The God of Small things

Anyway, enough of the fellow travellers, let’s get back to the Backwaters! After our really, really rough nights sleep it was good to get up and sit out on the shady verandah to have our breakfast. The fan above our heads was already whirring as the temperature in the sun must have been up in the high 80s. That day Jane and I had two plans to explore the local village , on the recommendation of the other guests. In the morning we’d take a short walk around the block to see the local village life and in the afternoon we’d go out in the traditional wooden canoe which enables you to explore the narrow waterways that the bigger houseboats just won’t get to.
Well, what a fantastic day we had! The walk around the village took us along narrow paths wide enough only for bicycles and mopeds and we slowly wandered about greeting all the locals we met. As always they were all incredibly friendly and whilst they’re not all desperate to get in your photos down here in Kerala, like they were in the north, they are more than happy to have their photos taken.
Early on in the walk I wasn’t sure I’d be able to carry on because my banana belly was really painful. But after a short break sitting on a wall I was able to carry on. Banana belly is not as bad as Delhi belly but it is painful and seemed to require me to mostly be sitting or lying down.
The colours and reflections here in the water are beautiful and it was just what I’d wanted to see here so it was great. We saw lots of lovely birds whilst we were out and especially Kingfishers which are quite large and vivid blue out here. They sit on the wires which run across the waterways helpfully making them easy to spot. The other favourite sight is of people using the river to wash everything from pots, to clothes and even themselves. I think by the time we’d finished we taken photos of pretty much everyone’s washing on the line.
After a light lunch and a short rest lying on a swinging day bed on the verandah, it was time for our 4pm canoe boat ride with Vashu. He is a tiny little 75 year old man who had worked for Xavier all his life and their fathers had done the same before this. He said hardly a word and looked very stern most of the time and he would be punting our canoe along today. Poor chap. He’d carried my suitcase in, which was probably about as big as he is, on his head the previous day so he wasn’t going to be daunted by this. Ekaterina had done the same trip in the morning and said we shouldn’t expect him to be pointing out birds or anything else of interest to us but it would be very peaceful.
And indeed it was. We set off in the long heavy, wooden canoe directly from the steps into the waterway in the homestay garden and slowly, slowly Vashu glided us along. The waterways here are mostly very narrow and quiet and they are tributaries of the Meenachal River. They’re surrounded by lush vegetation and coconut and banana trees. The waters aren’t that clean but you do pass people swimming in it joyfully after a long, hard day at work or school to cool down.
You may have heard of this river and if you have it’s probably because you’ve read Arundhati Roy’s Booker prize winning novel ‘The God of Small things’ . I’ve been reading this during our trip and seeing the place it is set in has really brought it to life, which is good because back home I was finding it a tough read! It’s become easy to picture the characters in this book (Ammu, Mammachi, Esthappen and Rahel and the Paradise Pickle and Preserve Company) going about their ill fated lives.
One of the highlights of our canoe trip came as we approached the village and suddenly we realised that the ‘normal’ blaring of music from the back of a tuk tuk wasn’t the communist party chanting like it ‘normally’ is but religious music. Along the riverbank at 5pm on a Wednesday there was a Catholic Church procession going on which most of the village seemed to have joined. We boated alongside them and although they were taking it quite seriously, I managed to get a shy wave and smile out of a few of them.
When we were ready to go back, after about an hour we just had to tell Vashu to ‘go back’ and then he did just that. It had been an absolutely awesome day. That evening we spent with Linda, the children’s author and then we also swapped rooms to the newer block hoping to get a bit of sleep. Hurrah!