Even as everyone I knew wrote about their new year revelries and resolves and produced photographic evidences of the same , I lazed around and sulked in a mental mire.
The need to describe my year end journey sprouted lately and I decided to lend life to it !
Travelling to Kerala was always an enriching experience – the bountiful beauty of the Western Ghats, its landscapes and waterscapes, its calmer lifestyles and cleaner surroundings can be a soul-soothing balm to any weary soul.
Meeting relatives has always been a down- to- earth experience and I wished I could do it more often.
On the first day a trek was organized to the ill-explored regions of a dam nearby . It was infested with snakes -- we were warned -- but we had dealt with creepier versions and so we went, my cousins and I …..!
On the first day a trek was organized to the ill-explored regions of a dam nearby . It was infested with snakes -- we were warned -- but we had dealt with creepier versions and so we went, my cousins and I …..!
The next day , a day trip resulted in an unusual tryst with an assembly of ' pious ' pachyderms--in an enclosure adjacent to a renowned temple.
In the afternoon, the sea faring and the sturdier amongst us set out on a cruise and soon we found ourselves drifting amidst mangroves towards the sea, in an old fashioned boat called 'Thangamani' . It was then that catharsis set in and I realized that breath- taking beauty could sting…! Shades of blue and green carpeted the horizon while we stood out in our reds and blacks. I began to wonder if we really should be there..!
I was traversing a land where socialism shakes hand with commercialism. There were ayurvedic resorts on small islands, where the rich and the famous could ease their worries and trim their waists by undergoing the pleasurable rigors of ayurveda. I was told it cost 17,000 rupees for a single day. …I swore I’ll take to walking, and that too in right earnest!
Good things come with a dead line and so it was with my vacation. I had to get back home- to Chennai.
Kerala was to me the land of my ancestors – and I always watched the place through an alien’s eye. Strangely, this time, when I came back home , the sense of belonging was not palpable, although I wouldn’t say it was altogether missing.
Was it a kind of detachment or is the COSMOS trying to tell me something…??
I’m yet to find out……
In the afternoon, the sea faring and the sturdier amongst us set out on a cruise and soon we found ourselves drifting amidst mangroves towards the sea, in an old fashioned boat called 'Thangamani' . It was then that catharsis set in and I realized that breath- taking beauty could sting…! Shades of blue and green carpeted the horizon while we stood out in our reds and blacks. I began to wonder if we really should be there..!
I was traversing a land where socialism shakes hand with commercialism. There were ayurvedic resorts on small islands, where the rich and the famous could ease their worries and trim their waists by undergoing the pleasurable rigors of ayurveda. I was told it cost 17,000 rupees for a single day. …I swore I’ll take to walking, and that too in right earnest!
Good things come with a dead line and so it was with my vacation. I had to get back home- to Chennai.
Kerala was to me the land of my ancestors – and I always watched the place through an alien’s eye. Strangely, this time, when I came back home , the sense of belonging was not palpable, although I wouldn’t say it was altogether missing.
Was it a kind of detachment or is the COSMOS trying to tell me something…??
I’m yet to find out……