Kochi Muziris biennale and other bits

The main focus of our trip to Kochi was the biennale, and our overall experience has definitely surpassed the first one of two years ago. As with any biennale the fringe shows add a frisson of individuality. 

We have had the opportunity to meet so many artists, including my hero Ranbir Kaleka who combines painting and video on the same surface, hear Vanessa Branson talk about the biennale in Marrakech, but maybe the most interesting discussions have been with the volunteers. 

These guys work with individual artists for three or four months while they are creating their works here, and then stay on as guides for the visitors. They give a great insight the working practice of each individual artist.

Kochi books, where Charlie has his small exhibition has become like a second home. It is one of those places where people call in, browse and stay and chat for hours on end! 

Vimal has become a close friend, he seems to know everyone! We have learnt more about Indian culture and politics than ever before. 

A billboard outside the biennale ticket office also became the site for Charlie's first pop up exhibition! Small digital prints were white tacked to the wall and up for grabs. Even a rickshaw driver stopped to look and then explained the event to passers by!

Munroe magic

Munroe island is a palm paradise by the Kallada river the backwaters east of Kollam. The island is named after Col. John Munro who was Resident of the East India Company there around 1815, and instrumental in the land reclamation that created the island.

A rather unsettling arrival at our homestay, the only one for miles around as they are building a new outdoor kitchen! 

In front of out idyllic little house they are knocking nails out of wood, mixing cement and cutting wire with an extremely noisy angle grinder. Alongside this there is a sound track of music and stories of Krishna blaring from the temple in celebration of its ancient birthday. 24/7... well almost! 

Up early for a canoe trip, very peaceful, drifting temple music in the air. Chai stop, and then as far as the edge of Astamudi  lake. We pass tiger prawn farms, netted to stop theft! Amazing birds, the flash of turquoise as a kingfisher darts from tree to tree, cormorants, Brahman kites, and below, water snakes and jelly fish as the sea water mixes with the sweet.

We have to duck down down in the boat going under the tiny bridges that link the village houses, yoga says the boatman! 

After an amazing Thali lunch with beetroot chappatis, Vijesh takes us for a village walk. We wander through the locals vegetable and flower gardens, butterfly peas, spore prints from ferns, red ants from leaf nests which he offers as a treat.

We see cashew processing, grueling hard labour, no wonder they are so expensive, chai stop and the tiny tea shop man makes us porotas...hand made is an apt expression. Bidi rolling and betel next...Vijeesh asks if we would like a mocktail. I suspect it will be toddy, but he mixes lime juice, ginger, glucose and soda, stirred with a green chilli! Strong stuff!

Early the next morning we go to the local temple festival where the women from the village have come to cook payasam aka ambrosia, food for the gods in celebration of the temples birthday. Athira and her mum have been up since 4.30 in preparation.

Around 800 women all in rows with a traditional chatty on firewood, ready to receive the  flame from the temple. In minutes the air is filled with smoke, the water starts to boil, rice, cardamom, cinnamon and jaggary are added and the stirring begins.
Athira and her mum come back to serve breakfast we taste the nectar!

The day ends watching the sunset over lake Astamudi and elephants at another village temple!

Next morning the builders return :( but we escape to a rooftop terrace, where in between the dulcet sounds of an angle grinder we can hear birdsong! 

Varkala revisited

Difficult to know whether to go back to places. People tell us Vakala is getting crowded, new resorts springing up along the cliff.

Pria's husband meets us at the station in his sparkly tuk tuk, and whisks us from the dark dusty town to their home just set back from the cliff, Kaithakuzhi House or have we been transported back to Corrie or Eastenders, all our neighbours are sitting out at the front, chatting over the potted plants!

After being the only Europeans in Thrissur we are now surrounded by Brits escaping the snow with their own travel kettles. 

The younger white ( female) generation parading their exposed skin, no cover up tourist modesty here! Even a thong on the beach.

Of course once we settle in, we enjoy the banter with our neighbours! We even get given cups of tea every afternoon.

We walk again to see the fishing boat go about at Black beach, and have black tea and bananas for breakfast. 

We meet with our friends from Portugal, and catch up on their travellers tales, a lovely lunch in Bohemia Masala Art cafe, self service organic veg Thali...tasty.

Next day we go to the Shiva temple, a tranquil boat ride across a lake on the tiny island of Ponnumthuruthu. Magical. 

Wilson the poet texts to say he is in Varkala with the Norwegian artists who have just finished a biennale project. We meet them for breakfast at his friend's homestay, Shiva Garden, an very interesting group, feminists plus family and friends.

We are invited to their wrap dinner, an amazing night full of animated conversation, Malayalam poems and Scandinavian singing! 

This time we take a rickshaw back into the real Vakala town, a morning's escape from Bollydorm, get glasses fixed and rupees for the next journey. 

Will we return, difficult to say, but it is still a lovely place to eat good food and relax.

My last supper, tiger prawns, pesto with lemon rice...perfect! 

Thrissur

Lost...no wifi...on the plus side we have A/C and a TV! 

We trapse through the busy town at night in search of an Internet cafe. A young student offers to lead the way asking ' What is the purpose of your visit' !

Thrisuur is known as the cultural centre of Kerala, a kind of parched Oxford or Cambridge. We have come to visit the Government college of Fine Arts, where

Charlie has been asked to talk about his work, in a packed lecture theatre!

But first we wander around the studios, the students are all so welcoming and show us work in progress. The style is traditional, with a strong emphasis on drawing. We feel a particular bond with the printmaking tutor, and the art history lecturer, who is also a poet and shows us some of her work, a mix between Apollinaire and Antonio Aleixo.

One of the students offers to take us on a guided tour, first to the Academy, walls hung with dusty portraits of writers and poets. Then to the  Vadakkunnathan temple in the centre of an immense hillock of grass where men gather to play cards in the afternoon and evening. Later we spend a lovely evening with the printmaking tutor in her digs, comparing our very different cultures, but finding much common ground.

The last morning we are thwarted as the archeological museum is closed so we go to the zoo instead. Set in pleasant shady gardens with amazing tree specimens and immaculately dressed primary school kids on a day out. They, of course, are just as intrigued by two foreigners as the hippos, mugger and tigers! 

Lunch @ Wilson's

The start of our travels, a taxi to the little village of Chennamangalam to visit one of the first synagogues in Kerala, over 400 years old, and now beautifully restored. Kerala, sometimes called God's Own Country, with a reputation for tolerance between religions.

A respectful guide asking if I am Jewish, I try to explain that the line was broken when my great great grandfather Cohen from Germany married a gentile, my great grandfather possibly choosing business over religion when he emigrated to Manchester. 

Our plan is to try and meet with the Malayalam poet Kuzhur Wilson en route to Thrissur. 

Sadly his mother has died a few days before but he says ' Please still come' 

Our driver constantly making contact via mobile phone for directions, we rendezvous by a bridge. Wilson jumps into the front seat of our taxi, we grasp hands in condolence. We are invited to his house for lunch.

On the way he directs the driver down narrow winding roads and we arrive at a river with huge boulders, and a tiny Shiva temple. A quiet spiritual place. 

Then on toward his farm where again we stop in the middle of wide open paddy fields to look across to an island of palm trees where his dream is to open a writers retreat, a Temple of Poetry. 

Then on to the Catholic village church graveyard to pay our respects to his mum, buried three days before. 

Then to his home, where Agnes Annam his six year old daughter has been waiting in anticipation of our visit for five hours, a beaming smile!

We ate the best Thali ever, made with home grown organic vegetables. They will not eat non-veg for 41 days. He brings a photo of his mum to the table. 

Mary his wife is an English Lit teacher, loves Shakespeare, dreams of visiting Poets' Corner, tells us how lucky she was that her parents allowed her to marry for love, how the good education for women in Kerala gets wasted as once married they are expected to live a life of domesticity.

As we leave Mary says ' We are secular ' 

Coming back

As the plane dropped down over the lush vegetation of Kerala in the soft warm light of dawn, I felt a wave of joy to be back. The first time I have travelled back to a familiar place. 

Back to Indian form filling, rubber stamps, long lines in immigration, Ebola checks. 

We left the airport past crowds of families, expectant faces, beautifully dressed, all,waiting to greet bread winners arriving on the many flights from the Middle East that arrive first thing in the morning. A welcoming respect to those who send money home. 

We too received a warm welcome at the homestay we left two years ago. Same room, a month earlier than before, bourganvillia in full flower, crows still sitting on the washing line!

A short rest and off to the biennale. Jayesh smiling, waiting to greet us at the ticket office, the same guy who sold us our tickets two years ago and recognised Charlie from Facebook, and Edwin from Bangalore another volunteer we met before in Mattancherry.

We are back!