National_Geographic_Traveller_India_May_2017

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Voices | WAYFARING Room for Doubt FAITH CAN GIVE A PLACE ITS FOUNDATION, BUT IT IS CURIOSITY THAT BRINGS ALIVE ITS HISTORY Sudha Pillai is an artist, photographer, and writer. She writes about her encounters with people, places, art, and culture. The best moments in a journey are always unplanned. Those are the moments that get calligraphed in travel memes. After almost a decade I was back in Chennai on work. I had a few hours to spare before my flight back home. While bumming around in the hotel room, the leaflet on the nightstand caught my eye. It was a tract on “sights to see” in the city. Santhome Cathedral was on the list. On a whim, I got into an auto and made my way to the Cathedral which stands on the shores of Marina beach. The last time I visited the Cathedral, my hair was black and waist willow. The significance of the Cathedral was completely lost on a 15-year-old who spent a chimerical summer reading Thorn Birds. This time around, when I found myself standing in front of the Cathedral, I was 15 twice over. The hair was now dyed and the hips wide. Santhome Cathedral stands atop the tomb of St. Thomas. There are only three churches in the world that are built over the tomb of an apostle of Christ, the other two being St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the tomb of St. James in Spain. Amongst all the apostles, St. Thomas, also known as Doubting Thomas, is my favourite. He was intelligent enough to doubt and Trojan enough to express those doubts. The search for knowledge begins with a kernel of doubt. The latter Thomas had in abundance. Thomas was not present when Jesus appeared to Santhome Cathedral, Chennai his disciples after his resurrection. Thomas refused to believe that the Lord had risen; he would do so only after seeing the marks of the nails in Jesus’s hands with his own eyes. During his next apparition, Jesus invited Thomas to check His wounds, which Thomas promptly did before falling to his knees and crying, “My Lord and My God.” Apostle Thomas came to India in A.D. 52. He was martyred in then Madras in A.D. 72. When the Portugese arrived in Mylapore in 1521, the chapel which contained the tomb of St. Thomas was in ruins. The Portugese rebuilt the church in 1523, which lasted until the end of the 19th century. The present-day Cathedral was built in 1853. The Gothic Cathedral looms large and is almost pastoral in the middle of a raucous city. The wide teak doors are open to people from all faiths and walks of life. Inside the 115-footlong nave, the harsh Chennai sun streams through 36 stained glass windows creating a psychedelic display of colours. Under the 155-foot-high steeple stands the statue of Christ with arms wide open. It tickles me to see that standing on a lotus with two peacocks for company, the Lord was doing a ‘when-in-Rome’. The underground tomb-chapel, which is built above the place where St. Thomas is believed to have been buried, is behind the main Cathedral. This chapel contains a precious relic—a bone from the tip of St. Thomas’s little finger. A caretaker-nun brings out the relic once every month for a special mass. Looking at the red and gold box that holds the relic I wonder what it must be like, for the nun to hold a piece of a man who walked alongside the Messiah himself. “I get goose bumps just thinking about it,” says the nun rubbing her arms. “I cannot express the feeling in words, but it is something … something …” She gropes for words and fails. I think I get what she means, though my agnostic brain cannot shape that feeling into words. The nun has no doubts in her mind. There’s a pole inside the compound. Locals call it the Santhome pole. Some believe it was erected by St. Thomas. But nobody knows for sure. Legend has it that the sea never crosses the pole. Even during the Tsunami the sea did not defy the pole, leaving the church intact and annihilating the rest in its wake. The place where Doubting Thomas rests is but a testimony to the aphorism: Be not faithless, but believing. Delicious irony! A few hours later, mid-flight, a teeny-tiny doubt rears in me: Can faith flourish without the faithless? SUDHA PILLAI 18 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | MAY 2017
NAVIGATE the quest On the trail of the Vikings from 28 Newfoundland to Norway national park A boat trip through the 40 Sundarbans yields many secrets superstructures Basaltic formations meet a 46 minimal aesthetic in Reykjavík The Wat Arun temple sparkles on the Chao Phraya River. Bangkok Beckons CALM MEETS CLAMOUR IN THAILAND’S VIBRANT CAPITAL Bangkok is two-faced. At once serene and spicy, frenzied yet romantic, it is the best of both worlds. The golden tiles of the temples wink eternal, the steam from Chinatown hawkers’ woks carries the peppery scents of fragrant herbs, and down alleys the twisted arms of aged banyan trees wrap the gates of rickety wooden homes. At the same time, baristas hand over lattes made with Thai coffee beans. Bitters and Bénédictine line the back bar at cocktail joints. And when the faded teak doors of the shophouses roll open in the morning, you’ll find tables stocked by independent, young designers. —Jenny Adams JACK KURTZ, ZUMA WIRE 20 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | MAY 2017
Page 1 and 2: MAY 2017 • ` 150 • VOL. 5 ISSUE
Page 3 and 4: MACAO A PROCESSION OF COLOUR MUMBAI
Page 5 and 6: Editor’s Note | SHREEVATSA NEVATI
Page 7: Voices | TRAVELLER’S CHECK Go Bet
Page 11 and 12: Navigate | THE INSIDER SEE IT Walk
Page 13 and 14: Navigate | THE QUEST Raiders of the
Page 15 and 16: Navigate | THE CONCEPT Under Troubl
Page 17 and 18: Navigate | URBAN EXPLORER Invest in
Page 19 and 20: Navigate | NATIONAL PARK In the Eye
Page 21 and 22: Navigate | NATIONAL PARK Tigers are
Page 23 and 24: Navigate | HERITAGE Culture is Look
Page 25 and 26: caught up in all the action above.
Page 27 and 28: The stairs of the Moesgaard Museum
Page 29 and 30: with its candy cane cupolas. We dri
Page 31 and 32: Oregon’s fiery origins are etched
Page 33 and 34: of a stand of trees as we neared. A
Page 35 and 36: Guests in the Great Room in Timber
Page 37 and 38: IN FOCUS 62 macao The city’s Lati
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■ DENMARK A festival in Denmark b
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■ DENMARK Every July, visitors to
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■ DENMARK spent most of his adult
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■ WORLD IMAGE PARTNER CANON EOS 5
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■ WORLD CANON EOS 5D MARK II APER
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■ WORLD Play With Fire Follow the
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■ INDIA Crescendo diverse as Glas
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■ INDIA EAST Jazzfest Kolkata, We
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■ INDIA WEST Nariyal Paani Alibau
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JOURNEYS 104 australia From shy ban
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■ AUSTRALIA MY FAMILY OF OTHER Fr
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■ AUSTRALIA an hour southwest of
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■ AUSTRALIA The Open Vehicle Adve
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■ MADHYA PRADESH Hiking in the te
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■ MADHYA PRADESH A typical day in
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■ MADHYA PRADESH Come dusk, camps
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■ MADHYA PRADESH A MOVEABLE FEAST
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MAY 2017 | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAV
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IRELAND Dublin UNITED KINGDOM CELTI
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