5/20/07

Betel. Kanchipuram. Tamil Nadu


A woman in the Sri Ekambaranathar temple in Kanchipuram. This woman, after doing her laundry was waiting for it to dry and spitting betel.. A common scene all over India.
Kanchipuram is one of the 7 sacred cities of India. One of my favorite.. The other cities sacred are Ayodhya, Haridwar, Varanasi, Mathura, Ujjain and Dwarka.
In the Indian sub-continent, the leaves of the betel (piper betle) are used as wrappers for ‘pan’, a roll of raw spices that are chewed slowly as a digestive and stimulant—a chewing gum substitute