Kerala Chronicles - Part 3

Some time ago, I read about an old movie called "If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium", about a group of tourists who criss-cross continental Europe at breakneck speed. Leaving Thiruvananthapuram, our Kerala odyssey too had reached a similar state, leaving us to cover humdreds of kilometres all over the state using all possible modes of transport on land and water. In the heady itinerary that followed, we kept track of our location solely on the basis of what day of the week it was.

Day 3:
Well, I finally had it, the gastric scourge without which one can't claim to be a tourist in India. but while your average dyspeptic white foreigner can claim unfamiliarity with hot spices and chillies in the stomach lining wars as the cause of his downfall, I was done in by the humble and innocuous coconut. Ok, I like coconuts as much as the next non-Mallu guy but coconut paste in chicken? Give me a break. The potency of the concoction I had for dinner hit me later that night, when I had to make a couple of urgent trips to the bathroom. As we checked out of the nice little lodge in the wee hours of the morning and made our way to the bus station located closeby, my thoughts were geared up as to how I would last the formidable distance of 280 kilometres to be covered in 8 hours on a KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation) bus.
Waiting at the stop for a bus to Kumily, close to the Periyar Wildlife Reserve, I was able to make some observations about Kerala society and some of its most unique features. Kerala's most recognizable cultural export after Kathakali is Shakeela Khan. Notwithstanding the proliferation in the 80s of buxom bombshells in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, no state has pushed the envelope of sexual permissiveness more than Kerala with Shakeela being the standard bearer of that movement. Looking at the book stalls within the bus stop complex, it became pretty clear that her prominence is no aberration. Shops proudly displayed books and periodicals that had graphic pictures of buxom beauties in varying states of undress titillating the eyes of all those who cared to glance at them. Far be it from me to claim that up North where I come from is a bastion of virtue and abstinence, but still, the transactions in this line are carried out in a unique surreptitious manner, with a well developed set of codes and pass words. You walk into a nice book or magazine shop, filled for all intents and purposes with educational/informative reading material and walk up to the nice middle aged proprieter at the counter and say "kuchh achhi kitabein nahin hain?" whereupon he proceeds to reach under his desk and takes out a stack of material that is even more educational and informative than that displayed on the shelves. And that is the way of all flesh up in the north. Shorn of this clandestine element, I'm sure half the thrill of alternative entertainment in Kerala is lost there itself.
Anyway, I was far too preoccupied with my own gastric predicament to do any navel gazing at comely Mallu women adorning magazine covers and as we boarded the 99 Rs per person Thiruvananthapuram - Kumily bus, I determined that the best way to last the 8 hour journey without incident would be to sit and my seat and sleep through. As the bus wound its way through the streets of Kerala's capital, I managed to sleep off for a couple of hours but couldn't manage any more so I thought that I would grit my teeth through my troubles and gaze at the scenery outside. I'm glad I did so because Kerala is beautiful not only around its coasts but also in its interiors, with verdant forests and beautiful fields all around, the view is therapuetic, though its efficacy as a laxative is something I can't comment upon. Anyway something had to give and as the bus reached Kottayam around 11, I threw in the towel and utilized the 15 minute pit stop to pay a visit to one of the most revolutionary initiatives in Indian public life, the Sulabh. Indians as a race are notorious for hygiene and a visit to the interiors of this public toilet did prove that in general, it is a good idea to avoid these places, the maxim of eating light while travelling probably has its origins in this sad truth. However, one thing that Indian toilets seem to have in common with their counterparts elsewhere is graffiti. I guess it's part of a continuous chain of mankind's urge for expression that started when our ancestors made elaborate drawings in caves. And I guess the urge is pretty strong to compel people to scribble when they are sitting in a psoture least conducive to creative thought. However, I suppose one can't help but admire the dexterity involved in using the door as a slate.
Much as I look back at this interlude with a shudder and a sense of how could I have done something like that, I have to admit that my condition took a turn for the better at the end (no pun intended). In fact I emerged out with a whistle and a smile on my face, which was quickly cut short by the realization that the bus would be leaving any moment now and even though Cita and Pubiii were still on the bus, there was always the formidable language barrier. By the time they would probably succeed in explaining that one of their companions was left behind, the bus might well be six towns away. So I made my way back to the waiting vehicle and was relieved (again no pun intended) to see it was still there. And now I was in a much better position to observe and reflect. Well as we made our way across the various towns of central Kerala, one finds out that there are three symbols that are omnipresent in this region. One is the hammer and sickle of the communist party, second, in each town there is a typical Church tower with a glass encasing a statue of Mary with child (and in a symbol of how worship is indigenized, the statues are usually decorated with a garland of flowers) and lastly, advertisements of the House of Alukkas, who I am informed are a Christian famiy that owns a franchise of jewelry shops all across the state and specialize in ornaments for Hindu weddings. Jewelry seems to be a favourite business of Kerelites, there is a Thattil jewellers even in Ahmedabad. Anyway, most of the journey was uneventful and we enlivened it from time to time by resorting to our venda-vendor games with unsuspecting hawkers.
One thing that struck me as unique about Kerala and what set it apart from other states in the South, particularly its eastern one, was the widespread prevalance of Hindi. Unlike Tamil Nadu where it's rare to find a Hindi speaker in the most cosmopolitan areas of Chennai, Hindi is spoken readily by people even in the smallest of towns in Kerala. We had a stopover in a small (and I mean small) town called Mundakkayam and as we readied ourselves with our " rand packet chips, moon bottle coca - cola" routines with accompanying hand gestures, we realized that it wouldn't be required. The shop keeper took one look at us and asked in chaste Hindi "aap kaun is bhaasha boltey hain", which spared us the need of making fools of ourselves once again. It was a phenomenon that was repeated time after time in place after place and it would be interesting to see why Hindi has been so successful in permeating into a region that has traditionally been considered hostile to it. Cita's take was that it makes good business sense because of the number of tourists but I think there's more to it. For one, I was told that Hindi is a compulsory third language in schools here and moreover, classical Malayalam has a strong Sanskrit base. Even though the script resembles Tamil a lot and even has a lot of similar words, there is a far greater Sanskrit influence in it. Most Indians live in an insular world, knowing little about their own country and its people, indeed for an average North Indian, Indians are of the following types - those who speak Hindi or something resembling Hindi, Bengalis, Sardars and Madrasis (a generic term for everyone south of Jabalpur). It's instructive however to take a lesson in the liguistic similarities and differences that prevail and see how the whole nation is joined like a thread, with a gradual change in dialect and script that hide the common essence. From what I'm told, the most Sanskritized South Indian language is Telugu, which has a proliferation of 'tatsam' words. The Telugu script is in turn very similar to Kannada and I suppose it too would have Sanskrit influences in comparable measure. Similarly, Malayalam has a script similar to Tamil but it has more Sanskrit words in it than the latter. If only we could find out the mechanism by which Sanskirt disseminated into the Southern states, it would perhaps help us in popularizing the language among the demographic that has so far been most resistant to it - the typical private school Delhi student, the kinds seen loitering in CP, Bengali Market, South Ex.
Anyway, as our mini-juggernaut (that's what it was, especially on the narrow country roads) rolled on, the terrain started changing, and we made the transition from plains to hills. On the way, we saw an accident whereby a small lorry crashed into a Maruti. Immediately the two parties came out and started berating each other. It reminded me of a great insight that RaviC once related in class. I think somebody had said that company X should do something to retaliate against company Y and he said that business is not a vendetta where you take revenge on people unless you're a Tam or a Mallu, and proceeded to relate the difference between the business minded rationality of Gujaratis and the emotion led volatility of South Indians (btw, he's a Tam Brahm). He said that if there is an accident between two cars in Ahmedabad, the occupants will come out, shout at each other for a while, exchange some money and go away, while in TN or Kerala, the two protagonists will swear revenge on each other, each other's children, each other's children's children, their extended clan affiliations, friends, well-wishers, wife's relatives, their business associates etc., call the police, get embroiled in a legal case that will drag on well after they are dead into their third or fourth generation. Seeing the apoplectic and animated gestures of the two sides in this case, something told me that he was spot on. As he usually is.
However, as we went further up, these unpleasant memories were left far behind. When God made Kerala, he really went all out in endowing it with beauty. If the backwaters and the beaches were scenic, the mountains are simply breathtaking. The Kumily region is part of cardamom and spice country, with acres and acres covered under beautiful plantations. The weather is cool and pleasant, making a welcome change from the humidity of the plains. I think the entire system of hills is part of the Cardamom mountains and AnaiMudi, the highest peak in South India is part of these ranges.
Having arrived in Kumily, a small hill station, it transpired that we needed to make our way to Thekkadi, an even smaller town/settlement that housed the Periyar wildlife sanctuary. After a short auto ride, we found ourselves inside the sylvan forest reserve, with some rather odd and scary sculptures of tigers and elephants bearing convival messages like Danger, tiger zone. Once inside, we checked into the Periyar House, a KTDC run guest house inside the reserve. The congenial concierge allowed the three of us to check into one room and save on money. The deal was pretty good, 1000 bucks for 3 people, a night's stay and dinner and breakfast included. We were led upto our room by an attendant who gravely warned us of a sever 'mengis' problem. It took us some time realize that 'mengis' translates to 'monkeys' and the attendant wanted us to close the windows before leaving the room, just in case any simian who had stolen a march on his compatriots by evolving into a higher being, namely a pickpocet, decided to give us a closer view of wildlife than we had paid for.
Anyway, after barely pausing to overcome the bus lag which had afflicted us, we decided to take in a view of more waterbodies and trees than we had already. We went to the lake where there were ferries to show tourists around. We were told that the lake was a manmade one, fed by the waters of the Mullaperiyar dam, which supplied 60% of Kerala's electricity. We then got onto the boat and had a pleasant one-hour cruise, seeing a number of bison, deer and other assorted fauna, but no sight of the two big attractions of the place, elephants or tigers. Things got promising when one of the guides said that he spotted an elephant at one point but the skipper said it was getting late and we had to go back. Pubiii was on the verge of showing his own wild side and taking contention with the captain, but to the skip's good fortune we talked him out of it.
The Periyar reserve has a policy of no raoming outside after 6 pm and one look at the jungle at night proved to us that this measure was instituted by wiser heads than ours, the three of us were scared of going 10 feet outside the main entrance of the guest house after dinner, the air was so spooky and eerie. Needless to say, plans of an after dinner stroll were quickly put into cold storage. Hence we spent the rest of the evening watching TV in our rooms, where we discovered the wonders of Pogo and Takeshi's castle and stumbled upon a program called Savariya on Asianet, which had a cute and bubbly host, who sure excited my pheromones. Before the (mating) call of the wild tempted me, Pubiii and Cita decided that it was time to turn off the TV and turn in. Can't say for sure, but they seemed relieved when I volunteered to spend the night on the extra bedding on the floor.

Day 4:
We woke up early in the morning in order to continue our tryst with the wild by taking a guided trek of the reserve. In fact we were so early, that it was not yet breakfast time and it transpired that by the time we got back, breakfast might not be served. So we made a special request to the staff to keep keep it open for an extra fifteen minutes, by which time we would be back. The staff, in keeping with our near universal experience in Kerala, agreed to do so without any dragging of feet. Which only served to reinforce my belief that Malayalis are probably the second most congenial people in India, after the Rajasthanis. So with that matter settled, we went along to the ticket counter and booked a group tour for 1000 bucks. We had a stroke of luck as we met a couple of Belgian girls who agreed to join the three of us to reach the group limit of 5, which brought down our overheads. Considering the justifiable hesitation female foreign tourists have in fraternizing with strangers in India, I have to claim that there must have been something in our bearing that radiated sincerity and character, I mean most females do look at me as a brother..wait a minute, did I actually say that with a hint of pride? What a loser.
Anyway, off we went on our way but before we could progress into the wild, we were advised to put on the mandatory protective leg wear, to prevent leech bites. After we got into gear, we were off on our way. The first step was to cross the lake at one point using a raft made of wooden poles. It was done in a most interesting way, our guide, Aruvi, a tribal, got into the raft first and it had no oars, instead, one had to pull oneself to the opposite bank using a rope that connected the two banks. After we got on the otherside, he told us, in pretty good English, that he could not guarantee that we would see any animals. We started walking on a small jungle trail and amde our way, occasionally evading the thorny bush that came in our way. The first sign of the wild was a molted snake skin that our guide spotted and displayed to us. Pubiii insisted on keeping it, intending to give it as a gift. Unless the intended recipient was a mongoose, I don't see him or her being thrilled by the choice of present. I guess Pubiii sincerely believes that it's the thought that counts.
As we walked along, we saw a family of wild boras frolicking in the grass and then it happened. The razor sharp ears of our guide heard a small rustle and the instincts in him were aroused. He waited for a while and then went towards the dense jungle a few metres away and then cautiously called us. Hidden in the dense trees was an elephant. We went one by one to peer through the leaves and when it was my turn, I saw only the trunk, swaying back and forth vigorously. Even at a distance of about 50 metres, I was scared and suddenly the friendly elephants of Haath Mere Saathi were forgotten and I could feel the nervous sweat trickling down the back of my neck. Here, innature's lair, I was the powerless one, the insignificant mass in front of a might mastodon. If it charged, there was no hope. It's times like these one realizes just where one sits in the animal kingdom.
Anyway, after a few moments, we made our way forward, like the proverbial three blind men, who had observed different parts of the elephant. The rest of the walk was pretty uneventful, except when I stumbled while crossing a log over a small puddle and had a small splash. As we headed back, we saw the erstwhile elephant in the thick foliage come out into the open and saunter around barely 20 feet from us. We just stood there transfixed, staring at the majestic mammoth take in the sun, its splendor being showcased in its natural element. Our guide Aruvi states that it is rare for a guided tour party to come across an elephant so far out from the main forest. Considering the justifiable hesitation Indian elephants have in fraternizing with strangers in India, I have to claim that there must have been something in our bearing that radiated sincerity and character that brought this one out of.....forget it, what a loser.
Well after bidding bye to the two Francophone Belgian ladies, we proceeded to de-leech ourselves and considering the numbers that tumbled out of our shoes, it's a good thing we had those protective stockings on, or else we would have been bled dry. We'll leave that to the Finance Minister.
Anyway, after partaking the breakfast that had been very kindly arranged for us, it was time to move on to the next junction of our Kerala trip, onwards to Kollam. For that it was necessary to take another bone rattling 6 hour bus ride, however, we were told that there is a paucity of direct buses on the Kumily to Kollam route, so Shashu had advised us to take a bus to Kottayam and hop on to the Wayanad express, to which we said "Whynaat?" (sorry, bad one, I know). However, that plan was skewered by the atendant in charge of the Help Desk at the Kumily bus station woh had advised us to take a bus from Kumily to Changanasherry and take a bus from there. By this time, we pretty much felt omnipotent, plus one city in Kerala felt as good as the other so we were open to both suggestions. Hence we left our room leisurely, hailed an auto, whose garrulous driver stopped very considerately to allow us a glimpse of an orange squirrel running up a tree and gave us a crash course on the Mullaperiyar dam, the pride of Idukky district, which as everyone knows, generates 60% of Kerala's electricity. As we ambled to the bus stop in Kumily, our driver spotted a Kumily-Kollam direct bus that was just about to leave. Greatful for his keen eye, Pubiii gave him 40 bucks instead of 30 that we had promied and we were glad to cut down an extra leg of the journey, though personally, there was a tinge of regret for me that we would miss out on touching base in a new city. Then I remembered the 8 hour trip a day ago...I rushed inside, knocking down everyone who stood between me and the bus.
Well, the bus journey was quite ok, we made the mistake of sitting down in the front, an area usually reserved for women. Unlike up north where we would have been unceremoniously ejected, the conductor very politely told us that if there were any women standing, we might have to get up and promied us a seat when the bus stopped in between (and all this in Hindi!). True to his word, he got the three of us a seat in the unreserved area soon enough and we made our merry way, down the hills and to the plains once again.
A few weeks later, when we were back in Ahmedabad, Cita sent us a news clipping about on accidnt involving the Kumily-Changanasherry bus that left 11 people dead. Though it had happened many days after our trip, I still couldn't help but shudder at the prospect of what could have happened to us, especially considering the accident on our way to Kumily. I was sitting right in the front of the bus at that time, and there was no protective railing between me and the bus windshield. In case of an accident, I would have been hurled forward right out of the bus. "Unsafe at any speed", the title of Ralph Nader's seminal book on auto safety came to mind.
Well, we finally landed in Kollam (or Quilon as it used to be), hometown of my dormie QC, sometime in the evening and made our way to the nice little hotel that Shashu had found for us. We booked into a room and then made our way out to eat something, an event I refer to Cita's great dosa quest. For an average non-South Indian, the entire landmass south of Goa has a single uniform culture, specifically, everyone in those latitudes eats dosas. Here in one of the more solidly Mallu cities of the state, we were awakened from this terrible misconception. The first place we went to was deserted at the time, we looked at our watch , it was 7:30 and the waiters were genuinely shocked to see customers so early. They quickly stumbled over each other and procured a menu from somewhere, which boldly stated that dosas were not served after 5 pm. We figured there would be enough eating joints all around, so we walked up and made our way elsewhere. The problem with living in a city like Ahmedabad where there is enough disposable income to inspire anyone with a frying pan and a few teaspoons of oil to set up a restaurant, is that it makes you believe that every other place would be just like that. Here was another awakening awaiting us. After trying two more places, which had everything ranging from appams to brain curry, we finally walked into an Udipi-esque joint, where the three of us had a filling meal of idlis, vadas, dosas and ginger beer for the princely sum of Rs. 42 (I'm not kidding). As we emerged from our meal, we discovered that the city closed its shutters at 8:30 and after a few desultory steps here and there to see the city, we headed back to our hotel, picking up some provisions on the way and deciding to rest for we had an 8 hour boat-ride through the back waters the next day. We spent the night watching our favourite channel Asianet and another episode of Saavariya, which for some unknown reasons was playing Tamil songs. We happened to hear the song "Dating" from the movie Boys, and more importantly, saw Genelia D'Souza playing water polo in mini-skirts, both of which had a lasting influence on us. If anyone ever writes the history of D-10 in IIMA, they'll record a bizarre spell of Tamil music blaring 24/7 from non-Tam occupied rooms on both floors of the dorm, playing "Dating" over and over again. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you have just read how history is made.