Kerala Spices

A week in South India passed by in a flash, feeling like infinitely longer. A week slipped by, sunny and ethereal, in the comfort of a stunning lakeside resort in the company of friends. A week of luxury and insouciance, catching glimpses of the 'real' India through the windows of air-conditioned chauffeured cars. A light memory, easily forgotten when lounging by the pool, sipping a cocktail served by a discreetly courteous waiter in a crisp bright white uniform.

The state of Kerala, like the Chile of the subcontinent, lays low and narrow along India's west coast. Kerala has the highest per capita GDP and the highest standard of living in India, but a few days of travelling after New Years revealed that the state is not immune to India's glaring poverty and huge social inequalities. However, Kerala has its own brand of poverty, a reserved rural poverty, the kind that floats along the backwaters and quietly slips into coconut groves, seemingly melting away under the oppressive afternoon sun.

The urban center of Cochin bustles along, crowded and semi-chaotic, polluted and humid. Despite nearly 2 million people in the urban agglomeration, the city is not obtrusively loud and brash. In fact, Cochin, like the rest of Kerala, felt almost quiet. The normal daytime soundtrack--feet scuffling along cracked concrete sidewalks, strangers making small talk while waiting for overcrowded buses, groups of schoolgirls gossiping on their way home- is punctuated only by an intermittent and unique horn symphony; whimsically musical truck horns, the nasal beeps of auto rickshaws, the exasperated honk of a tired taxi driver.

The old city, known as Fort Cochin, has the feel of a touristy fishing village. Murders of crows caw loudly, calling out to friends perched on nearby palm trees. They mirror the beach hawkers who aggressively call out to tourists to pawn shoddily made crafts and curios. Children play cricket and football on grassy expanses under the patchy shade of centuries-old gnarly trees. Auto rickshaws half-heartedly call out to tourists, secretly hoping the prospective clients will ignore them so they can lie on backseats and nap in the shade. Cows graze on dry grass and munch on the garbage strewn along the streets. They saunter along slowly, like a quietly confused drunk weaving home at dawn. Young women gossip in Malayalam, the honeysweet syllables curling off their tongues like the hennalike curves of the unique Malayali script. If they caught me admiring their saris or peeking at their handiwork, they would shyly duck out of view behind doorways and folds of bright silk.

But away from the tourist sights in Fort Cochin, a familiar variety of poverty appears. Cheerfully colored homes are masks. The stained and chipped paint partly reveals the despair within. Old men, barely clothed in their paper-thin off-white mundus, lay folded on the sidewalk. Spindly once-loved ragdolls, abandoned and tossed aside, landing at impossible angles, the soursweet smell of their sweat mingling with day-old stale curries. Putrid urban slush, like stickysweet rice pudding or dark tree sap, dribbles thickly along the edges of old sewage canals.

But I can't help but see the underlying beauty. The bright colored gold-trimmed saris, the chocolate eyes trimmed with long lashes, the pastel sunsets... Life floating along slowly, languidly, quietly, like a broken coconut shell caught in the rivergrass.



More soon from India... With love and best wishes for 2007!!