lined with trees until a reach a quieter bank of the lake. I only see the cloudless grayish blue sky above and hear bay lashing in the distance, behind the row of palm trees that appear like matchsticks. Tom Petty’s song “Into the Great Wide Open, Under them skies of blue” plays in my head. The mind is clear and the joy of escaping Chennai lifts my heart.

Three young men appear with a packet of ‘Hide n Seek’ biscuits and bananas. They jump into a boat. One of them puts the rotor in the water and spins the engine into throttle with a thin jute rope. Thick black diesel fumes burst out and they roar off into the lake. They wave me goodbye. I walk on.

The bank is never ending and I decide to walk across the lake at a point where the remains of some old concrete cylinders stretch across to the other bank. My feet sink into the clay. With each step, black earth mixes with the transparent water, like rain clouds appearing on a white sky. The water is shimmers in the sunlight. Little balloon like organisms dot the brownish-yellow bed of the lake. A stork trots gracefully beside me as I struggle through the clay. A mild breeze cajoles me on and I reach the bank.

I stumble through a small settlement. A huge Peepal tree growing on top of a ruined Hindu shrine marks the entrance of the settlement. There is a lot of construction activity. A worker hums a hypnotic tune, while two little boys lie in a concrete basin flying a kite.

As I sneak out my camera, some kids in the distance yell out “Police!” The boys in the basin scoot across the sands, into the settlement. “I’m not a cop,” I shout back. They slowly come back and pose for the camera. I move on along the shore.

Villagers catch fish with little bags woven with palm leaves. The bags are immersed in the water. The fish slip into them and the water drains out. This lunch time activity goes as I continue to seek the sea like a deer thirsting for water. I reach the Arni River which is too deep to be crossed on foot.

The earth is caked with salt. There is a burnt cactus beside me. I am dying of hunger and thirst. I contemplate whether to eat red berries growing off a shrub, as a Grey Heron comes and perches on it. My slippers are pierced with thorns and I turn back, defeated.

I walk in the shallower part of the river to cool my feet. Weeds below crunch under my toes. I reach the settlement. Wade waist deep through the lake and find my way back to town.

As I stagger back to civilization, I see an old temple which looked like a piece of the Angkor Vat. The concrete entrance to the temple which led to its iron-studded gate and coconut trees all around is like a scene from ‘Apocalypse now.’

D. R. Mani, the caretaker shows me around. “This temple was built during Krishnadevaraya’s reign. It was closed for a hundred years. I git the jungle around it cleared 15 days back and held Poojas. We plan to hold a temple festival soon,” he says.

The Adinarayana Perumal temple is awe inspiring. It is made of brick and supported by rock pillars. There is a shrine inside this complex which is a chariot carved in stone. Mani shows me an inscription, on a rock beam supporting the ceiling of the chariot. The script looks like ancient Telugu. “This is a mystery,” he says, pointing towards it. “I cannot understand it. If someone from the archaeological department could come make sense of it, we will be satisfied.”

I thank him and rush to the bus stand. I pass through neat rows of streets populated by muslims, said to be of Arab descent. It is 3 p.m. and everything here is closed. I get a bus to Ponneri and eat to my hearts content.

There aren’t any buses to Chennai, so I decide to take a train. People around ask my to walk to the railway tracks and keep walking on then till I reach Ponneri railway station. I stumble along the tracks with unburnt diesel of the trains sticking to my toes. Finally, beyond the glare of the blazing sun, I see Ponneri railway station.