I started my Kerala trip from Fort Kochi, and had I not accidentally read about the snake boat races while generally surfing the Internet, I might have stayed there forever. So, it is extremely important to surf internet in Fort Kochi. That’s the only way to keep in touch with the real world in a fantasy world where pleasure appears faster than time, and you are left with no choice but to extend time, forever. The place is magical without any trace of trickery. No body cheats; all speak politely; the narrow streets have no stain of dirt; the home made chocolates exude pleasant smell; the beach breeze compliments jogging; the Kathakali centers induce musical evenings; the books invite a reading; the spice market opens up nostrils; the Basilica challenges atheism; the museums enhance knowledge. Oh! So this was witchery to make me lose grip on reality. No, you need to surf internet incessantly in Fort Kochi.
Though the gifts were many, but I will have to specially thank Fort Kochi for gifting me a morning rhythm. I like jogging, but thanks to the pollution in Delhi, I have almost stopped it. But the morning breeze at Fort Kochi Beach naturally helps you shed lethargy. All you have to do is just wake up and smell the beach; the rest will be taken care of by the nature itself. I jogged in Fort Kochi on each of the eight mornings I spent there, and that helped me get into the morning rhythm, which continued throughout my stay in Kerala. There was lots of Indian Navy presence in the area in and around Beach Road: the Southern Naval Command of Indian Navy is situated in Kochi. The young cadets also jogged every morning at Beach Road. Jogging alongside the young cadets did make me believe myself younger, and the euphoria continues. Was that just the magic of the place? Or, have I really become younger? I chose to live with the second.
Generally, people prefer backwater cruising in a houseboat at either Alleppey, Kumarakom, or Kollam, but I luxuriated in Vaikom, albeit unintentionally. Traveling alone, I had no attraction for houseboats, and given this cruise was planned in a Shikara along with a country boat, I decided to take it up as a study tour. It’s only accidental that it turned into a luxury. I undertook this cruise along with backpackers, who, unlike me, had come in pairs and knew pretty much everything about life; so, obviously they were in no mood to learn. The day started with cold vibes until Surya (name changed to protect privacy), the guide, introduced us to the intriguing world of backwaters. I discovered I can be as enthusiastic as a child even at forty (almost). While others captured nature in their cameras, I bombarded Surya with questions a plenty: do children from the backwater villages go to school; how many people live in each of the villages; whom do they marry; do they vote; who built that big house. Surya, a well-experienced and a well-qualified English speaking graduate, answered them all – but as would soon appear, the answers became unimportant.
In the second part of the cruise, there was a choice of either the same boat, i.e. Shikara, or a smaller country boat. Except for me, everybody wanted to keep the Shikara, but I wanted to play my enthusiasm further in the narrow lanes of the backwaters. Thankfully, for a change, I didn't rebel, and the Shikara cruised leisurely along the shore giving an opportunity to the silence to take over the noise. Bored by the silence and betrayed by the colonizers (yes, that’s precisely what came to mind), I covered my reality with a dream, courtesy the eye-mask and the ear phones. But in the dream as well, the smiling Surya arrived ready to answer all my questions, but I had questions no more. I don't know what protest I lodged but suddenly the afternoon breeze took over the enthusiasm of the morning: the eye-mask fell, the sunglasses substituted, and the dream continued in the mellifluous voice of Lata Mangeshkar: Paani Paani Re… Reality can't be so beautiful! It must have been a dream only.
Museums are a plenty in Kochi. Most of them are situated in and around Fort Kochi. However, the one I am interested in discussing is the Kerala History Museum located in Edapally, Kochi. The location per se is not very convenient for tourists; therefore, the museum deserves a little bias in its favor, for it is susceptible to neglect (call it affirmative action, if you wish). Actually, it is not just a history museum but a history and art complex comprising a history museum, a doll museum, a centre for visual arts, a gallery of miniatures, and a gallery of painting and sculptures. The ambience of the place is very relaxed, and the officers-on-duty, very co-operative.
The history museum, unlike the norm, is a guided audio tour running from the pre-history era to the post-independence communist rule. The tour duration is about half an hour, and I think they wouldn’t mind if you attend the tour more than once, especially if the tour is hosted by that smiling lady who also doubles up as the sales agent in the publications section. In any case, the tour can be complimented with a history booklet available for purchase in the publications section for a price. The booklet lists out all the exhibits with pictures and description verbatim to the one presented in the tour. I think one should definitely buy the booklet, for the books, whatsoever, are never too expensive.
I reached the place very late with only an hour and a half to my disposal in the complex; therefore, I didn’t experience the visual arts and didn’t pay much attention to the doll museum and the gallery of miniatures -- I would recommend anybody visiting the complex to at least reserve half a day for the complex. Nevertheless, I experienced the gallery of paintings, and that too all alone – the attendant had some emergency so she left before the closing time, and the delegate, a Bihari boy, bestowed complete trust in me, which I betrayed by clicking photographs inside the museum in spite of a clear instruction against it; nevertheless, I informed him of my misdemeanor, at which he asked the name of my home state, and, on divulgence, he informed me that Bombay is better than Delhi and Kochi is the best, for which I will have to trust him tit-for-tat.
Let me say the experience in the gallery was incomparable. I am no art connoisseur, but I can stand spell bound when I see a beauty, and I just couldn’t move in the gallery at few places – had I not taken those photographs, I would have been sculpted then and there; so, the little misdemeanor was necessary. The curator has chosen the paintings with a great taste: paintings have been selected from the Progressive Artists Group (M. F. Hussain, S. Chauda, Kishen Khanna, et al), the Matured Bengal School (Abanindranath Tagore, Nandlal Bose, Gemini Roy, Somnath Hore, et al), the Company School (Ravi Varma, Rama Verma, et al), Abstract Art (Ramkumar, Manu Parekh, G. R. Santosh, Kaladharan, et al), etc.
Everyone is acquainted with the name M. F. Hussain, but not many may know that he chose a radical mode of art that negated the accepted ideas of beauty, the rules of art and the elite taste, and that became evident when his painting was juxtaposed with the one by Ravi Verma, whose was a realist mode of painting influenced by the needs of the East India Company, who wanted to capture the reality of India on canvas. But, standing there, it is difficult to choose one over another, especially for a person like me who has no personal preference and is vulnerable to beauty in whichever form it exists. The Matured Bengal School itself had many variations: Abanindranath Tagore’s Chinese and Japanese style; Jamini Roy’s native folk style; Humanist artists like Chithoprasad Jain depicting human beings and their sufferings; and Calcutta group depicting humanism albeit with universalism accepting the western influence in art form.
I wish I could share the pictures, but that Bihari boy has made me guilt conscious. However, I hope I have generated enough material for you to imagine and enjoy your own paintings designed in your own minds, for the life per se is a painting, and you can indeed design it yourself with your own Free Will.
I don't ride scooters/bikes any more, but I did ride them a lot in the teenage. In fact, I had a strong urge to ride bikes. But as the fate would have it, I couldn’t serenade in the din of traffic engineering lectures (Town Planning), financial management intrigues (MBA) and court room briefings (LL.B.).
Fort Kochi has lots of bike rental agencies. I rented a scooter and went for a ride in the streets of Kochi sans license -- the bike rental agencies at Fort Kochi deposit your driving license. The ride in Kochi per se was pretty ordinary. The arterials were as crowded as they are in any other metropolis: the roads were broken at places; there were road deviations as well; the signage were missing; people were crossing roads at will; and the vehicles were blowing horns a lot.
However, before hitting Kochi proper, I scooted on a highway from Bolgatty Island to Ernakulam. The ride on the highway was very, very smooth. There were lots of LMVs on the road but not many HCVs, which made the ride even smoother. I covered the distance of around 10 km in less than 10 mins. There were hardly any road breaks, and I don't remember crossing any traffic signals either. In fact, I was so overwhelmed that I ended up overfilling the petrol tank on the way.
But once I reached the city, the traffic took over the speed, and I couldn't ride smooth any longer. I returned the scooter next day with overfilled tank with the hope that the next rider would ride the scooter on highways, not streets. But, of course, the rental agencies remove excess petrol before renting out the vehicles. If there were any way to mark my petrol, I would have marked it for highways only, and if all were to do similarly, bicycle would become the mode of choice on city streets. Any innovator reading this book: please find some way to mark the petrol for highways only.
Kalaripayattu is the martial arts form of Kerala, which in its extreme form is said to be the genesis of Kung Fu. It was practiced by the warriors, who were indeed very busy in Kerala given its history of acquisitions and forced surrenders. Nevertheless, now it has been relegated to a less preferred art, which becomes apparent from the fact that the shows are organized along with Kathakali in the same compound, and the PROs are always interested in selling Kathakali over Kalaripayattu. I, however, chose it over Kathakali and was indeed in a clear minority, before, during, and after the show. In fact, I was the only audience in the show featuring three artists/warriors. But the artists didn’t show any disinterest and presented their skills as if they were entertaining the Madison Square audience, albeit sans the 56” chest.
Kalaripayattu has three forms, and the one I witnessed is the one practiced in North Kerala. There are three stages in the mastery of the skill: flexibility build-up, armed combat, and hand combat. They showed me drills from the first two stages, and I was mesmerized indeed: the feeling was awesome and the claps incessant. In fact, I felt embarrassed on seeing such talented artists presenting their skills to a lone audience like me, who didn’t even have the basic understanding of the art. But see my audacity! Even after watching their skills for almost an hour, I had the audacity to inquire if I could challenge them in the game, for which they graced me with a selfie reminding me that the martial artists can have a good sense of humor too.
Fort Kochi was also crowded by backpackers, who seem to stay there forever. In general, they were very reclusive: they would interact with you only on need basis. But thanks to my home stay manager, who was a handsome hunk and had managed to accumulate the best of the lot in his home stay, I did get a glimpse of their lives. Nevertheless, the manager was committed to a backpacker from France, with whom he was about to get married, and the trend seems to have caught up with all his friends. Another of his friend had already married a German girl and was about to migrate, and yet another was relentlessly wooing another German girl boarding in the same home stay.
I had a small chat with the girl, who seemed to be indifferent to commitment and was ready to mingle but not just with anybody, for she was pretty attractive and smart. The guy pursuing her was also pretty fit with a martial arts background. Incidentally, he was a Muslim, for which religion she seemed to be having hatred, but she did accompany him to an early morning Eid party. Is this Libido Drain or Love Jehad? Whatever, it seems to be lots of hard work: the girl was not interested in me at least, or as it seemed.
One of the high points of the place was the ferry service which linked Fort Kochi, Matancherry, Willingdon Island and Vypin Island to Ernakulam and traversed the whole stretch of Vembanad Lake sandwiched between the five places. A portion of this part of the lake is also a port, wherein through a narrow entry from Laccadive Sea, the ships comfortably dock in the backwaters at Willingdon Island. The Willingdon Island is therefore also the industrial hub of the city. The ferry service runs from Ernakulam to Vypin Island, to Matancherry, and to Fort Kochi. The routes are a bit confusing: the ferry going to Matancherry always halts at Fort Kochi but only sometimes at Willingdon Island; and the ferry going to Vypin Island halts at Fort Kochi on Sundays, Saturdays and holidays, but not always. Nevertheless, any of these ferry services covers most of the stretch of Vembanad Lake therein, which is also what is covered by the commercial luxury cruises operating therein.
The service was pretty nice, and I had almost become fan of it but for a Sunday when I waited for an hour in the queue to board the ferry from Fort Kochi to Ernakulam, alighting at Willingdon Island. This was because the sale of tickets would suddenly stop and start only five minutes before the departure of the next ferry. I have not seen a system more stupid. It seems the bureaucracy there was devoid of commonsense. Or is it that some vested interests of the commercial cruises were getting represented over the interest of the poor boarding the ferry? The poor, who stop complaining right at the birth itself when they find however much they suck, they don't find any milk in the mother's breast. Nevertheless, I made an email complaint to the authorities (including the CM) with a threat of going public. Nobody has responded; therefore, I am reproducing the contents of the email here-in-below:
This is to bring to your kind attention that a very arbitrary and irrational system is being followed by the Ferry Service at Ernakulam for the sale of tickets. The sale of tickets for a ferry starts just 5 minutes before the scheduled departure of the ferry, and the sale is stopped arbitrarily even before the actual departure of the ferry. The sitting capacity of the ferry is 100 passengers, but the ferry generally runs to 2/3rd of its capacity only, that too when many people keep waiting in the queue at the ticket counter eager to board the ferry. This obviously means that the arbitrary sale of tickets for just five minutes before the schedule departure of the ferry keeps the ferry capacity underutilized.
Today, I stood in the queue for full 1 hr at Fort Cochin station to board a ferry towards Ernakulam. The queue would just not move because after every 15 minutes, the sale of ticket would stop and would start only five minutes before the departure of the next ferry (the frequency of the ferry service is 20 minutes). And when I finally boarded the ferry, I found the ferry left with only 65 passengers on board (I counted them). I have not understood the rationale behind this arbitrary system of ticket sales, which is leading to loss of revenue to the State as well as is causing harassment to the passengers.
I would suggest that the ferry tickets be sold uninterrupted through out the day usable across all the ferries running on that day, and, in case the capacity is full, the people should be stopped from boarding the ferry at the boarding point only, not at the ticket counter. Better still the tickets may be sold inside the ferry itself, which would make the queuing at the ticket counter unnecessary.
Please take this as a notice. If I am not intimated in reply to this email of the remedial measures adopted in response to the issues raised by me hereinabove, or if I am not satisfied by the remedial measures adopted by you, the issues raised hereinabove shall then be raised in the media and/or judiciary.
The best way to travel between Fort Kochi and Ernakulam is undoubtedly the ferry. Except for Sundays, Saturdays and holidays, the ferry queue is normal, and once in the ferry, the transfer from Fort Kochi to Ernakulam and vice versa is pretty comfortable. The first thing you see alighting the ferry at Ernakulam is Marine Drive, which is a promenade running parallel to Vembanad Lake facing Ernakulam. You obviously start promenading and reach the sign board directing towards Ernakulam Market. You can either continue promenading or take a turn towards the market. I chose the second and reached the market, which was pretty cozy. I traversed most part of it including the fruit market: the fruit market is very well organized with shop numbers and specialized selling; the shops were owned by Muslims and Hindus both, which makes it clear there was no Hindu-Muslim tension.
The most talked about part of the market is Broadway. Unlike the Broadway in London, this was a narrow-way market with on-street selling competing with shops and kiosks. Other than lots of window shopping, I also did some real shopping at Broadway. The shopkeepers were reserved but helpful. Generally, they were not cheating customers. Indeed, there was scope for bargaining, but it seems not everybody was welcoming it, and those who weren't could also be nasty: at least I heard some nasty comments, which I ignored. There were lots of street food choices in and around the market, and also there were lots of spice shops selling banana chips, dry fruits, spices, jelly fruits, etc, with or without bargaining -- I became fan of banana chips, which are better tasting than potato chips and, of course, much healthier.
After shopping, I headed back to Marine Drive, which is a nice place to spend evenings after a tiring shopping spree. You just sit on one of the benches and watch the vast stretch of Vembanad Lake. And if you are lucky, you also pen a poem:
The pretty fish waved and smiled;
The Siberian crane asked me to fly;
The Jal Kumbhi just offered a ride.
The rain has started pouring;
The earth has started perfuming;
The wave just kissed before shying.
The birds are singing;
The mangroves are clapping;
The canoe is playing with me, eyes pyes.
Is this an illusion or a dream?
Or has my luck smiled?
This journey so beautiful has lost all its miles.