Incredible India

‘We were here the year the Tsunami hit. We had just reached Poovar when we got the news that the little fishing village we had been staying at on the Chennai coast had been wiped out. People we had spent the last few days with…they were just no more! They were poor you know…incredibly poor, living in shanties. And here we were in all this luxury…Here? Oh more than 3 months now. Coming in from the north this time. Caught a bus, a regular one mind you, from the hills to Delhi.’

‘The bus conductor had taken quite a shine to me,’ she grinned. ‘He insisted we sit right behind him!’

‘Probably so that he could look after you.’ I hazarded.

‘You think?’ The husband winked naughtily at me. Days of lying in the Poovar sun had bequeathed a thick spread of freckles that threatened to merge together into a uniform brown. ‘I was left behind at all the rest stops to guard the cameras while she was escorted to the toilets.’

‘I hardly need to describe them.’ She shuddered. ‘But you would know all about it.’

This British couple, in their late sixties, wintered every year in India experiencing the many faces of ‘real India.’ The chai for her was on the house but when the driver and the conductor opened their tiffin boxes and insisted she eat with them, she had declined firmly. Her husband who watched through the barred windows, keeping the poultry and livestock company, smiled at the gaggle of young village youths who had left everything to stand and gaze.

‘How much do you earn in England? … What could I say? If I told them … it would appear obscene. How could I explain buying power? I made some attempts but then the next question had me stumped… Have you had tea with the queen?’

The memory made him burst out laughing. ‘That village on the outskirts of Corbett was more British than Britain!’

‘But sharing food is very oriental. I for all my metro lifestyle find it very awkward to chomp away by myself with others present.’

‘And that is how it should be. Shouldn’t it? Sharing food … how we have lost the warmth!’ She sighed.

‘Have you been to London?’

I nodded smiling inwardly …people, no matter from which part of the world, were no different.

‘Loved it.’ I said.

‘Really!’ was the incredulous response. ‘What could you have loved about it?’ She splashed her legs and gazed up. ‘I for one could do with more sun.’

‘Looking for a house.’ Her husband chipped in. ‘Would like to settle in India…’ he shot me a glance. ‘But not in Delhi.’

The room with the best view

It wasn't until the morning of 10th Nov that we had realised how we had been pampered. My repeated calls to the resort reiterated the fact that a wheel chair would be required and we needed to be as close to the dining area as possible.

Room No. 201: The first glimpse as we raised the blinds.

The room was fabulously positioned.

Steps led past our room to the swimming pool and dining area.

The foreign guests lounged on deck deckchairs reading, tanning themselves periodically entering the pool for a couple of lengths before settling for a beer at the sunken bar.

Non of the other rooms could boast of a view like ours.

Tiffins - the dining area overlooked the pool.

Lastly the floating cottages by the jetty.
The sun set upon Poovar and the kite whistled overhead.

A splash of an oar and a father and his boys make their way home for dinner.

The Swedish group on their 2 month Ayurveda adventure end their day with yoga. The chant of 'Satya satya satya' and fragrance of sandalwood fill the beach front.

Back from Paradise

‘I zink zis is paradise?’

It was a statement not a question but with a dare in it. Could I disagree? Sapena rested her bronzed arms on the edge of the pool. The water lapped luxuriously about her body as she contemplated the blue of the sky framed by the fresh green of the coconut and the darker fronds of the palm. A white-breasted fishing eagle wheeled high above. It was time for the fishermen on the sandbar to draw in the catch.


Paradise.

Poovar was truly a paradise nestling in God’s own land – Kerala. All thoughts of dry dusty Delhi with its garbage heaped along the roads had been driven away. I sank further into the silky water. A four- hour flight had brought us to the southern most part of India and the first realisation as we emerged from the aircraft was that it had been pouring until moments ago. A resort taxi had whisked us through the dark sleepy lanes of Trivandrum through little towns fast asleep. Old crooked men waited hunched over sticks, crones with dogs by their side sat just beyond the reach of the headlight beam. Eerie and mysterious they waited until we flashed past turning into benign walls or posts in the wink of an eye. The heart thudded and then quietened as a light appeared. In a little gazebo, dressed in white and pale blue, sat the Madonna smiling down at her infant. The fresh fragrance of the rain washed earth swirled deliciously around. An hour … it had seemed much longer … and we were climbing down a thickly forested path towards a light. There were steps but the guard ran down and firmly grasped my mother by the arm. We picked our way carefully down to the Neyyer River where a motorboat waited. The engine chugged to life and we were on our way through the pitch dark waters which turned a jade green along the sides of the boat. The dark curvy silhouettes of the coconut palms fringed the banks of backwater some tilted at almost impossible angles stretched flat along the surface of the water. A pale moon, round but not quite full, turned the tops silvery. A faint plop sounded. The gleam of a fish, or was it a frog, skipping along caught the eye. I stopped myself from reaching into the water. Did I hear the slap of a reptilian tail? Amitav Ghosh! Thank you very much.

The waterway widened. We had been travelling for over half-an-hour. The sea appeared to open up in front of us. There was an island in the distance. Nonchalantly I had turned to the boatman. ‘That is Poovar?’

‘No madam. To your left.’
Miraculously lights had appeared to the left. The shapes of the floating cottages could now be quite distinctly made out and bright lights shone in what appeared to be a jetty. A reception committee was waiting. In the arc of the light, straddled on a vessel of two coconut palm trunks held together with twine was a fisherman, his lungi bunched about his knees, examining his net. It was alive with silver.

The Way We View The World