* in kerala with naru
Posted on January 23rd, 2007 by Alex. Filed under India.
Narayanan (or also called Naru – due to my inabilities to pronounce his name propely) invited my one day to his home in Kerala. The house is in the middle of a forrest, but some hats were nearby. We reached there at night of round 3 or 4 am and we had to make our way through a pitch-black forrest, which was only lit up by a candle and a little leaf functioning as windshield carried by Naru.
His family was already awake and awaiting us. After the sun rose I could see the whole farm with banana, jackfruit, coconut and palm trees and a peacock sitting on top of one of the palm trees. It seemed that even the mosquitos got a better view and discovered that there is a new guy with fresh European blood. So a war started between them and me with heavy losses on both sides. Naru and his family were quite amused by my struggeling movements, since they had no problems at all.
In the morning we took a bath. Due to it did not rain in the past few weeks, water was rare and worthy. But fortunately a neighbor had a half filled pont with fishes. It was the best option to cool down and to relax in the water while the fishes were sucking on my skin which tickled a bit.
Then one day we went to a temple by bus. The trip took several hours, but it showed me the beautiful scenery of Kerala. The inside of the temple was forbidden for Non-Hindus and therefore I waited outside till Naru showed up again. Although I had company I felt somehow uncomfortable, because I do not want to offend anybody who believes in god with any unintended behaviour. A lot of people kept watching me the whole time.
After that we walked through the scenery around the temple and found a river to take a bath. One of the local kids saw me and shouted “a foreigner” in Malayalam to the others. They were very fascinated and curious. In the evening we headed back to Naru’s home and the next day we went to Chennai, which welcomed us with the normal heat and humidity.
