The earth may be cruel but the sea is heartless. Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi. Filming the artisanal thattumadi way of fishing was secondary, the foremost task was to not come in the way. A maali…aisa maali… Some of the crew swayed precariously over the gunwale in underwear, ferrying bucketful of fresh water and passing a missing sparkplug. A maali…aisa maali… They hollered expletive-laden instructions at each other while pulling up the madi, or the net, by the thattu, which was the rope, in step with the chant. A
“Hello! I am THE guide here. The writer was just trying to be more smart than what he really is by giving you some big ‘Lonely Plant-like’ impression with the headline. Like he knows everything there is to Kerala – top five, bottom three, middle one, things to do, food to eat, etc. Even god doesn’t know what next in His own country. Just you are walking on the road and the only people you see are policemen and you know it’s a lightning strike. You are minding your own
Extreme travel situations have sometimes forced hunger on me. While I don’t know about tasting blood as an outcome of absolute, continued hunger as some say, what I do know is that it makes one angry at first and then desperate. Desperation can be dangerous – it even snaps the will to live in some. So, in a way, I knew why Rama Rajesh was flooring it one late February morning around Varkala town. He zipped from the railway station to the government hospital, from the bus stand to a
When the rest of the country celebrates saving a life with gallantry awards, honours and cash tributes, there is a bunch for whom saving lives is everyday. Other lives are their living; on any given day during peak tourist season they save at least one. That they are paid for doing this doesn’t diminish the heroism involved, the willingness to imperil their own lives for that of another, a perfect stranger, and sometimes even knuckling under shattered joints and dislocated limbs. Just two days before I met Sajith, lifeguard at a
In most tourism hubs the underbelly comes cleverly right beneath the nose. It is rarely that removed from the ordered façade – that ever-smiling and well-groomed veneer which makes the cover of travel brochures and magazine stories and envy-inducing backgrounds to likeable selfies – but tucked safely away from casual glances. I loped through this netherland, the ‘warren-side’, of Kovalam, a mishmash of shops and restaurants, beauty boutiques and Ayurveda parlours, with Mani, a tourism police constable, in his off-duty hours. Mani (name changed) was showing me the area which
It reminds you of a Grimm tale illustration – red and white striped delectable candy on the outside, lurking peril inside. When a ‘revamped’ Kovalam lighthouse – officially Vizhinjam lighthouse, was opened to the public on December 4 last year, I was among the few enthusiastic ones who flocked to applaud the rise of a new genre in tourism – lighthouse tourism. As a global phenomenon, it had been around for some time and had now reached my shores. The whole thing is conceptually heartening and probably the only way
One of the funniest stories my dad told me from his younger days was about Sosamma who ran a roadside eatery. One day Sosamma made 10 puttu, hoping to sell each for one rupee. For whatever reason, she was particularly hungry that day and began polishing off the puttu one by one. By evening there was only one puttu left and in order to meet her sales target she priced it at 10 rupees. The fate of that sole remaining puttu is anybody’s guess. (Those were the days puttu was
As far as office rides go this one takes the cup. The fibre boat crested every wave at somersault angles and landed with emphatic thuds, each a sledgehammer blow from below deck. I sat close to the helm – it is smoother toward the aft, where the rest of the crew were – where I was installed prior to the launch. If I attempted to move back now from fore I might have to swim ashore – a skill which required some ardent brushing up. Some months ago, failing to
Trading and religion have always gone hand in hand – the unpredictability of one unfailingly appealed to the vagary of the other. Pala, flanking the fertile banks of the Meenachil River, attracted farmer settlers from millennia ago. Recorded history shows they were mostly Christians or Nasrani – as the Syrian Christians of Kerala are known as – due to the evangelisation efforts of St Thomas who came ashore the sub-continent in the first century. Achayan, as the Nasrani menfolk are called, ably assisted by their chatta-clad wives toiled diligently, grew
It was a rare event – Wally was quiet. And Wally was never quiet, as his friends vouched, unless he was sleeping nor still if he wasn’t staring you down enquiring after the ‘angle of the dangle.’ Then at the Tree Top Bar which he runs with his son Mathews close to the Labuan Bajo harbour there is always some reason to be raucous. Like when I walked in Mathews had just announced that he had got a new dog and everyone raised a toast to Mathews’ happiness. ‘May it
