Into the Backwaters

Into the Backwaters

The French couple came to conclusion that the three of us should check out several hotels and decide. It was about two o’clock which meant that I was slowly sweating myself to death. The auto rickshaw stirred the breeze and that certainly felt good.

The first hotel had a great looking lobby, which was enough to convince me and Nicole went in to check rooms. She came back saying that the rooms had either ceiling fans or for another hundred rupees we could get a room with air conditioning. I took a ceiling fan room as they did as well, their room being right down the hall. We decided that we should clean up and meet in the lobby and take the ferry over to Kochi, which is the old port.

By now I was becoming used to the unheated shower water. This being summer by my standards, the shower reminded me of a plunge in an unheated swimming pool. Yes, it’s a shock but only for a few seconds and then the water felt wonderful. I’d turn off the water, soap up, shave, and rinse off. Then I’d knock what water, I could, off with my hands and step out of the bathroom and beneath the ceiling fan. For a few minutes that day, I’d would enjoy being cool.

When we met in the lobby, we all felt better than when we arrived. The state of Kerala (pronounced CARE-a-la,) is famous for “backwater” scenery. There are natural canals and waterways in the countryside and the government and private companies run tours by canoes or rice barges there. The three of us inquired about the tour but just as the hotel clerk was about to call in for reservations, he remembered that tomorrow there would be a one day strike. About what? Why? Apparently it was to show solidarity with something or another and represent a challenge to the sitting government. Would there be demonstrations?

I’ve got a thing about demonstrations, in India as well as anyplace else in the world. One of my Bombay memories from my first trip was a burnt out car with a broken windshield where somebody’s head smashed into it. There was hair on the interior rear view mirror and as I said there was fire damage to seats and overhead upholstery. The fire was out but those in charge had not removed the car, which had been left at the side of the street. We asked what had happened and were told that a family, who were out driving, had encountered a crowd of demonstrators. Whether the family tried to get through the crowd or the crowd enveloped the car wasn’t clear. What was clear was that someone in the crowd dropped a burning match into the gas tank. The crowd leaned against the doors and watched. When the family found that the doors couldn’t be opened from the inside, they butted their heads against the windshield and rear window in a futile attempt to escape. The bodies were gone. Only a few strands of hair remained. I stay clear of demonstrations.

There was to be a march but not in Ernakulam or Kochi. Since my schedule had no limits, the loss of a day was no loss. I could use it for writing and it would give me a chance to wash some clothes. Guy and Nicole did have a schedule so we jumped into a auto rickshaw and off we went to change airline tickets. Humanity and machinery filled the road. If no one works tomorrow, what will happen to all this?

The airline office shared a building that housed the HDFC bank and if there had not been such a line of people, I might have tried to make a withdrawal at the ATM machine but I was riding on another’s shilling and passed up the chance. In only a moment the two of them were back in the rickshaw with plans altered and we drove back at the jetty a block from the hotel. There we caught the ferry across to Kochi.

The sun hung low over Kochi and the sea and the water reflected a sky and sun in the first stages of evening. On the ride over, husband and wife talked over the changes in their schedule, I assume since I don’t speak French. While they talked, I watched the water. The tide was running out and taking with it, islands of water hyacinths. Birds walked on the leaves poking their beaks down among the stems for small fish that seemed to think that they were in safe shelter.

My coming to Kochi had been a “put-the-finger-on-map” decision. I did my reading and reasoning as an afterthought. One, I knew that there would not snow here. I got that wish answered in spades. Two, I’d heard that the country was beautiful and green. Right again. Three, Kerala the state we were in, was famous for its cultural mixture that goes back centuries and was noted for the peace among the cultures. Jews and Moslems live together here as do Christians and Hindus. Four, Kerala, along with Himachal Pradesh, another of my destination, has the lowest crime rate in India. And my feelings may well have been different in mid December or early January but this was October. And had the ferry not have been moving, I would have been uncomfortable. I did wonder at what I was doing. In Mrs. Martin’s geography class, fifth grade, we learned that the closer you get to the equator, the hotter it gets. Well she said that almost sixty years ago and a lot can change in that time...and a lot stays the same.

We turned into the first restaurant we came to in Kochi. I ate more than was wise even with an appetite that had its beginning back in Goa. After supper we started off at a pace set by Guy for the fish market. The man, probably 65, had long legs and a flat belly. In order to keep up, at times I had to dogtrot. Sundown was approaching and we did have things to see that would no be seen in the dark. About a half mile on, we came to the fishing port. There were high ended boats tied up, an open fish market by the jetty, but what would catch most people’s eye were the tripods supporting the great dip nets. None were being “dipped” at the moment, probably because the tide’s running and the size of the floating weed patches driven past like evening clouds before an off-shore breeze. The nets measured 25 or 30 feet square. There was a time to dip and a time to sell and we made our way through the buyers and sellers. Guy found a fellow who knew a little French and was a football fan of some French player. The two of them had a great time kidding each other. I was curious as to the kind of fish they had to offer. One the fish I wanted to see, I’d eaten but had never seen whole and uncovered by gravy. In the western Indian languages, it was called “pom frit.” The fish was considered a delicacy but I don’t know how one could tell since when served up, the fish was bathed in strong sauce. I asked and they pointed out a fish with a disk shape. The meaty part was about the size of the palm. I wondered what he would taste like, washed, rolled in salted and peppered cornmeal and deep fried. I swallowed therefore it would have probably tasted good with or without a squeeze of lemon.

Another fish in the market surprised me. A friend from Wrangell, Alaska, Rod Brown, goes each year to Baja California to catch dorado or what the Hawaiians call mahi-mahi. Rod re ports the fish is a great fighter, an acrobat, and delicious. Apparently dorados circle the world. Either the species or the family has a blunt face, a high forehead, and a dorsal fin that as I remember runs from head to tail.

While Guy and Nicole joked and quizzed the fishermen, I looked out at the horizon. The boats, as I said had very high bows and sterns. While possibly thirty feet in length, the lines created by bow and stern looked to have fairy tale proportions. The sun lay low enough on the sea where a few miles out, I could see the shadows of great standing waves where the out going tide met the incoming swells. Anybody who crossed that zone would have a pitch and a buck before getting safely either out or into the bay. It was from that strip of nature that the boats got their unique design.

By now men, trees, and nets were fast becoming silhouettes against a molten sunset and we hurried back along the way we came, Guy leading out. After a ferry ride back to Ernakulam we bade a good night to each other and it would be a farewell. I looked forward to a catch-up day and they had their plans. Such is the life of the wayfarer. People are with you one day and you listen to them and rely on them and then the next day they are memory.

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The strike was the first thing on my mind when I awoke. What would be different? How could the streets not be jammed with people dodging vehicular traffic, jumping potholes, walking around rubbish? Fortunately the hotel staff came to work and I ate an omelet, drank a bottle of water, and ended it all with a rich cup of coffee with hot milk. But from the moment I awoke and rolled out of bed, the street beyond my window was quiet. I was as excited as a kid after the first snowfall. I wanted to go outside.

The street was nearly empty. Now and then a motorcycle would rip by but looking both ways you could count the people in the street. I began walking. In many cities in India, the streets aren’t much but the blocks are large. So a walk around a block really is a walk. The vehicular exhaust after having drifted out of town during the night, had no been replaced but the streets still smelled of what got tossed, dropped, or left as evidence of relief. Nevertheless you could walk and not have to think of being hit by something with a motor. Of course this strike produced a quiet that was also unnatural. Not only was the sound of engines absent but the honking, announcing the presence of a vehicle, was absent. The walk still had one aspect of yesterday and the days before. While walking through many urban areas in India, one must always watch where one steps. Not because of animal or human waste, the streets and sidewalks resemble a war zone, except fortunately, there’s never been a war in these areas. It as if it is a practice drill against the day when roadways and walkways will be ripped, shelled, and uprooted. If there are not missing parts of the way, someone will stack building materials (gravel, sand, rock) on the way. Lacking that, a vendor will stretch the tie lines for his awning of blue plastic across the walk and secure them to stones the size of your head that he’s set out into the street, which also forms an impediment. Then at “curb side” assuming there is a curb, vehicles are parked. The long and the short is that you walk in the street with moving traffic. You can expect to be missed by bike, scooter, and motorcycle but by the time you reach the auto rickshaw and taxi size, who misses whom is an open question. Anything larger, especially trucks and buses, enjoy a place at the top of the food-chain. Today the streets were empty. The motor vehicles were hidden at home or at company quarters. Nevertheless, you watched that you didn’t turn an ankle or break a leg. This is not a western tourist talking. There seems to be a space in the local papers reserved for pictures and addresses as to some scandalous lack of street and sidewalk maintenance.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) has found a home in West Bengal (Calcutta) and Kerala. I saw posters everywhere. Marx and Engel were the more common icons. Lenin was pictured on many posters and I saw one that showed a likeness of Joseph Stalin. Mao? Not now but if the blue plastic tarps mean anything, the Chinese product is never far from sight. I had read where the CPI had wrought some improvements in health care and education but when I asked I’d hear, “They are all the same (meaning any of the parties.) They are all corrupt.” There then is a dismal statement as to Man’s ability to govern himself.

I got back to the hotel with leg bones in tact and took on the chore for the day. In Goa I had begun a routine where I soaked overnight the shirt and socks I’d worn the day before. Shorts were added in the morning. Because of the weather, wearing a tee shirt was out of the question except on washdays when I had no long-sleeved shirt to wear. So first up was scrubbing a collar and then working the soap down through the shirt. Next come the shorts followed by the socks.

Whether you get a shower head or not is a question to be answered when you inspect your room but you will always have a plastic bucket that holds about five gallons and one or more plastic pitchers of about a quart each, which if there are two, will be different colors. The basic Indian way of ablution is to fill the larger bucket with water and then ladle pitchers of water over one’s head. There are variations on a theme but without soap, towel, or scrub brush the bucket and pitcher make up the necessities. Because of the strike today, I would not travel on tomorrow. That meant that I had a longer time to dry out the cotton frisco jeans I had worn since, since, since New York. I carried a second pair of trousers which were thrift shop dress pants but the earlier owner had outgrown them and I wouldn’t admit the same. This led to some seam rips and I hadn’t found time to sew them up. So while the jeans soaked, I sewed. The bad light and my eyes were a match. I switched from black thread that matched the cloth to a yellow that I could see. That chore done, I turned to the jeans.

A bunch of years ago while scrubbing clothes next to a bore drain (an irrigation ditch that waters sheep rather than irrigates crops) in Queensland. Times were good and I purchased a number three washtub to do my laundry. While on my knees punching the clothes down in the hot soapy water, I had an idea. I dragged the washtub over to a small tree and twisted the tub back and forth allowing the bottom of the tub to rest right on the ground. I took off my boots, rolled up my pant legs, and stepped into the tub and onto the laundry. I held onto the tree for balance while I lit my pipe and had a look around to check out any kangaroos in the neighborhood while I tromped through the sudsy water. In addition to getting the laundry done, it was a great way to wash between the toes. Unfortunately there was only room in this bucket for one foot but soon the water turned dark and I hoped there was nothing alive in that bucket other than my foot. About two more trips through this exercise and I had wet but reasonably clean jeans!

Strike day produced some prose and after supper I fell asleep, and while I’d lost contact with Guy and Nicole, I had seen urban India without the packed streets. There is a question in my mind as to whether the strike was a show of unity of opposition or just an excuse to take a day off during the middle of the week. Looking over this piece I though about retitling it. But then what the heck, I’ll just blame it on the strike.

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