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!
