I hope Server Sundari does not have a drunk for a husband

After my day-long roaming about at Kanchipuram two years ago, I knew that I would not turn down any opportunity to go there again.  The city is rich with history and art and architecture, and there is a lot of lost time I need to make up for, I suppose.

So, when father suggested that we drive down to Kanchipuram on Christmas day, I was all too happy to sign on--though my secular goals were very different from his religious reasons.

We were barely a few minutes into the drive a little after sunrise when we passed one of the strangest sights that reminded me that, well, it is very much India.

By the roadside in the thick of the city, and a few feet away from an ultra-low-income home, a woman, perhaps about thirty, was beating a man with a cane.  He was sitting on the floor with his hands above his head to deflect the cane, and a few others--neighbors perhaps--were standing around witnessing the drama.

As we drove past, we commented in the car that this was perhaps yet another case of the husband coming home drunk after spending whatever little money that the family had, and the wife decided she had to do something, even if only to beat the crap out of him.  Quite a gift for the drunk on Christmas morning!

I tell ya, we men are a disgrace and have no idea how and why the women put up with such deadbeats!

At Kanchipuram, the stone carvings on pillars were far too impressive even for the art-challenged person that I am.  I wandered around and took photographs while the rest of the family headed into the temple core for the worship.  My pilgrimages are different from theirs.

Believers or atheists, the human biology is the same and we were all famished.  A young woman wearing a restaurant shirt over her outfit approached our table.  "Anything to drink?" she asked with a wonderfully smiling face.

We told her that we were ready to order.  "I am ready" she replied with a smile.

Which is when I noticed that all the wait-staff were women. All women. How fascinating!  In a very traditional town of Kanchipuram!  India is certainly changing, and changing quite fast.

She smiled with everything she said and did. All of us noticed her pleasant demeanor.  As we got up after settling the bill, father asked her about her employment. She had come to this after undergoing a certificate training program--in nursing. I bet she has her own reasons for being a waitress as opposed to working as a nurse's aide.

I was the last one to leave the table. I added twenty rupees to the tip that father had already left for her. "It is for your smiles" I told her.

She smiled once more.