Kerala

Through the dusky window pane of continuously screeching and speeding rajdhani i got to see the lushes of greens and reds intermingling and playing together with blue above them in its most purest and cosmic avatar, with whose grace i got to visit this piece of land which people call gods own country.

With small hillocks flickered here and there inflicted with monstrous coconut growth which seem to be in there own trance, rhythmic but offcource. In between some where one can see pure white colored huts with reddish brown thatched roofs, they shine like golden corns as sunlight falls on them from up above where lies a clear blue sky from foreground till infinity. So we traveled with arabian sea on our side playing hide and seek.

Trivandrummm.mmm ..its a paradise for people who take pride with waist line above 34" ( mine is not above 34 but im sure ill get there). The city buzzez with activity right from 5 am with people all bathed up and dressed, ready to start their new day with a visit to the temple. The morning in kerela feels much purer, the city over all is kept neat. It seems people here take there job quiet seriously but sometimes, like most of the indian men they might turn out to be bit rude too. In malayalam movies hero is shown as a person who wakes up early, performs a massive puja ritual with full divinity , then practices marshal art, beats up 3 to 4 competitors then listens to poor and needy people and helps them or fights for their rights, in the process of which again beats up an army of bad asses in white mund (dhoti), moreover he doesnt even looks at unmarried girls above their feet ( aaiiiyoo whhata a maan, i guess thats a major reason why heroin gets attracted towards him ), after 15 minutes one can easily see the hero dancing below a coconut tree performing a different ritual.

However one can easily experience instances which might be bit odd. One evening i went to a shop to get a comb the shop keeper didnt had one, as i only knew hindi and english i asked him to ask the lady who was also present there but i was suprised when he told me that he cant do that, the boys are bit shy here but after a 15 min ride to the beach they shed this shyness by focusing on white women who some times are dressed for the occasion. My friend, pawan was bit more of a gentleman as he had the decency of wearing his aviators.
Kovalam my first beach experience was exhilarating, the waves would reach an enormous height and they will grasp you, possess you and if you are a newbie they will roll you and throw you over, but i guess in a few minutes people learn how to ride on, i dived against the flow , with the flow, left, right and when i got tired came back to my chair and kingfisher.
After sketching few strokes we usually retreated to a heavy meal of fish and rice , more of kingfisher offcource and long hours of chatter with whoever pleases to chat, in the process we made some good freinds fromaustria, britain and france. One of the austrian chap turned out to be a biker who had a KTM, kawasaki and taked about his most beloved vespa, i missed bertha a lot during such talks. Apart from all that our post lunch itenery was to sleep at the beach till the sun comes to the horizon and until some beautiful souls come out from their shades. We then dived back as the sea welcomed us more aggressively.
So as to break this monotony we decided to leave for allepy, kerela's back waters, the place is sort of a hideout for god's will of playing hide and seek, dense vegetation and small cannals ravage the lands everywhere.. amazing.
You cant enjoy this place until and unless you take a house boat and chill for atleast a week, they'll catch the fish there and then and cook for you whenever your belly pleases. So if you are a group of at least five people such a luxury wont burn your pocket. For us the addiction of being at the beach never ended so we focused at cochin. Here we met Shyam, pawan's friend, a pretty decent chap who had left his designing career for his love of music. We got inside his newly built studio and received the pleasure of listening to few of his compilations. Here i came to know that motherjane is a band from cochin and shyam knew them quiet well. Shyam helped us out in a major way at cochin despite his illness. We had an amazing dinner of shrimps, fish, squids, crabs and puttu. The food was truely authentic keralite, as it was prepared by a local fisherman and his wife, before leaving the shack we thanked them for a wholesome meal. shyam then took us to a bear parlor where we gulped few bottles while looking towards the moon lit sea, we did a lot of chit chat as shyam told bout few good bands coming up in cochin. We bid farewell to him in the morning after a good breakfast of mutta curry with puttu. For our last phase of our trip we had decided to chill at kovalam only with infinite sessions of bear, rice, fish, coffee and whatever takes you higher.
On our last day we decided to shed some of our sins by visiting the ancient Padmanabham temple of lord vishnu. So we woke at 4 in the morning had a bath. Here all males are required to wear a mund i.e a dhoti and nothing else to enter the temple. We entered the temple and were totally stunned to see the work of art, architecture. There were huge galleries around the main sanctum.


Almost a thousand pillars took on the weight of heavy ceiling made up of solid rock adorned with creatures from heaven, one can see umpteen permutation and combination creativity has gone through while building this temple. The different mutations of human figures with that of animals is amazing and i dont think that any zbrush/mudbox artist has achieved this level of thinking. The mighty pillars have ladies carved on them, carrying diya's in their hands. One can easily be speechless about the grandness of the place.

























I was in a spell when i entered the main sanctum with a huge crowd which had gathered to get a glimpse of the lord.













We got out and sat for some coffee met this gentleman who was a kashmeri forced to live in delhi. He turned out to be an architect, so we discussed the art and architecture of ancient temple. The very mention of art and architecture of ancient kashmeree temples brought numbness to his slightly greenish eyes. He spoke of dangers of being a secular state and its repercussions. He however had accepted what had happened but i guess the wounds over his heart were still very fresh. He and his family were quiet well off but he told me that other kasmere families were not that lucky.

They threw secularism onto our heads when the common man was not ready to accept it, know we dwell on secularism and they spew hatred of hindu - muslim, north indian - south indian, east indian etc etc.

So as i end up writing ths blog inside continuously screeching and speeding rajdhani i would highly recommend you to visit the following places if you ever go to trivandrum: Napiers museum, varkala beach, kovalam beach, azad bakers, Indian coffee house, padmanabham temple, arya restraunt at aristo junction.

For more pics one can check out my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dabral/sets/72157624475491999/show/