To Kanyakumari at Cape Comorin

To Kanyakumari at Cape Comorin

During the first five or six weeks on the Subcontinent, there were days in which the temperature was bearable up to about noon. I’d heard of a place up in the Palani Hills called Kodaikanal, which was said to not only be bearable but actually cool. Settling down for a while was of more interest than sightseeing and I considered cutting across country to find the hill station. But then came that nagging question which was, When will you be back? Travel, like living, is cheap in India. One thought was to wait in the mountains until January and then come down and do my touring then. It was during January and February that I had crossed India the first time. I remember sweaters, not sweating. But then Cape Comorin, that is the southern tip of the country, was within a little more than a half-day’s journey so why not go? From what I’d read there was a strange phenomena to experience there, and while the sun and moon were not in sync, I was far enough south that I should take in the geography. Furthermore I’d heard about wind farms.

John Jacobs peddled hand-painted scarves to the hotel guests. He, like Tony, was proficient in English and operated as a small entrepreneur. I had seen him around the hotel several times and chatted with him. Now and then you meet an Indian who would like to take on the U.S. experience and John, who had few family ties and had cared for the elderly, had the American Dream in mind. The first hurdle is speaking English well enough so that the client can understand; the second is for the elderly to have the patience to learn John’s pronunciation.

I made him an offer that I’d give him $5.00 (Rs. 200) if he would transport me to the station and deal with the ticket agent. He was more than pleased.

The hotel clerks found a train leaving for Kanyakumari at 10:15 a.m. which would arrive at the southern tip of India that afternoon late. This suited me as I would have a chance to look over the countryside by daylight. Just to make catching a train more interesting there may be several stations in one town. John got the name of the proper station from the clerk and all was set for a morning departure.

He picked me up and we rode away in an auto rickshaw. At the ticket window, he turned and asked if I wanted an inexpensive second-class coach ticket or a sleeper ticket second class. Since I didn’t plan on sleeping, I bought the cheaper ticket and he helped me board. It was the wrong car but….. Then we shook hands, wished each other well, and I settled down to think over his advice. One mustn’t accept food from strangers. I think Mother told me that or maybe the advice only applied to candy. There had been cases of pranks played causing the recipient to become nauseated and in some cases the story included knock-out drugs and robbery.

I took a single seat on the narrow side of the car, the locomotive honked twice and we rolled along a trash-lined track and out into the farms and countryside. Urban areas are dumps. At this time India and America are dickering over a nuclear deal. Forget what the United States wants from India, if India can’t keep a power plant cleaner than it does a street corner, God help India! But the land, whether cultivated or wild, is as beautiful as anyplace in the world. I’m amazed that the tourist industry (Indian or foreign) hasn’t observed this. The land is Eden. The towns are the new Untouchables.

So the wind felt good coming through the window as we rolled south through Eden.

The first person sitting opposite to me was a man in his thirties, who could knew a few words in English. He wanted me to visit his home in days to come. I thanked him but told him that I would be taking another route. Then he asked me to sponsor him to come to the U.S. I told him that he’d need to go to school of which there were many in any city I’d been in and learn English. He thought that over and went on his way.

The next person to occupy that seat was a lady of about the same age, who had training, spoke well, and if I recall was in the medical field as were her friends sitting across on the wide side the aisle. We chatted and then passed a concrete pad of about thirty-five feet by better than fifty. There was a pole metal roof overhead and a good sized fire burning beneath the roof. I asked the lady what that was about. She said that it was a cremation. Not everybody can get to burning ghats of Varanasi. It could be that the ashes will reach the Ganges later.

The afternoon wore on. I managed to buy a bottle of water and with the help of the lady, I purchased a bag of Lay potato chips. These chips weren’t sliced and fried in Ft. Worth but instead were India’s own well spiced with curry powder. The lady left and three men in their twenties took seats in the car. They all spoke excellent English and I was invited to join them. They were interested in what I thought of India and one story led to another. They particularly liked pointing out this and that using my version of the Goan wrist flip and they though retraining cab drivers to become mercenary fighter pilots was hilarious. Then the conductors, two women, came round. I showed my ticket and they looked at me like my third-grade teacher did when I had committed a venial sin. It seems that John Jacobs had loaded me into the wrong car. I should have been sitting on wooden benches instead the plastic pads of a second-class sleeper. And like the third-grade teacher, they realized that I was utterly ignorant of my mistake and after informing me of my misdeed, they let it pass.

The young men were taking a few days vacation from their banking job in Bangalore. Two of them, Anthony and Avinash had known each other since grade school, the third, Anil, had known the two since college. They looked for the interesting and fun things to do. They had considered paragliding but due to the weather or faulty equipment or for some other reason they changed plans. They were on their way to Kanyakumari to see the sun rise. What ever turns you on. The bunch were live wires and curious, spending as much time as I, looking out the window. We had a discussion as to our location in relation to this west coast train to the Arabian Sea. Now in late afternoon, we agreed that the sun was to the west and if we were to see the sea again, it would be off the starboard since we headed south. To Anil looking over the Indian Ocean was a wonder that made the trip worth the time and effort. With my having lived twenty or thirty years on salt water, hearing the awe in his voice gave me something to think on.

Then the country and trees began to breakaway and beyond the coconut palms stood some of the most rugged mountains any of us had seen. Anil likened the sight to Utah. That took me by surprise that he would know what Utah looked like. Surely there weren’t many Americans who knew what Kerala looked like. I politely agreed although I’d have compared these rocky mountains with the Superstitions of Arizona. I wanted to point out one difference. Anil listened. “You must forget what you see in the foreground.” There were rice paddies stretching from the tracks to the mountains and the latter were five or ten miles away. Anil agreed that Utah wouldn’t have rice paddies.

Then we came to the terminal. This terminal was surely the end of the line. From here you double back; no left, right, or center.

Avinash spoke Tamil and was our chief interpreter. He dickered with the auto rickshaws and soon the four of us and our baggage were overloading a three-wheeler and chugging off to see what the hotels had to offer. Judging by the metabolic rate of these guys, I said that I wanted a room by myself. After a check of the available choice, we settled on rooms on the first floor (by British and Indian standards; second floor U.S.) and moved in. I showered and we met for supper. Indians, like the Chinese, order large quantities of food and then share. In my confusion, I ate most of a fish delicacy that they ordered. I though it was my order. They introduced me to a drink called “lassi.” The spelling varies as does the taste but I found a flavor with an untapped fortune just beneath the bubbles. I could imagine lassi stands popping up like fence posts, growing smaller as they stretched out over an American horizon. I got so many stories as to how it was made that I’ll stick with the one Avinash, who has probably never made the drink, told me. You dump yogurt into cold water and run it through a blender. The proportion should be just thin enough to be drawn through a straw. You add a little salt and a spoonful of sugar, if you like it sweet. Otherwise leave out the sugar and drink it salty to your taste. I wrote a glowing report to my daughter and she reminded me that we ate an Indian meal (complete with lassi) while sitting on some steps in Greenwich Village. I remembered the meal, my wrestling with some kind of dosi (great piece of crisp bread,) lunch time, rivers of people on Crosby Street, cars, all of which pretty well approximated India. I got stressed, daughter took it in stride, and Fred, her dog, which she carried with her, went to sleep. “And so we drank lassi?” I asked. Since she was about seven years old and that was thirty years ago, she puts little trust in my memory but that’s another story.

The Sea View Restaurant was a table cloth place. The young men would be gone by tomorrow night. But during my stay of several days, the waiters in white shirts, black ties and trousers got to know my weakness for lassi.

These three musketeers wiped their mouths on the cloth napkins and it was time to go look at the town. Of course by this time the sun had set over the Arabian Sea and there is nothing quite as dark as a tropical night. We wanted to find the “beach.” Again Avinash talked, took note, and away we went among vendors selling sunglasses, vendors selling strings of jasmine blossoms, vendors selling travel guides, but no vendor sold three foot long railway maps of India, which is about the only thing in the world I needed to purchase for a friend who loves maps so long as they don’t have too many towns shown on them.

We rounded one stand and found a brahma calf about half grown lying before a temple door. He was white but with gray, shading off to near charcoal. There are cows and there are cows but this one was a beautiful creature. Of course my gang was electronically prepared. They had come with I-pods, cell phones, and a digital camera. One by one we all had our picture taken with the calf. Anthony wasn’t too sure what would happen if he touched the calf. I couldn’t imagine an Indian made jittery by a cow but he and Avinash were Roman Catholics. Anil was Brahman. I petted the calf as I would a dog. You can charge my attitude up to my coming from a ranching family or my being Methodist-Heathen. This happened about a month ago and I haven’t seen such a beautiful animal since then.

We turned down the street which led to the “beach.” It also led to the great temple, which was part and parcel of this End of India/rising sun-setting moon thing. It was very dark. I said that I was turning back and the “boys” spun on their heels and came back with me. There manners all the time we were together were exemplary.

The last plan of the day was to get up early tomorrow and watch the sun rise over the Bay of Bengal. One of the last thing I did before I turned off the light in my room, was to go out on the balcony and look up at a starless sky. John Jacobs had told me with a giggle before he left me that morning. Most of the mornings in Kanyakumari are cloudy. Somebody was sure to be disappointed.

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