CHAPTER 2 – GOING DOWN AND EAST

You know what the drivers in the hills say? They stress on it, and I quote – “Driving here at night is
much easier than driving in daylight and honking at like a thousand blind turns.” And right at this
moment, dadi literally scolded and I being so trusting, agreed with him, cold war in itself between
mom and dadi as my mom is always with me *wink*!

Next destination was Thekkady, Periyar. On the 4 hour journey, the first hour was sleep, the second
hour was seeing out of the window and seeing local farmers with carrots more orange than the
orange itself; after a lot of requests to mom, finally got hands on it and it was as expected. But this
was getting my stomach full. At that age, I didn’t use to talk much so, no one denied keeping me
with them as a babysitter. After having juicy carrots, the whole 2 hours I was lost in my own curiosity
world, which was expanding as I had my eyes outside the window. Little me would describe the
mountains as a heard of enormous green Torterra that had lain down in the noon sun on some
sunny afternoon for a nap and never woken up. To my young eyes, the mountain range were giant
beasts, giant beasts that might one day stir and walk the earth with ground shaking strides, just like
in the movie – Detective Pikachu. Even today, the word came to mouth is Torterra, the pokemon
that looks like a mountain – I was a pokemon fan, am a pokemon fan and fingers crossed for the
future.

Ironically, the name is Periyar Tiger Reserve, but actually, it’s abundant with and famous for
Elephants. The 20 stretch up to Gavi day is worth every second, with winding rough roads, water
streams, flowing Periyar river, occasionally spotting Bison and sometimes la Elephants if one is lucky
and kids are a lucky charm – watching a herd of elephants at the banks of the river, I remember how
the herd seemed but not the boat we were in, it was such awesome. The locals never stop praising
the Periyar river as of how helpful it has proven in their lives. It supports productive fishery, is a
source of electricity, even supports 25% of Kerela’s Industry and is thus rightly termed as the lifeline
of Kerela.

The stories are endless about the next place – Alleppey. The landing was near a resort which seemed
like a big maze in itself with the reception in the middle. It served us “fresh” coconut water – which
means that we arrived, they cut coconut and served us! That riverside resort was such leisure. The
time we went to room – excited and amazed as those were huts and had toilets with open top and
coconut tree in every washroom, kind of covering it from the head. On the way, I saw houseboats
and wanted to live there but after seeing the property – riverside and backwaters and all – it was
terrific, I had to give up houseboats and my dad, as usual, cracking the joke, ‘Do you want to go? I
don’t want you to stay.’

Alleppey – termed as the Venice of the East is known for beaches and lagoons and canals and
backwaters and lakes – So many different bodies, a blue beauty! It gets floods every year, and thus
the marine life there is flourishing. With coconut trees forming an endless boundary of the canals,
and the sky above, with sunshine peeping through clouds and subtly kissing the paradise below, the
image is in itself such a bliss. The reality is heaven on water, indeed!

Hopefully, the backwaters are much better now as my experience ain’t that good. Going into
backwaters in a 2-hour boat ride and Oh God! What an ugly and dirty beach – landing at Poovar
island. That was such a disgusting beach that I still remember and the Club Mahindra just beside the
beach was the place where I did fishing for the first and the last time. Fishing is about patience, and
a 7-year kid doesn’t have patience. So, the fishes had to bough as a foreigner handed me his fishing
rod and a fish got into it in like 90 seconds, and that was the biggest for his week. To my experience,
fishing ain’t like tom and jerry where you have to pull like hell to bring the fish out. It's all technique
that the 50-year-old foreigner was practising. So, the biggest catch was in his hand, and he took the
fish out of his hook and sent it back in the water! Then and there I prompted out of surprise, don’t
know what but yeah, it meant ‘What the Fuck, Why did you do that?’. That old man started laughing
and said that fishing is not always catching fish and eating but, it is a leisure and fun activity - “ Many
men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after,” Henry David
Thoreau. That was my last encounter of fishing till now. This was the end of our trip – Poovar island
the place where a crab bites my dadi and name is homonymous to my brother’s name – Purav.

Kerela – the most literate state and someone said that a south Indian language is similar to Gujarati,
how that’s even possible! That was the joke of the trip – “idhar bhikaari bhi sab jaanta hai!” Leaving
God’s own country wasn’t easy, but home is as beautiful! For the next month or so, don’t remember,
but a question was regularly asked towards my younger brother – Purav, “Name the places we
visited in Kerela.” And he would cutely, in a not so cute voice name the places in order, “Cochin,
Athh—rilaa—plli, Munn..nnar, Thekdi, Alliippi and Purav! (instead of Poovar)”, this all in a small
child’s voice!

After this trip to Kerela, don’t remember the order, but the next chapter would be about North! And
the family grows as Nikita-Vishal-Harsh-Mihir joins the party!