Southern comfort - a mini travelogue

A curious fact about our recent holiday in Kerala was that the most remarkable part of it was the total absence of the use of bad words and naked aggression by the people at large! To North Indians like us, who are fed a diet of "gaalis" day and night by men or women, young or old, it certainly was an unbelievable experience, bordering on the unreal! The Keralites demonstrated a refreshing preference for grammar over expletives in choosing their words and punctuations while speaking!!!Their genteel manner of speech and behaviour were like music to the ears and a soothing balm to frayed nerves.


We arrived at Calicut at about 09.45 hours of the 27th of May to be greeted by our old friend G.K.Nayar who was to be our host for the week. The journey itself was a bit of a strain on the nerves as the flight had a stopover at Mangalore Airport, which had very recently proved to be too small for an aircraft to land on! However, as a result of the intense prayers to all the gods that I could remember on the spur of the moment, both the landing and the take-off went off without us being actually deposited on the slopes of the Western Ghats!

However, we had counted our blessings too soon and not reckoned with Air India! At Calicut we discovered that the carriers had decided to separate me from my suitcase. While I appeared to be in Kerala as borne out by all evidences around me, my suitcase seemed to have been guided to some other destination by the Maharaja! If this was a new version of the "Catch Me If You Can" game introduced by the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the entertainment of passengers in this era of cut-throat competition, it failed to amuse me. My holiday was already doomed! More so because the suitcase contained to very importtant items, my camera and a carefully chosen bottle of whisky!

Fortunately, the ghostly voice of Air India rang up some 6 hours later to announce that my suitcase had arrived in Calicut and would be escorted to my friend's house within the hour.as indeed, it was! So, at last, the Nayars and us could smile and say that "All Is Well!"

At the ungodly hour of 04.30 a.m. of the next day we set off by road for Aleppey or Allapuzha, some 270kms distant, to check-in to our houseboat on the backwaters. En route, we had stopped over briefly at a couple of very picturesque wayside eateries for coffee and breakfast as also to answer various other essential calls of nature!!!

The houseboat was named Blue Lake and was being piloted by Captain Tijo and his crew of two.We set off by 11.30 on a 24 hours' gentle cruise during which we weaved in and out of numerous streams, rivulets, inlets and lakes.

The backwaters of Kerala takes one's breath away! There is water evrywhere...not turbulant like in the open sea but quiet, serene and peaceful. As one travels along on a houseboat the beauty of the place gradually unfolds before the eyes and one gets lost in the placid charms of nature.The pre-dominance of green, in all its hues,is enchanting. The streams flow gently.The numerous islands, rich in coconut palms and other forestry and vegetation, surround the boats from all sides as the latter quietly make their way through quaint villages on the banks.Very often the inlets are so narrow that the hanging boughs of trees on the banks form picturesque canopies, as it were, over the watery paths.The effect is spell-binding.There is hardly a sound except the call of different water birds and the steady but soft murmur of the boat's engine.The surroundings cast a tranquil spell on the passengers too! We certainly did forgot our chatter soon enough and revelled in the all-pervasive stillness.

The 24 hours or so of drifting on the Kerala backwaters was an unforgettable experience. The breathtaking sunset of riotous colours, the gentle hush of the velvet evenings, the sheer spirituality of the breaking dawn, the play of monsoon clouds across the sky, the musical patter of rain on the waters and the omni-present rich greenery all around - embraced us in the ever so comforting arms of nature.The experience was no doubt more poignant to Kumkum and I because of the wonderful change it made from the hot,dry,dusty plains of North India.

We also managed to pack in a few other trips to various places including Kochi where we saw the Cochin Shipyard, the naval base,the fascinating Jew Street, the much vaunted hotel - Taj Malabar and the rest of the neat and tidy city, modern yet modest in its appearance.

An unusual experience was a visit to the Elephant Park of the famous Guruvayur temple. I cannot recall having seen so many pachyderms in one group, other than in the wilds of North Bengal or in the Corbett Park in U.P.These elephants belong to the temple and form an integral part of the religious rituals held there every now and then.

We had more interplay with the seemingly ubiquitous presence of water in Kerala by spending quality time on the Kappad beach of Calicut and in the nearby river resort of Kadavu. The Kadavu Resort is built on the slopes of a hill and overlook the bend of a river. The whole place is simply beautiful - the surroundings are quiet,full of green forestry and, of course, the cool,flowing river.I must not forget to mention the delicious lunch and the chilled beer that we enjoyed in the resort's Coffee Shop, with its gorgeous view of the entire panorama of river, hills and forest. As for the Kappad beach, it was a true representation of Kerala - clean,quiet and beautiful.What a change from Juhu,Chowputty, Marina or Puri beaches!

The other memorable trip was to the coconut plantation of G.K.'s. Situated a fair distance from Calicut city ( an hour's drive),it brought back vivid recollections of Simulbari Tea Estate, my uncle's tea estate in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal.Although the physical appearances were different, the general ambience,the ways of the life on an estate, the abundance of greenery and quiet and the everyday activities were all so familiar and thrilling! We went for a loaf in the plantation savouring thick undergrowth,ducking all the time beneath overhanging boughs of various trees and stumbling upon a reservoir, an old pond, gone dry. This additional touch completed the rural effect to a nicety.

Shantha di, G.K.'s widowed sister was our thoughtful and affectionate hostess. She lives there alone and maintains a shining, spic and span bungalow. Although G.K. actually owns it in the main part, he and Nalini live in Calicut and are periodic visitors to the estate.It is a charming bungalow, perfectly in harmony with the rustic surrounds yet totally modern in its comforts.And the "piece de resistance" of the visit was the splendid lunch that Shantha di served in traditional style on green plantain leaves!That was really enjoyable!

The week passed far too swiftly.However, it did provide me with the chance to reinforce my student days' view that Kerala and Bengal have much in common.In those days my friend Mohan Nair and I were thick as thieves, as it were, and spent many an hour together either in college or in our homes, or in our "adda" dens or even on holidays including one to Simulbari! It was during those interactions that I discovered the uncanny smilarities between the two states and their people.The topography, climate,the culture, the food habits,the stress on academics, the basic nature of rituals and even the fancy for left-wing politics, defined the characteristics of the two people.

Naturally, we felt totally at home with the Nayars who overwhelmed us with their heart-warming hospitality, without ever going overboard with displays of any pomp or ostentation.They treated us like members of the family and we very much felt like members of the family! That was the high point of our holiday.Kerala is wonderful and so are its people. The Nayars, our old friends, are no exception.The whole stay was delightfully free of visits to clubs, malls and social gatherings where artificiality and vacuousness rule at the cost of spontaneity and genuineness.

Our departure from Kerala was no less eventful than our arrival. We arrived at the Calicut airport at 8.45am on the 3rd of June, well in time for our flight. No sooner had the Nayars left for a family do after dropping us, we were informed that our flight had been cancelled!The domestic terminal was deserted. We were told by the security guard that it would come to life only by 12.30pm!

Our friends had gone and we were loathe to bother them in the midst of a get-together. The guard willingly unlocked the entry gate and allowed us to wait inside the terminal, which we did most gratefully.Not a soul was in sight barring a couple of cleaning ladies.Half an hour later a solitary AI official came into view. We promptly butonholed him with our problems. Very politely he suggested that we wait and contact the Duty Manager once he arrived.Soon this good samaritan came back to us to inform that we were to wait where we were sitting because the Duty manager was on his way to meet us!Our first thought was that this would never have happened in Delhi.

Sure enough the Duty manager arrived within a few minutes. He listened to us, looked at our tickets and assured us by saying that it is the Airlines' responsibilty to send us to Delhi and that he would make every arrangement to put us on board the next flight scheduled to arrive at 1.00pm and leave at 2.00pm. He summoned somebody by walkie-talkie, made him open the check-in counter,boot the system,check us in, give us the boarding cards,and duly tagged our baggage with the baggage tickets and kept them ready on the loading conveyor!.

I was concerned about the X-ray of the checked in bags without which we would not be cleared by the security personnel for boarding.The X-Ray machine was to start at 12.30pm and the bags were not with us!The Duty Manager again assured us that the staff would get the X-Ray done and we need not worry at all.Instead, he rang up somebody else and arranged for us to have breakfast in the staff restaurant, with the complimants of the airlines!

Imagine all this being done three hours before the airport opened, let alone the check-in counters!Would this have happened at any other airport? When the check-in finally started at 12.30pm we did not have to do anything except board, when the call came!And believe me, our baggage was duly X-Rayed without any effort on our part to do so!We duly left Calicut on time and were back home at 9.30pm after stop-overs at Coimbatore and Mumbai.

It was such a pleasant surprise to find that pockets of excellence in service do exist in our country, no matter how insufficient. The experience only reinforced our idea of the friendliness and positive-mindset of the Keralite who, as a people, have added to nature's bounties and made the state what it is proclaimed to be viz., God's Own Country.