Evening Out

25/ 05/08 PM
Driving to dinner, I notice flowers on the roadway. Not long after, we pass a large cart with a frame decorated in flowers of all colors - a funeral procession. Death is followed, most often within 24 hours, by cremation. These burning ghats are on the outskirts of town. Mourners follow silently behind and before. An 8 piece band plays behind a cart filled with flowers. This cart leads the procession. Flowers from the cart are thrown onto the roadway. Such a display signals a man of means. He lies on the "hearse" draped in white.
Milan and I do not go directly to the restaurant, Appu. Detouring to the ocean front, north of Pondy, to where there used to be a fishing village, we search for a man named Babu. The tsunami destroyed most of the buildings and what is left is no longer recognizeable as it once was. Even the road, which used to service the area, has been moved. Rocks have been heaped into jetties and breakwaters along what little beach remains. The fishing village, as it existed not many years past, is no more. The inhabitants have moved to other spots along the beach, north and south.