Kerala Part II. How it all began.

I'm in Kerala - of course I said so already. Up until this morning I wasn't in any particular mood to share. But then I lost my temper day before and settled into a quiet sulk to think all of yesterday. So today, I feel like I could share some of what this last month has been.

It's not as bad as I make it sound, though I'm reminded daily of Gerald Durrell and his menagerie of people and animals in a strange land. Sometimes I'm amazed at how diverse the subcontinent is. Especially since I'm talking mostly in hand signals and facial expressions. It isn't as difficult as people would imagine it to be. I'm really not that much of a talker. That's probably why I talk so much shit. It's this live and let live and do not interfere with human beings because they're not half as nice about interruptions as animals are policy that I've formed after much consideration. But enough about me. More about the travels.

We reached Kurla station [in Bombay, for our train to Tellicherry] an hour early. The train was still being cleaned. I thought it was pretty fucking handy that we confused the train timing. We get nowhere on time. And almost never with an hour to spare. Movies always get watched with the first fifteen minutes gone, meetings always begin hurriedly with glares shot from the latecomer and the meetinger-in-waiting. I am almost certain I’d be late for my own funeral. Kurla station is the epitome of filth I thought [from past memory, and confirmations of the present]. How wrong I was. There are greater, more prudent epitomes of filth, which I shall get into by and by. We got onto our seats, all our backpacks and one suitcase full of enthusiasm for the journey. I looked forward to twenty hours in a south-bound train, Smit looked forward to the end of it, and Dangles looked forward to sleeping through it. As train journeys go it was pretty uneventful, save our frequent smoking trips to the loo [the smell of grass can drown out even the strongest stench of filth in closed train compartment toilets], Smit’s outburst at hardly getting enough hits and the TTE asking us to not smoke in his watch. We didn’t listen to him.

Arriving at Thalassary was a relief of sorts, and we were rested, filthy and craving some filter coffee. Be advised that the wonderful folk of north Kerala don’t give proper respect to their tea and coffee. It’s weakness makes me feel like WonderWoman with superhuge biceps. However, the Indian Coffee House in Thalassery [with branches all over Kerala] deserves gratitude for the welcoming whiff of filter kaapi that does such wonders for the soul. Arrival at Valsan’s Shilpapaddiam was met with sighs of wonderment. And the absolute pleasure of a shower. Shilpapaddiam is beyond my ability to describe. To put it most simply, it is welcoming, rustic, built in shades of the earth. Laterite and wood serves to keep you cool in the tremendous heat that is Kerala in the summer. I didn’t know at that time the weather was just readying everyone for some ecological drama. With sweat trailing us wherever we walked, we had breakfast, dragged our assortment of luggage up to our attic house [it sometimes feels like living in a treehouse in The Swiss Family Robinsson], and beelined for aforementioned shower in the outhouse. The outhouses are circular, built in laterite and some lovely bath fittings from Crabtree. The roofs are dried palm leaves. The water is cool and fresh. There are bedets for those used to modern convenience. That bit surprised me. We met the six dogs and saw no cats for our first three days here. We dragged up an extra fan from the office. We combated mosquitoes with Kachhva Chhap and Odomos. But the urban warriors were at a loss at what to do with the rusticity and the ants. Dang fretted and fumed over her Mid-Day page which needed writing while Smit and I combated with clay and laterite respectively. This we did for 2 days. On day four, we trooped to Kottayam, only to find there was pretty much nothing there to do. We walked in lanes, smoked to the intrigued stares of various Keralite men and women and ate some smashing chicken biryani and gulped very good sweet and sour veggie soup. It was almost like cheating, having that soup. If you want a decent stay in Kottayam I’d recommend The Homestead. For a ride through the backwaters, I’d say go to Dolphin Tours.

Getting into that little motor boat [we hired it outright for Rs. 2000] to go to Allepey was the best decision. No matter that we realised after getting to Kottayam that none of us really wanted to go to Kottayam, and the only one of us who even knew of it before was Dang, having read of it in The God of Small Things. This is why I never trust writers who write nostalgia. It’s a pointless waste of time to go look for someone else’s memory a couple dozen decades later. The Kottayam we saw was nothing as described. And we bought the last packet of Wills Classic Milds that existed for sale in all of Kottayam. Also bought were utterly cheap mundus, at Rs. 24 a piece, from Seematti. Chainstore, Kerala. Capitalists exist, under the cover of economy division shopping stores, even in communist states.

What strikes me the most is the local intolerance of, or the lack of interest in tolerating difference. That no matter what you do [or don't do], you will get stared at. Size, shape, gender, age, none of it matter. If you're not from there, you're not from there. And that gives those who are from there the permission to stare. Sometimes even touch. It's just seen as a fact of life. Repetition: Shorts, sleeveless shirts, tank tops, dresses that show cleavage or ankle or any such forom of skin, are considered invitations. If you want to traverse this land, get used to it. Also largely not tolerated are female/s travelling any distance without men. I don't think I've met any unattached women here, and it disturbs me just a bit. By unattached I mean, going to the market by themselves. Every other minute, sometimes, is a giant eyeroll. Luckily, the boat people are so used to tourists, they welcome it. For most part, they ignore it.

If you want to take a boat to Allepey and not come back, you’d better make it clear that you want your 6 hours on the boat and then get off at Allepey. It’s also wise to get into the bloody thing on time. At maybe 10.00 AM. It occurred to me that the earlybird behaviour at Kurla Station was total fluke.

[soon: part 3: Backwater Pirates.]