God's Own Country!

The Air India’s Flight to Kochi, though punctual, was a listless affair. The only interesting thing happened towards the end when I learnt that my co-passenger was an MP representing the same area we were headed to. He was all praise for the educated Kerala electorate who threw out those playing communal politics, wanted development and did not promote film heroes like Tamilians. He thought the current parliamentary session was a success, formation of a separate Telangana state in Andhra a certainty and his week-end visit home only meant to meet his constituents. While I mused over why the same electorate with the highest literacy rate never reposed faith in a single party and had to flee God’s own country to find jobs elsewhere, we were asked to fasten the seat belts for landing at Kochi’s picturesque airport. On arrival, I told the cab driver that I had met his MP on the flight. He cynically smiled to say, ‘They are only seen during elections’. My wife, meanwhile, was deeply upset that the agent whose card had a logo depicting the silhouette of a houseboat and palm trees with the promise of ‘whispering waves’ had put us up in a budget hotel. She turned out to be right. Abad group ran too many properties to enable us to remember the details. ‘Banta Singh and Santa Singh are the same’, I suggested to her but she called Delhi to ensure that Nair took no more liberties with our itinerary and compensated us with complimentary dinners during the rest of the trip.

We drove through morning to Vaikom, on to a very narrow, broken road. My spine, already weakened with osteophytes, groaned loudly at every thud while I made a cushion of my right hand to pat it with patience. Somehow the road did not fit in with the global image of Kerala’s backwaters. I did not know it then that the actual point where the popular cruises begin was several miles down at Kumarakom or furher down at Alleppey -the southern end of backwaters while we were at the northern tip, being developed as a tourist destination. While I scanned the serene waters spread along the horizon, my wife quizzed the wily Ramesh, who kept more to himself than revealed, about our exact whereabouts. The boat we were supposed to occupy was a beauty but someone in its driver’s family had ostensibly passed away so we were made to move into a larger boat with two bedrooms. Minutes ticked away inexplicably and as our romance with Kerala’s backwaters began, Ramesh also talked us into accepting another couple on board. ‘I told you, Sir, na that the driver has a tragedy so please don’t mind. They will be in a separate room.’ A steam boat brought them to our house boat while it idled around lunch and a harassed young couple came on board. No hellos, no smiles! They vanished into the other bedroom. While we wondered whether they have had a fight or found us bad company, food, enough for six, was served to two of us. The fried fish made up for all bad feelings. They re-emerged when we were asked to move to the upper deck as the ‘other family’ wanted to have lunch. We chose to retire to our room with a fidgety air conditioner and a CD of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Ramesh was at it once again, ‘Sorry, Sir. This is the only one we have.’ I preferred to read Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’ (No, the boat didn’t keep any books) while my wife plugged in her headset to listen to music.
The next two hours were heavenly. We decided to focus on what we had come all the way to see. The house boat slid over the serene waters silently as we gazed enchanted on the embankments lined with countless coconut and palm trees. You could see women washing clothes at the a distant bank and then an odd boat being stuffed with sand. Ramesh had turned a guide now and told us whatever he could. ‘Best sand, Sir. He turned to my wife, ‘Madam, are you enjoying? Should I click your picture- on your second honeymoon’, he chuckled. We didn’t know it then but learnt later that the other couple, on the first-ever honeymoon, had been robbed of privacy. The crafty Ramesh had shown them the same boat and told them the same story. ‘Only you were to go on this exclusive boat. Someone passed away and the driver is not there so we have to put you up on the other house boat! Please don’t mind, huh! Separate room.’ The bitter lady in the other room confided later that the romancing couple had to watch the violent ‘Gazni’ on their honeymoon. ‘Sorry, madam. Only one CD.’


The house boat turned and entered a narrow waterway. There were huts on both sides. Small children came out of some homes to wave to us. Inquisitive men looked at strangers peeping into their lives. An elderly man, already neck-deep in water, looked at us and took a dip. Small boats lay tied on both banks to tree barks dug deep into the still waters. Working jetties! The boat swerved to the left again, stopped intruding into their privacy and entered wider water bodies. The afternoon sun shone relentlessly setting the splashing waters aglow. It looked as if deep, dark surroundings had been set afire. We sailed past an abandoned Chinese fishing net, which looked like a huge squarish bowl, which used to be dipped into waters and then pulled up with a wooden lever along with the booty. We were to see more of them at Alleppey later, some of them in action. A couple of steamers sped past us carrying passengers and gurgling waters around them breaking the deafening silence. We turned right yet again and the boat went past a hamlet with women in nighties busy in household chores. ‘Whatever happened to the traditional Keralite costumes’, my wife wondered. ‘Perhaps convenience and affordability comes first’. Ramesh made his last appearance as the familiar steamboat slid alongside. ‘Sorry, Sir. There is an emergency.’ He jumped on to the steamboat a little later and got away not to be seen again till our departure. We moved along the bank as the distant sun to our left prepared to go down. The houseboat anchored for the night allowing us to come on ground. A row of colas stood on a table. We picked up one and asked about the price. ‘Forty rupees.’ Nothing comes cheap if you are a tourist. We spoke to our daughters to tell them they were being missed as darkness enveloped the sky.

The night too was eventful with air conditioner switching off intermittently and a few of the ants spotted in a row on the boat’s floor managing to climb on to the bed. That was quite scary! The boat scampered back to the spot where we had started from by the time we sat for breakfast. This was when the newly-wed young lady took every crew member to task for terminating the cruise more than an hour before the scheduled time. ‘We paid so much money and you return one hour before time. What’s this? We are not leaving the boat.’ Our local agent happened to call right then and she asked him to reprimand hers in Malayalam. “Are you a Tamilian? he queried and learnt that she was from Hyderabad and spoke Telugu, Hindi and English only. The verbal duel that followed helped her extract another four hours of cruise from the houseboat owner. We felt good for them and packed off hurriedly to Alleppey to give the couple some privacy they deserved. The afternoon was spent shopping for handicrafts saving the evening for the Alleppey beach. Also as Alappuzha beach, it is a beautiful, vast expanse of sands and turquoise blue waters of the Arabian sea. The old lighthouse looked mystical in the evening. There is a century old dock whose pier extends deep into the sea. We felt like walking on it but saw the missing planks in time and returned to the waves. We kept stepping forward and let the waves go past our ankles filling our slippers with sand. Walking long the coastline revealed dozens of young boys and girls befriending the waves. A toddler caught our eye as he tried repeatedly to break free from his father’s clutches to rush in to the sea. As the Sun slid down, our eyes were glued to the horizon while shutters of cameras and mobiles clicked throwing flashes of light forward. Dozens of gleaming Chinese kites rose in the darkening sky. At the same time, the Naval Symphonic Band celebrating the Navy week ironically played the song ‘Suno gaur se duniya walo, Buri nazar na hum pe dalo, Chahe jitna zore laga lo, sab se aage honge, Hindustani.’


We left Alleppey next morning to race to Fort Kochi, 50 kms away and best known for Church of St. Francis where Vasco da Gama lay buried for fourteen years before his remains were taken to Portugal. The once Roman Catholic Church is now managed by the Church of South India and draws the curious and faithful alike. We stepped out to find a row of stalls, Janpath style, selling bric-a-brac, and picked up a few souvenirs after hard bargaining. It was quite warm outside and sighting a fresh coconut vendor was a relief. My wife argued you could get one for 15 rupees even in Delhi but the vendor ignored her and looked over our shoulders at the foreigners for better deals.

Our next halt was at the bowl-shaped Chinese fishing nets, said to be introduced in 13th century by Chinese traders and now a tourist attraction. The size of some of the big fishes being sold next to them, despite being video graphed by a gullible tourist, made me suspicious. A shopkeeper selling garments close to the site confirmed that only the tiny ones were caught in the nets while the rest were supplied by the fishing trawlers from the deep sea. Our nest destination was the Paradesi Jewish Synagogue, which is at the end of the narrow Jew Lane, almost monopolized by the Kashmiri traders who step out of shops to accost tourists. The Synagogue was closed during lunch hour so we chose to shop for spices. When it opened, we went past an exhibition of a series of paintings beginning with the arrival of Jews in Cochin. Most of them either migrated to Portugal or converted later. Female visitors wearing revealing clothes, sleeveless tops and skirts specifically mentioned, could borrow scarves to cover themselves up before entering the prayer house. We were asked to remove our shoes. The Synagogue’s Scrolls, the Torahs, meaning the instructions or laws of Judaism, were hidden behind a curtain inside. A guide was asking a Belgian tourist to look at the glass chandeliers. ‘Do you know from where these came? You made them.’ Oil lamps, one of them was lit, were first filled with water and then oil, which would stay at top, before lighting them. A brass-railed pulpit stood in the middle. ‘Look beneath your feet, Madam. These are all Chinese, 18th century, hand-painted porcelain tiles.’ The lady repeated the information to her male companion in Dutch who nodded intermittently. Near the gate, the man on the counter informed us that prayers are offered on the weekends. ‘Why prohibit photography’, I asked. ‘Security’, he evasively said but the intent could well be to sell brochures and picture post cards showing the Synagogue.

The evening was reserved for Kochi’s Marine Drive, a poor cousin of Mumbai’s in terms of length but lined with many more boats, most with upper decks, which take you across to the harbour end @ 50 rupees an hour. We fell for it and were made to wear life jackets, post-Thekkady tragedy in October this year in which nearly forty people lost their lives. The evening sky changed colours rapidly as the sun went down allowing The Taj hotel’s neon sign to emerge. A coastguard vessel blew its horn twice as we came in its way and in the melee, you could no longer hear the waters lapping against the hull. I tried clicking a few pictures of the ships anchored on the other side but failed. The movement of the boat and darkness all around frustrated my attempts. An engine sound caught my ears right then and a steam boat raced past us without any light. For the first time, the rotatable headlight was switched on as the driver swerved right towards the now illuminated shore. We rounded off the trip with a visit to a five-storied store. My wife called home:

‘Hello! I am at Mahalakshmi store..’
‘No, Madam. Jayalakshmi’, the group of sales girls spoke in unison. ‘on M.G.Road’. As if the location would have altered the name itself.
‘O.K., O.K. Jayalakshmi. Should I pick up a Lehenga and some Punjabi suits for you?’
Punjabi suits in Kerala! Whatever happened to the traditional Pattu-pavadas and Thaavanis! Thank God my wife finally picked up a Kasavu saree for herself!

At dinner, we had fish for the umpteenth time before flying out of God’s own country.
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