Day 58, Calicut, Kerala [Wednesday 30th January]
Previous day: Day 57, Calicut [Tuesday 29th January 2008]
Next day: Day 59, Calicut [Thursday 31st January 2008]
We get up at 6.15am and get a rickshaw to the nearby Kalari — the gym where boys learn and practice kalaripayattu, an Indian martial art.
Inside, the small room is warm and humid, its walls lined with swords, shields and daggers. A dozen small boys are oiling their bodies and being put through some manoevres by their 'master'. Good balance is certainly a requisite. Some of the moves are obviously meant to be aesthetically pleasing, and most of them are fairly athletic. We're not sure if our presence has disturbed them or not. Some of the boys demonstrate fighting with long sticks. It's fast, loud and impressive. Some of them make it look a lot easier than others. There is a small shrine in the corner of the kalari, where each boy prays or asks for blessings before he fights.
Afterwards we write some emails home, and discover the sad news that Kate's brother Nathan has been glassed in the face outside a pub.
There are rows and rows of gold shops here, their walls and windows dripping with astoundingly vulgar displays of the preferred precious metal of India — very yellow gold. Thee are also film posters everywhere, for 'South' films, as film magazine Filmfare likes to refer to them. They might also be called 'Regional cinema'. South films generally means films produced in the South Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andra Pradesh, and which are voiced in those states' vernacular. Success in South films and Bollywood, the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry, is not mutually exclusive. Many stars make the crossover between industries and languages, such as the actress Tabu and the director Mani Ratnam. The huge star Aishwarya Rai made her debut in a Tamil film. Down here they absolutely love the cinema. It's everywhere.
We get a rickshaw to a house, Tasara, which specializes in handloomed ecologically friendly non-violent silk. This means the silk is harvested without harming the worm that produces it. It's a steaming hot afternoon. The house is set in extensive grounds filled with coconut and banana trees. We even get to see the looms in action, thanks to a bevy of English ladies who are here on an extended looming holiday. They're old — the looms — and need regular maintenance to keep going. They also look incredibly complicated.
The silk they use is unrefined and so naturally much rougher and varied than we usually see. It makes for interestingly textured thick rugs and mats, window blinds etc.
The owner is Vasudevan, and he invites us to join him for lunch, which they have just started. Two meals are hurriedly brought out so we can sit down with everyone. When the ladies find out I work with computers I spend a while answering questions about wireless internet access plans available in India, as several of them have business they're trying to keep in touch with. Vasudevan is hospitable and friendly, and they house where eveyrone stays is bright and airy. After looking through loads of materials, Kate buys a scark (Rs 1300) which has been dyed with natural vegetables colours — in this case beetroot.
After leaving Tasara we try to go to an art gallery which is housed in the old house of V.K. Krishna Menon, India's first high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and the co-founder of Penguin books in the 1930s. Unfortunately the gallery is closed for renovation, but the builders let us into one room so we can see some of Menon's artefacts. He had lots of lovely pens.
We spend a few hours in the market buying souvenirs to send home to our niece and nephew Laila and Danny — we get a rickshaw toy, some bangles, a carved wooden elephant, some stickers of Hindu deities and a bag of stick-on bindis.
For dinner we go to Paragon, a huge restaurant and by all accounts a Kerala institution. It servies Mopilla cuisine, an Indian-Arabian and specifically Muslim fusion. It's located unpromisingly near a motorway flyover, down a dark alley. And it's incredibly busy — we have to wait in a queue for a while before we get in. But it's some of my favourite food so far — lots of fish, coconut, curry leaves and spices. Kate has a hariali chicken kebab and a hot, light nan. I have fluffy white appams with fish moilee — a spicy, creamy gravy — and fish polittchattu, which is Kingfish smeared in spicy sauce, wrapped in a plaintain leaf parcel and fried. The appams are so light and sweet, and the cremy moilee goes perfectly with the fried hot fish. A fantastic restaurant, recommended!
Next day: Day 59, Calicut [Thursday 31st January 2008]
Previous day: Day 57, Calicut [Tuesday 29th January 2008]