Monday, October 18
Lagoona Davina, Kerala
I’ve spent the last four nights five kilometers south of Trivandrum at a place called Lagoona Davina. It was listed in the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet as a cheap lodge that was on the backwaters but with a view to the sea. And both books said that the lodge was peaceful with rewarding sunsets. One even mentioned hammocks which is what sold me. Hammocks under a coconut tree? What was I thinking? Bonk bonk, you’re dead.
The sunsets on the Arabian sea are fast and spectacular. Even when it’s raining there’s a sunset, I’m sure of it. The air is sticky and smells of rotting fish. The fish are washed in from the monsoon waves, and they lay on their sides (How else would they lie? How horrible to have no choice of one’s tummy or back, too). One dead fish hit me on the head yesterday. A crow spat it out from the coconut tree.
The
waves are huge. All night and all day they crash into the beach across
the lagoon. This evening, there are a group of ten boys playing on the
other side of the lagoon. They’ve taken three sticks and built a high
jump in the water. Each boy is trying to clear the jump with a pike dive.
The ones waiting in the queue are practicing crabs. That’s when you do
a handstand and then keep going landing on your feet, and you endlooking
like a crab. These kids are either really bored or they’re practicing
for some sort of acrobat troupe. Others are balancing standing towards
the ocean on a ten foot high pole stuck in the sand.
Yesterday night I was able to see the moon for the first time, resting its reflection on the water. It was the kind of moon where if you were standing under it with your lover, you’d believe just for that moment that you’d be in love forever.
Philip has said more than once that Richard has lost the plot. Philip usually says that when Richard disappears off into pigeon French speaking Africa, (more specifically, the Sahara), on his bicycle. Richard has done this a few times. Richard chuckles when Philip tells him he’s lost the plot. Philip told me I had lost the plot when I quit my job at a high-tech PR agency and went back to school at night taking classes at SFSU’s Multimedia Studies Program. He said I was turning all arty-farty doing that Web crap. I’m very defensive when Philip tells me I’ve lost the plot. I think Philip has lost the plot this year compromising himself by going to business school in France rather than pressuring Harvard or Stanford to take him off their waiting lists. I didn’t tell Philip I thought he’d lost the plot. I don’t think Richard has ever said anyone has lost the plot.
I lost the plot today.
Ah -low! Ah -low! Ah low!
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand every single one of those kids screaming Ah-low! at me, over and over again. Throwing rocks and chattering, ah-low! I began to mimic them, squeaking and barking Ah-low! exactly the same number of times they said it to me. Right back in their faces. It felt good, though. And they left me alone. Crazy tourist who’s wearing funny-looking sandals. (No one walks by and doesn’t stare at my Tevas. Either that or at the size of my feet.)
This morning, I walked to Kovalum. Kovalum is about 15 km south of Trivandrum. Think of the tip of India, down at the bottom, and then work your way up the north-west coast for about 50 miles or so. There. It’s a popular faraway destination in British package holiday brochures. India usually comes at the back of the brochure, behind the Costa del Sol, the Algarve, Mallorca and, second last, Tangiers. One mile out of Kovalum in any direction and you’re back in India. But Kovalum on the beach is any town on the beach. Here, the accent is brutishly London, Manchester and Essex (girls) with a few backpackers thrown in to add a truly international smog over the ocean front restaurants. You can tell the backpackers because they’re tan, not white-gone-red, and they’re reading big, mind-boggling books, their tattoos are real (not henna) and their hair is matty. Except for the Japanese guys who introduce a techno-ambient flavor with their bleached blond hair, surf boards, and Prada velcro back-packs. Beadies, the tiny, cheap, pungent Indian cigarettes are widely sold in Kovalum. They remind me of my brother, Alexander. Last time I saw Alexander I was on a visit from college to Toronto near to where he lives. Alexander was smoking lots of Beadies at this time and watching Indian (surely not Bollywood?) movies. I bought a box of Beadies on my visit and took them back to campus (25 to a packet, 25 packets to a box) and sold them to freshman as something exotic.
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