Manvi’s late and both Shweta and I knew she would be. Dammit
Manvi, you’re closest to the airport as well. It’s 5:30am and Delhi is awash
with the first real rain of the season…there’s actually something akin to
‘crispness’ in the air and suddenly leaving seems unnecessary. But we haven’t
seen real rain, not yet. Or so he says on the phone when we tell him. “Yeah
what you call rain we call light drizzle. See you in a few hours.” A few weeks
ago Mushtaq said we could all come visit him in Kerala and I was obviously the
first to raise my hand hysterically. Despite all the hob-knobbing of the coasts
of India I’ve done, I’ve somehow skipped this most celebrated star of the
south. So here we were, three girls with “the golden ticket” and some scattered
wanderlust in our city eyes. We make th
Mushtaq’s family has kindly booked us first AC but we plonk
ourselves, luggage lunch and all into the first empty box we see because it’s
raining and this, this is rain like we have never seen before. The only
air-conditioners in these compartments are the ones God made at the start of
the world and we shiver as the rain spills onto our thighs and shoulders as we
press up against the bars at the windows. A whistle blows and then the breeze
hits you in the face like pleasure itself and we’re off. You think that whistle
is calling for a train to start, but it’s calling out to life itself, signaling
it to slow down, which it does. We eat slippery, rich homemade mutton stew and
red masala chicken off paper plates, delivered to us at the station courtesy
Mushtaq’s Mangalore side of the family (his entire family we soon figure are basically
all Michelin level chefs). Then we swing from the train doors, faces wet, world
zipping by, wolf howling and laughter fresh. The world is a cool green
chlorophyll bubble and we dip our fingers into packets of newly sliced mangoes,
so thick they’re like pieces of meat, so orange our nails are painted, so sweet
we’re hysterical from the happiness of escape.
Like this three mad girls arrive to the cacophony of Kannur
and yet we manage to drown it out. Tattoos, Toms shoes, leather bags, headphones
and jangly earrings we clutter out the tiny railway station past a slew of
hijabs and checked shirts and we are deposited upon the entrance like some
wayward children, giggling, and then he rides up, tan and lean, glasses and
guns and he hoists our bags into the car, shoos our hugs away and herds us in
like school girls because that is what we’ve turned into and miaow…we’re
bouncing through the streets watching Mushtaq point out things that could be
poignant memory or completely made up. “My first gym,” he says and gestures to
a tiny pink square with lurid muscles painted on the walls. Kannur, or Cannanore
– Land of Lord Krishna is home to the loom industry, spotless stretches of
beach and sexy Delhi lawyer boy Mushtaq Salim. Now he tells us to close our
eyes and all three of us comply. Two minutes later the car abruptly comes to
halt and he says, “Alright open them,” and we do and there in front of us,
twisting and turning, endless and oblivious, lies the Arabian Sea. And so our
trip begins.
I’m not sure what we expected (houseboats? Tropic thunder?),
but the essential elegance of this state shows up in the lines and slants of
the old houses, the crumbly violet earth and the tossing water. Everything fits
into each other and than the rain comes down to meld the pieces together. Thus
the land touches so closely the water and the water so smoothly the sky.
Everything rises into each other like lovers who never tire of one another.
Does such a thing exist in humans?
Mushtaq likes to eat and he feeds us like we’re his pups –
often, irritably and enthusiastically. There are brownies freshly baked by his
cousin Niza, soft and chewy, molten yet firm. Tiny chicken filled French pies
the likes of which we’ve never had before. Flaky, frilly edged textbook
perfection all created just for us. Breakfast time rolls in dosas, idlis,
vadas, puris, appam, stew. Soon after there is fish curry, ghee rice, prawn
biryani, mutton biryani, spicy roast chicken, parotas, parotas, parotas, “mallu”
shawarmas dipped in garlic sauces, onions everywhere…we eat endlessly and then
lie around as the mosquitos (that Mushtaq calls ‘local pigeons’) flutter around
for blood and we let them have it, swatting too sleepily at bites. In the
evening there’s honey pepper vodka and dark rum and Sri Lankan arrack and
stories and lies that act like sweet lullaby.
In the day we bathe with cold water and sit by the sea for
hours. Clouds pass and perched on the edges of cliffs we barely talk. Music is
played then isn’t. Books are read then aren’t. Coconuts come down from trees
and we drink from them. We disperse, come back together. Silent then silly.
Watch the storm, watch it pass. The air is damp and cool. We tug mattresses out
to the long tiled porch and lie under the sloping tiled roof. Sheets wear thin
under the graze of our skin. Write, stare at the water, forget time exists,
stand strong against the rain then become one with it. What to say about this
rain? That it is cold and bold and bone drenching. That it comes down when you
most need it. When your insides are collapsing from sadness or you realize the
star you were wishing on just burnt out. In the afternoon and at night or early
in the morning, whenever it is you most need to cry your tears the rain comes
down to give them company. The hibiscus and birds of paradise growing wanton
across the front lawn bow down alongside the palms. Caterpillars crawl out,
vivid in their wetness. We footprint every bedroom and soundtrack our steps
with the call of the sea. What echoes it has left in me. It surges, we sigh. It
sighs, we surge.
At the beach our pockets fill with sand and we leave it
there to take back some of this land. We drive to Tellicherry where we have the
heavenly fortune of staying at Ayisha Manzil, a heritage homestay complete with
Malabari cooking classes, outdoor meals and unfair views. It is high ceilinged,
cool and vast. Tall antique beds skimmed by mosquito nets, swinging old fans
and the creak of old wood. Laughter cracks the air as we try yoga moves and
photo shoots. The afternoon storm breaks, welcomes us, and we dip our warm
bodies into a swimming pool filled with rainwater, displacing leaves long dead.
“Check for snakes!” someone shouts and everyone splashes about in a mess of
squeals soon silenced by lightning. We eat boxes and boxes of date and walnut
cake and collapse into naptime only to wake from gossamer dreams at twilight.
We walk around this ancient mansion looking for each other and meet over fried
bananas and stuffed mussels. “And then what about massages?” we nag, having
heard so much. So Mushtaq and his charming brother Sayeed pack us off to the
Ayurveda centre. The Kerala massage is no jasmine scented white robed affair.
It is robust, vigorous and rough handed…dung scented, medicinal and healing.
When you are done, the oil is so slick and thick upon your body, if you were an
ocean, small dead ducks would float upon your surface. I leave bruised but
certain some demon has been beaten out of me. And that eventually is the trip
as a whole. When you are warned a place has ‘nothing to do’, rest assured, it
has everything to find. Against the dreamscape of a southern sky, something
within is restored.
