The Isle of Elephanta

 "Beyond Bombay Harbor, across the blue waters, lies the green Isle of Elephanta.  A short walk uphill takes you to the cave temples, cut out of solid rock by the hand of man.  Inside the main cave may be seen some of the finest sculptures of Indian art carved about 1300 years ago."--from a comic book sold there.

My old officemate Frank and I had some fun times here in Mumbai, checking out the local scenes, strolling along the ocean, and pontificating as academics are wont to do.  You've probably seen him in a video or two on this blog.  (Not to be confused with the Observer from Fringe.)  For his last weekend here we visited the Island of Shiva, also known as Elephanta.  It's a favorite getaway spot for him.  So, we made a day of it.

To get to the island, you go to the Gateway of India, the tourist trap area I was photographed in before.  Some guy comes up to you from the crowd and hawks a ticket.  You don't blow him off like most of the annoying people, but go ahead and buy it.   You listen for the gate number, and then proceed over to your boat.  There are lots of boats that regularly make the trip to Elephanta; ours was the "M.L. Sahil", a nice big boat with two decks.

You might pay a little extra to sit at the top, away from the engine.  After ९० minutes or so of boating through the harbor, you disembark on the island with the other tourists.  Your goal is to get to the top of a hill where all the old stuff is, past a gauntlet of enthusiastic salesmen.  Like most of their ilk, they assume that if you look at something, you want to buy it.  And they call you their friend.  More interestingly, this is the only place in the area where you can see monkeys.  Lots of monkeys.  More about them in a moment.  At the top of the hill, you pay १० rupees if you are Indian, and २५० rupees if you are not.  Just because.  Then you can wander around and see some holy caves, other tourists, and lots of monkeys.

The first monkeys I saw were artfully stealing some food from the free-range dogs who also hang out there.  Evidently the monkeys and dogs are in an eternal conflict that the monkeys always win.  On the other hand they both seem to live harmoniously with the tourists, who give them lots of food and drink.  The monkeys are pretty adept; we saw one monkey twist the top off of a soda bottle so that it could spill the soda out and drink it from the ground.  I was a little timid around them, and wasn't carrying any groceries.  (Note:  I intended to be delighted if they steal my groceries, but never promised to make that happen.  I don't want to get, you know, scratched or anything.)

There aren't any elephants on Elephanta; the island was so named by Portugese who were impressed by a stone elephant that was once there, and is now in a museum.  What the island is really known for is the caves.  They are completely carved out of the solid rock mountain, so long ago that noone remembers who originally built them.  The main one has several large carvings of Shiva and friends depicted in various mythological episodes.

Shiva is another important Hindu god.  Actually Ganesh, the subject of my last entry, is the son of Shiva and/or his wife Parvati.  Shiva is the ultimate dancer and yogi, in case you are into either of those things.
He mostly meditates, but at the end of this phase of Hindu cosmology, he will do a dance as the world dissolves, preparing for its recreation.  So yeah, he's a big deal.

There are also holy shrines in the caves, defended by huge implacable stone warriors.

It is also guarded by smaller flesh and blood security guards, who get upset if you go into the shrine wearing shoes.  (It wasn't me, frankly...)  Sadly much of the ancient carvings and statues were destroyed by Portugese with guns, so I didn't get to see many of the faces and limbs of the figures.

We spent some time outside looking at the monkeys and getting a sunburn.  Folks were very friendly; many of them asked us where we were from.  Unfortunately I had been accustomed to blowing off strangers on the street and wasn't so friendly myself.  (Remember we were on an island with other vacationers, so there wasn't any danger.)  When we did start socializing, we were suddenly surrounded by kids and grownups who wanted to get their pictures taken with us.  Lots of pictures, with all different permutations of people.  I wasn't even performing or anything.  We shook lots of hands and fascinated lots of vacationers.  Did I mention there weren't many obvious foreigners on the Isle?  I think next time I should bring some juggling balls.

Speaking of, next time:  The Banyan Tree Jugglers!

Hey readers, check out the opposite blog of DAI:  an Indian mathematician from TIFR moving to Purdue, where I used to live...