God's own country !

Welcome to the land of lungis and appams ! This is God’s own country and the humans call it Kerela !

An eventful three hour drive from Coimbatore to Kerela with an unrelenting driver whose speedometer refused to slide below 100 km per hour, happened last night. My earnest desire to admire the coconut plantation in Kerela  has been realized as I did arrive here safely this morning. After profusely thanking the driver, I was led to a village called ‘Rayira Nellur’.

‘What is the difference between  a lungi and a dhoti uncle ?’ My uncle smiled at the innocent question and excitedly replied.. “You see, this white wrap around that I am wearing is a dhoti and the coloured wrap arounds are lungis..”

There is no denial to the fact that these wrap arounds are very airy indeed and hence, many pairs of thin hairy legs can be seen all over the place. Around forty per cent of Keraliites can be found in the Gulf and in our neighbourhood here, a mansion is being constructed by one such gentleman who is serving a ‘shaikh’ in the UAE.

After having a sumptuous breakfast of ‘Puttu and Payar curry’ , we headed to our uncle’s parents’ cottage nearby. A 92 year old alert father and an 80 years of age, charming mother greeted us at the door. They live in a house that is 150 years old. The father has worked under the Britishers and retired from office in the year 1975. They are surrounded by rice fields, coconut trees, mango, jackfruit etc                                                      while human beings are a rare sight, animals being more in the visible range. The nearest grocery shop is at a 3 km distance , yet the couple is so peaceful and content. The mother spoke to me in a language that I couldn’t comprehend while the father gleefully faced the camera as my photographer uncle set into action.

All the places here have sign boards that explain the subject matter to you either in Malayalam or in English. Knowledge of Sanskrit or Hindi alone will do you no good .  Interestingly, most places here have an ‘am’ effect to their name particularly, the places surrounding this village that are called, Naduvattam , Kandam kulam, kunnam kulam, Chaban kulam and Mankulam and ofcourse my favourite ‘appam’ that I will savor this evening.

This place is a stark contradiction to the cacophony seen in the metro cities of the country. Its my first day here and certainly this is not ‘God’s own country’ without a reason !

Off for lunch now and my modest menu comprises of   chawal, sambar, aviyal, uperi, papaddam, kalan, olan, pickle and payasam..  Burp !