Well around ten days ago I returned from a short five day tour of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Quite obviously... we could not cover either state entirely. We spent around 2 1/2 days in Kerala..... and Boy did that place capture my imagination!!!!! One has to visit the place to truly realise why it is called God's Own Country...... we went only to Trivandrum and Kovalam... which are not even the most beautiful places in the state and THEY were soooo beautiful!
The very first thing that will strike you about Kerala are the coconut trees!!!! I only wish I could have captured on lens the scene outside the airplane window just before we landed at Trivandrum...... solid body of water on one side, and a solid mass of coconut trees extending for acres and acres on the other... separated only by a thin strip of white and brown sand!!!!!! Then you make your way out of the smallish airport and the next thing to strike you ... is how clean the city is! This is reflected not just outside the airport but all across the city and indeed every part of the state that we travelled. There is a beach right next to the airport and the clean soft brown sand, clear blue skies, the emerald waters of the sea and green coconut trees give you as warm a welcome as can be!!!
Even while touring around Trivandrum the cleanliness of the entire city keeps impressing itself upon you. Be it right outside the extremely busy Anatha-Padmanabha Swamy Temple or be it at the usual tourist attractions eg: The Palace, the Museum, The Zoo, The Art Galleries, 'VELI': A Tourist Village, or even the main Marketplace - and they are all maintained by the state government!!!!!! Also, the fact that they were all so obviously well looked after. I was extremely impressed. To think that a major tourist draw like Agra is not half as clean as small town Trivandrum which is not even the main tourist attraction of the state.
Kovalam.. I believe is slightly over-hyped and that the beach though very good is nothing to go sooo ga ga about! In fact there are other beaches in and around Trivandrum and Kovalam itself which are far less crowded and equally beautiful! However this is not to take away from the beauty of Kovalam or the fact that it's beach creates the perfect combination of crystal clear waters, white sand, blue skies (or the perfect sunrise or sunset - depending upon when you go) and of course the green coconut trees. Just that it was a li'l crowded when we went - blame it on the time of the year!
Even the highway out of Kerala and into Tamilnadu is lined with an unbroken line of thick coconut groves with banana trees growing in their shelter, with quaint red tiled houses with sloping roofs showing themselves here and there among the trees. The beauty is indescribable. By contrast and at the risk of hurting a few feelings.. Tamilnadu is no comparison!!! Neither cleanlinbess wise (the less said about this the better) nor Beauty wise. The coconut trees start thinning almost from the moment we enter Tamilnadu and get replaced by vast plain fields with green standing crop. We visited Kanyakumari, Madurai and Rameshwaram before flying out of Madurai and the only place that came close to matching Kerala in beauty was the highway leading upto Rameshwaram. The city itself, like Madurai and Kanyakumari is pretty dirty (and it seemed especially so after coming straight out of Kerala), but the highway leading into it makes up in beauty for what the rest of the city lacks. Just before entering Rameshwaram, you can see the Indian Ocean stretch out endlessly on either side of you.... it seems the road itself is going to end in the sea...... a li'l further and you can see the brown sand, the blue skies, the emarald-blue waters of the ocean and the green coconut trees again and I, for one, will never cease to recapture that scene everytime I close my eyes and think about it!!! As wordsworth aptly said, "and when..in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude." Unfortunately, the rest of the places that we visited in Tamilnadu are nothing to right home about... except of course that the Meenakshi Temple of Madurai is every bit as beautiful architecturally as the stories make it out to be. But apart from the highway to Rameshwaram and the Meenakshi Temple, Tamilnadu was disappointing after the heady high that Kerala had given us.
I have decided to go back to Kerala and explore the rest of that state. And this time I hope to do it slowly with atleast a week to 10 days in hand. I end this travelogue with the disclaimer that: the views expressed herein are merely the personal opinion of the author, formed mainly through the circumstances, the duration and the places covered by the author on this tour. The views expressed are reflective only of the places visited and not generalisations about the rest of the two states which the author has not had the good fortune of visiting. Still, any hurt caused to any person's sensibilities or sentiments is deeply regretted. (true law student ishtyle!!!!)
Now for the second part of this rather long post!!!!! For all those wondering where Books fit into the entire narrative - here is the answer. I bought two books on the tour - one the comparatively unremarkable "The Pilgrimage" by Paulo Coelho, and the second - "Ananda Math" by Bankimchandra. This second is slightly more momentous than the first since it is my very first Hindi book. (of course translated - from bangla). For a long time now I had been wanting to start reading some vernacular. English literature was good but I started to realise that vernacular literature too has a lot more to offer. My only two options were Hindi and Kannada (my mother tongue). I am slightly ashamed to say that though I can read and write in Kannada, I am nowhere near fluent. This is owing to the fact that I have lived all my life in Ranchi and Bokaro. Therefore Hindi was the only real option.
Starting to read in Hindi was not completely without hiccups. The translation was an extremely good one and had been able to recreate the magic of story while at the same time not letting anything get 'lost in translation'. It was also in Shudh Hindi. This meant that for a novice like me whose only other exposure to Hindi literature had been the Hindi text books at school, understanding some of the words and phrases were slightly difficult. But as the novel progressed and I got used to the language, my speed increased and so did my comprehension. I am extremely glad that I have made this beginning and hope that I continue this newly acquired taste right through.
The book of course was extremely good, the narrative tight and gripping. It offers an insight into one of the political movements in Bengal against the Muslim ruler of the time, prior to the takeover by the British. However the one thing that kept nagging me throughout was how communal and shortsighted (with respect to the British) the book was. Once when Jeevanand (the protagonist) captures a British Captain in a war, he seeks to befriend him by saying that their war is against the Muslims and not the British, whom they consider their friends. Also, the army of the Vaishnavas took great pride and pleasure in burning down all villages populated by the Muslims. But just when you seek to end with the thought that Bankimchandra was probably not as secular and patriotic as he is made out to be, comes the last two pages of the book and the monologue by a swamiji who was also a healer. He seeks to explain why the vaishnavas failed to rule Bengal in spite of all their devotion, and 'good deeds'. He tells the protagonist that their main fault lay in their bigotry and the fact that they had failed to correctly assess the British. He also takes an extremely realistic view of things and says however, that the defeat of the vaishnavas at the hands of the British was not necessarily a bad thing but was something which had been pre ordained. Their beloved Bharat Mata would be best served at the hands of the British since they would pull her out of the middle ages and put her firmly on the path to modernity.
No comments:
Post a Comment