Day 56, Kannur, Kerala [Monday 28th January 2008]
Previous day: Day 55, Kannur [Sunday 27th January 2008]
Next day: Day 57, Calicut [Tuesday 29th January 2008]
Upma and potato stew for breakfast. We go and pick up my tailored shirts from Kannur, which are sturdy and well made. The linen trousers are a different story. Although the tailor took my measurements when we visited him the finished product resembles my body only so far as it has two legs, the length and width of which he appears to have made up on a whim.
Ranji picks me, Kate and Lisa up and we go to his house for dinner. They have a big bungalow the other end of Kannur that has been in Jyothi's family for generations. It has three bedrooms, but when I ask which one belongs to who Jyothi gently mocks her kids and says they all sleep in the same room! The kids look embarrassed and turn shy. They have a large kitchen and a garden at the front of the house which is full of fruit trees. In the hall is a shrine to Krishna, with a blue Krishna statue, a string of flashing lights, pictures of Krishna, Radha, Ganesh and Sai Baba (a phenomenally popular Hindu and Muslim saint), and an oil lamp suspended from the ceiling, flames flickering. The smell of incense fills the air.
We play Othello with Navya and Nandana, then Jyothi takes us into the kitchen and shows us how to cook Chinese fried rice. She asks us if we have a fridge in our kitchen — perhaps she thought it was so cold in England that we didn't need one! She has a special tool that clamps onto the edge of the worktop, with a dangerous looking rotating blade at the top for scraping the flesh out of coconuts.
We sit at the dining room table and again they serve us first, waiting until we have finished to serve themselves. We have masala chicken and Chinese fried rice, and kheer for desert, and Jyothi and Ranji continually urge us to eat more. It's such a privilege to be invited into their home to eat with them. They are a friendly, open family and the kids are both very sweet. We talk about family life, running the business, schoolwork. After dinner we look through their wedding album of photos. They haven't changed much over the years. Stories emerge about Ranji's varied past business ventures. He previously owned Costa Malabari when it was a textile factory. Before that, at the time of their wedding, he owned a fleet of private buses. Now, of course, he is a homestay entrepreneur.
Stuffed full of food and having had a great evening, it is time to go. Rani drops us back to KK Heritage, stopping on the way in Kannur to buy us each a bag of cashews.
Next day: Day 57, Calicut [Tuesday 29th January 2008]
Previous day: Day 55, Kannur [Sunday 27th January 2008]