First I'd like to thank God for being the guiding force in my life, I'd like to thank my parents for making sure I existed and existed long enough. The list of people who made this happen is both long and occasionally distinguished. Mynah for dropping the idea into my head, Torp for being an inspiration of sorts, Shil for giving me torp's site, chippy, sand, shiv,drafter, vinnie, dib, raja, meech, ashok, chait for dropping by often enough... Shantanu for being himself in the best and worst of times. I last but not the least would like to thank the Academy for giving me this wonderful opportunity to be here tonight. thank you, good night, we love you all.
Phew. A thousand hits with enough extras to ensure that my own frequent perusal of my writing hasn't contributed to the grand. It's a milestone I'm happy and Shantanu, you have been credited along with God in the previous paragraph so don't.
Don't what? Don't anything.
Just back from a trip to the heartland... homeland? isn't home where the...? anyway, to the heartland of all tamil iyer-dom - Palakkad. Well, strictly speaking to a village some where between Palakkad and Thrissur. Yes, Kerala - God's own country, Kanji-land, Mal-asia, the coconut republic, what you will... The village was Vadakencherry. Vadakencherry, Palakkad district, not to be confused with Vadakaancheri, Thrissur district (the subtle differences in pronunciation apart, the latter is blessed with a railway station and is hence, perhaps, better accessible). Why some god forsaken village you ask? A wedding, why else.
Now it all started with me and a bunch of guys traveling the overnight train to Palakkad a couple of days ago. The usual affluent bunch cribs about having to travel sleeper class and rub shoulders with the peasants were silenced when yours truly politely pointed out that the next time the rich could book their own tickets. So Palakkad arrived and so did a mitsubishi voyager that whisked us off the the only hotel in vadaken... Hotel Diana - Prop Mr. George Joseph Liquor License No <@^$%#*&> who cares as long as he has one. Got to see the usual rural scenery and one realises why it's called God's Own Country. Lush, Green, More water, literacy and coconuts than they know what to do with. It's really nice all the shades of green, for a city bred like me, but that joy of hitting the roots lasts about 3 hours. After which all that one wants is a nice glass and steel edifice to sit inside in air conditioning. So then we were again ferried across some village road replete with the smell of dried salted fish (karuvadu, for the more linguistic) and other random village smells. to another neighbouring village (Moolamcode) to land in front of a huge Kalyana Mantapam (will be referred to as Kurumba. Why? That's what it's called. Not to be confused with Caramba! which to be honest was my first reaction to the place). Now Kurumba is this huge building, interestingly planned since the ground floor, as one enters, has the dining hall. All the wedding business happens in the floor above which, ladies and gentlemen, hold your breath, is air-conditioned. Which is why kurumba elicited the caramba! An airconditioned choultry in the middle of nowhere. With women dressed in prim while pants and green shirts with "Passion at Work" boldly emblazonned and swabbing the joint 24/7 and the best payasam (fondly referred to as awesome payasam) chef I've ever known. But it's still a village. Fifty meters away is the village tank where buffaloes and man either wash clothes or bathe depending on species, dogs randomly make out (have pictures of that a la NatGeo) and the ground is wet. But that's a generic Kerala thing. It's not moist or damp, it's bloody wet. No wonder it grows on you. Moss. Like Kate. Everywhere. You can squeeze a handful of mud and get enough water and moss spores to take on the Sahara in a fair fight. Bleah.
The next couple of days were brief spells of consciousness between the gastronomic excesses and post prandial naps. Something about food that tugs at the genetic roots... Managed to escape from the iyers long enough to find me some beef and beer which only made things better but the iyers had the last laugh with the awesome payasam. (moment of staring into space remembering that wonderful taste).
Spent a few hours in Palakkad on the way back hunting the city for tamara thandu vathal - lotus stem fry - for the folks. Ended up finding it in "Mani's cafe - brahmin's coffee hotel" twenty meters from the station. Now one point I have to make here is that Kerala despite being god's own and extremely literate, etc, etc makes coffee that gives the railways a run for it's money. Amazing how a civilisation has gotten advanced enough that every man, woman and child can recite the malayalam manorama backwards and have enlightening interactions with the electronic-touch-screen railways information kiosks, but still can't make a decent cup of coffee, like the one I just had.
More cribs on the way back from the gentry about the hoi polloi. Silenced again and back to good ol Bangalore.
That's all folks.
