Pittsburgh

The Office of International Education (OIE) of OSU occasionally organises events for international students. Sometime in May, it organised a canoeing trip at the Mohican River. The weather forecasts were predicting a bright sunny day for that Saturday and all of us were looking forward to a serene 15 miles of canoeing. A number of us from the MBA program had signed up for it.

As it turned out, the weather played spoilsport – it started raining the previous day and continued through Saturday. All of us nevertheless turned up at the OIE at the appointed time hoping against hope that the rain would stop. But it was not to be. Since none of us fancied four hours in a boat in the rain, the trip was postponed indefinitely; in other words, cancelled.

All of us i.e. Deepanker, NK, Vivek and I were pumped up for the trip and the cancellation threw us into a quandary. You see, an MBA student’s life is planned ahead of time and all of us had taken great care to keep that Saturday clear of other commitments so that we could enjoy the trip. The cancellation resulted in a situation for which none of was prepared – nothing to do for the whole day! The rigour of the MBA program had made sure that all of us had forgotten what “free time” was. After a few minutes of confusion, we arrived at a consensus to retire to Deepanker’s apartment where we would chalk out our plans for the day in true MBA fashion.

Deepanker prepared tea, which all my companions (they being of the North Indian variety) proclaimed to be the best they had ever tasted. After several sessions of brainstorming, we came up with two alternatives, neither of which was exactly logical or related. Go go-karting or visit the Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Pittsburgh – the Jamshedpur of the USA. Why did we come up with Pittsburgh, a place almost four hours away? You see, that’s the beauty of brainstorming – you’ll get ideas that are totally whacky. However, we soon found out that the only go-karting place in Columbus would not open until 1:00 pm. Now that was a disaster – waste three hours until then? Being trained to make productive use of all time, we decided that such a travesty could not be allowed to pass. So Pittsburgh it was.

All that remained was to decide whose car to use. Both NK and Deepanker owned cars and there was a very subtle negotiation between them. Neither wanted to use his car since the trip would easily add around 400 miles to the age of the car. However, Nilesh won the day and Deepanker’s car was chosen. The rest of us couldn’t care less; all it would cost us was $5 each for the entire trip.

We have a classmate called Jaswant Singh Rathore – an enigma of a man if ever there was one. Having heard lots of stories of the philandering ways of sailors (and those having been confirmed by Vivek – a sailor), Jaswant struck as an oddity. He is a deeply pious and religious man, who dutifully keeps to his daily quota of reading the Ramayana or the Gita. A thorough gentleman in every other respect too. Vivek and Jaswant had known each other since before joining Fisher as they had studied at the same college in India. He decided to invite Jaswant along with us to the temple. Since Jaswant was in the middle of his daily quota of the scriptures and could not be interrupted, we waited for him before we set off.

The car now had five of us – Deepanker the driver, Vivek the navigator and the rest of us (NK, Jaswant and I) passengers at the rear. Deepanker has been in the USA since quite a few years and is well travelled. So we did not use any map – something that concerned me greatly initially. Go around an unknown country without a map? Who ever heard of anything like that! But nothing untoward happened.

It rained the entire distance between Columbus and Pittsburgh. It was the longest continuous piece of geography that I have ever seen under rain – an easy two hundred miles.

We spent time narrating jokes and indulging in gossip. We discussed favourites and not so favourites among teachers, fellow students and just about everybody else from Vajpayee to the Indian grocer in Columbus who regularly fleeces customers without the slightest iota of regret. Needless to say, there was some enjoyable character assassination, which we felt was thoroughly justified.

Anyway, we stopped along the way a few times to take care of necessary excretions and ingestions (both to the car and its occupants). Everyone in the car (except I) was addicted to caffeine. How disgusting.

Pennsylvania has rolling hills which would have been very picturesque but for the rain. But the sight out of the car window was pretty nevertheless. Even though Pennsylvania neighbours Ohio, there is a lack of long open roads here, which the flat plains of Ohio allow. The roads wind around hills and valleys quite a lot in this state. The state is also a lot greener than Ohio, with lush vegetation all around. Or maybe the rain gave me that impression.

The entry into Pittsburgh from the west is very dramatic. The highway enters a long tunnel through a hill. On the other side, we exit onto the bank of a huge river (the Monangahela) and a bridge to cross it. The bridge starts right at the mouth of the tunnel. Beyond it is the city of Pittsburgh with its impressive skyline. The river seems to be a major trade route as there were numerous barges and ships on it. Crossing the river, there was again this jumble of roads, bridges and flyovers that seem to be a unique characteristic of big American cities. They make you feel disconnected with the earth – and that is an eerie feeling.

The city is located at the junction of two rivers – the Monangahela and the Allegheny – that join to form the Ohio River. There is a stadium (I think baseball) at the confluence called the Three Rivers Stadium. The Ohio River therefore originates in Pittsburgh, which is in Pennsylvania. Only a small part of the river flows through Ohio, and here’s the kicker; Ohio does not have any right over the Ohio River waters!

In Pittsburgh, one can find several buildings and roads named after Andrew Carnegie. The Pittsburgh airport is also named after him. The Carnegie Mellon University, which is one of the foremost centres of Computer Science and technology in the world, is located in Pittsburgh. Just as Pittsburgh is the Jamshedpur of the USA, Andrew Carnegie is their Jamshedji Tata. He is the man whose steel mills brought life and industry to the city of Pittsburgh.

Both banks of the Monangahela are hilly. The temple is on one of the hills on the eastern side. I think Sri Venkateshwara likes to be on hills! We got off the highway and drove up the hills. There was lush green vegetation on either side, with a good view of the river as we climbed the hill. We did lose our way once, but soon the Gopura of the temple was visible and we found the road to it.

The temple is supposed to be the biggest in the USA. Having said that, it is average sized by Indian standards. It is built in the south-Indian style with a proper Vimana and Gopura and looked quite at home on top of the hill. The temple has existed since quite a while; it was established in the seventies. But, most of the structure came up much later as and when the community came up with funds. Artisans from India were flown over for most of the stonework. Considering its location in a place with a very small Hindu community (at the time of establishment), the temple is quite an achievement.

The temple has been adapted to local conditions. I don’t think the traditional temple architecture with open pillared halls would have worked in a place where temperatures go down to ten degrees Celsius below zero! Therefore, this temple is a totally enclosed structure with controlled temperature. On entering the temple, the same familiar smell of all temples hit me – a mixture of incense, camphor and tulasi. I felt like I was back in the Vontikoppal Venkataramanaswamy temple. It had the same atmosphere. It also sounded like the tower of Babel since almost every Indian tongue could be heard in the temple. But the administration was quite clearly south Indian. Most of the priests and staff spoke Kannada, Telugu or Tamil.

The temple is a community centre for the Hindus in the area. This was clear from the various notices that cluttered the large notice boards. The temple was a centre for learning Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, classical music (Carnatic, Hindustani, vocal, instrumental), dance, acting, Sanskrit and everything else that the community felt their children should know about Indian culture. There were also notices inviting people for Upanayanas and Shraddhas. Some notices acknowledged the achievement of the people in the area – somebody got a big promotion and another got an admission into an Ivy League university. Evidently, the community was quite close knit. I even overheard a couple talking (in Kannada) to a temple official enquiring about a bride for their son (“Olle huduga raayre, yenoo durabhyaasa illa. Ille hutti belediddu antha helakke aagalla”).

The temple has two levels because of the gradient on the hill. The sanctum sanctorum is on the upper level while the lower level has a long corridor on one side (where we leave our footwear and coats/jackets) along with the offices and the dining hall. There is a path around the sanctum sanctorum for circumambulation on the upper level.

We waited some time for the pooje to get over and had darshana. Unlike in most south Indian temples, people are allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum here. This is most probably because of the fact that many devotees are north Indians who are accustomed to entering the sanctum sanctorum.

After the darshana, we bought tickets for lunch. Even though this was not a requirement, one feels cheap not to pay when one can. Moreover, the amount requested was very small. Lunch consisted of rice, huli and curd rice. Puliyogare was also available along with various other south Indian dishes. The lunch was excellent. Even my north Indian friends appreciated it. Sometimes they feel that south Indian food is not quite Indian. E.g. If I tell them “Let’s go to Udupi restaurant”, they are likely to reply, “No yaar, let’s go to an Indian place”. Indian to them is north Indian. This infuriates me.

After lunch, we took a few souvenir photographs and started back. It started raining again and continued all along the way up to Columbus. We reached Columbus by about seven in the evening, and thus ended a very unusual day where we set off from home for a canoeing trip, but ended up in a temple four hours away.