Kerala: India's Teapot
Kerala is a southern region in India, an eclectic mixture of legacies and influences that it had been exposed to. The Arabs, British, Dutch, Chinese, and Portuguese have all left their mark there, and the result is the breathtaking beauty of life in the area.
Kochin is an enchanting port city with that worn, “old school†feel to it, a commercial post where you can meander for hours along the winding, narrow streets and pick and choose the aromatic spices and mouth-watering fish from the small street stalls. If in the mood, you can explore the antique stores in tiny lanes, mix your own unique concoction of perfumes or find gemstones of astounding beauty at suspiciously low prices. Just saying.
The crucial attraction is most certainly seeing the Chinese fishing nets, huge mechanical installations on the shore, that are a part of the dying craft that still persists mainly in southern China and Indochina. The catch is modest but the enormous, spidery contraptions are positively hypnotic. Let’s hope they remain there at least as a tourist attraction, if not for the sake of their practicality.
You learn quickly that the people from Kerala take their drinks seriously. Even though alcohol is officially prohibited by law, the Keralites (or also called the Malayali) are prepared to wait patiently for hours in long lines in order to obtain it in a few shops where the spirits can still be lifted, so to say. In addition, they also cultivate endless plantations of tea leaves, which leads you to the World Heritage Site of Munnar.
Munnar is also a home to every imaginable shade of green that a mind can conjure. It is a mountainous region, fed by river streams and bejeweled by tea estates. Hill stations still retain some of their bygone charms, they emanate quite an inexplicable atmosphere that has to do with virgin forests, waterfalls, undisturbed bird songs, fresh, intoxicatingly fragrant air, and most of all, a sense of a peace that cannot be replicated.
Life seems easy and rich in beauty and natural gifts, in tastes, sounds, and smells that propel your imagination and creativity. You catch yourself daydreaming of leaving all that you know behind and settling in a house perched on the brink of an emerald abyss, where you would write and read unruffled by the tyranny of keeping time, meeting deadlines, setting the alarm clock, and where the gramophone would only play the old songs and you would master the forgotten art of making a perfect cup of local tea and would never ever tire of watching the sunsets and sunrises from a verandah, hand in hand with your soulmate. Where was I? Yes, inventing a new life somewhere else. Everyone does it, right?
Everything grows in abundance in Munnar. Is this how the Garden of Eden looked like? Is that why it is so hard to reach? Will I ever see it again? I hope to bring my child here one day.
Until that happens, we continue travelling and welcoming new dawns, unfamiliar places, and untrodden paths ahead. The Great Untravelled, beyond beautiful in its mystery.
