Well I’ve found out what today will bring and it was bloody exhausting too! Some of the stuff behind the cut ‘adapts’ christian hymns.

Welcome to Cardomom County
Today is probably the first day that I’ve woken before Ajeesh: he usually wakes at 6.30, he tells me. However today I was vertical by 8 am while he didn’t surface until 8.30. I’m not sure what time we headed out to the ‘fields’ – I think it was 9.30 but certainly before 10. There we met his neighbour, Santosh, who is helping farm some land owned by Ajeesh’s sister Ajitha and her husband. He’s also called Santosh but he works in a restaurant. I’ve met him but couldn’t remember his face so put this Santosh and Ajitha together, much to everyone’s amusement.

The land we were working on is at the foot of a slope, just above a tiny stream and about 25 metres down a muddy path from the main path/track. This piece of land is dotted with banana plants and other trees but neighbour-Santosh had yesterday done a lot of work, clearing the undergrowth and digging some holes in which cardomom plants would eventually be grown. These holes are about 4 feet wide by 4 feet back by up to 2 feet deep and require a lot of work: there were many more to dig.

At first Ajeesh used a long-handled tumbar (mambati tambar) to mark out the area of each hole and start it off; then I used another mambati tambar to dig the hole to the right size and depth; then Santosh made the walls vertical and the floor flat using a short-handled tumbar (koryi tambar). This system worked up to a point – I’ve got better at manipulating a long implement but it was still hard going, even after Ajeesh tried to teach me the finer points of mambati tambar wrangling.

About 10.30, Jaya called us in for breakfast: steamed ‘rolls’ (coconut and rice powder boiled in aluminium tubes [oops here comes Alzheimer’s!], boiled tapioca and pickles). I was quite dirty, having given up on my sandals early on. The feeling of dirt trapped between my feet and the sandals and the clumsiness to which it led were far from fun.

After breakfast, we went back to the field and tried a different system: Ajeesh and Santosh marked out holes while I used the koryi tambar to deepen and finish them. So I’d finish a hole in the time Ajeesh finished two but my holes looked quite good! Also I found it much easier to lift soil out of the hole with the koryi tambar – I could get it full of soil and then use my hand on the koryi tambar’s heel to lift and throw the soil. I also found that I could get more leverage if I sat on the edge of the hole and chopped away at the side opposite me. This did have the unfortunate effect of making it look as though I’d had horrendous diarhoea.

I think I’m now responsible for 10 cardomom-plant holes and feel for the first time in days that I’ve earned my stay here. I was utterly exhausted by the time Jaya called us for lunch (rice, sambar, more tapioca and coconut & jackfruit-seed curry) and found it difficult to summon up the energy to lift the food into my mouth. I also have only two tiny injuries

• a burst blister on the inside of my right thumb
• a cut in the quick of my right little finger where I knocked it against a stone in the side of a hole while cutting out a root.

By the way, the knives used for such tasks, for cleaning tambars and even for cutting up paan, ‘boost’ and many other tasks are called something like oo-arr-kutty.* The curved design means that it’s difficult to cut yourself when cleaning spades and that you’d be really unlucky to get cut if one fell on you. Bruised: yes; but cut: probably not.
*There are two other names – I didn’t hear clearly enough to write them down.

To keep myself going, I sang out loud bits of Holidays in Cambodia, especially

Well you’ll work harder with a gun in your back
for a bowl of rice a day.
Playboy soldiers strum on guitars*
and then your head’s skewered on a stake.

*the official version is ‘Slave for soldiers til you starve’

and adapted a hymn when Ajeesh brought some tea from the house

Give me chai in my cup – keep me working
Give me chai in my cup – I pray
Give me chai in my cup – keep me working
Keep me working till I fall down dead.

Sing ‘Khardum chaya’
Sing ‘Khardum chaya’
Sing ‘Khardum chaya’
To Camilla siniensis-parker-bowles

There was another Bruce-mangling of a hymn but I forget what it was. (This is probably a good thing.) Oh well, I seemed to amuse Santosh and Ajeesh – he even tried to adapt Holidays in Cambodia to Holidays in Nedumkandam!

After lunch neither Ajeesh nor I were fit to carry on. I do feel better for working, however: a bit more honest and my lungs are busy getting rid of the last of the yuck. So after Ajeesh had showered, we came to town. Ajeesh is with the boys in Shaji’s office and I’m here blogging although I waited for about an hour for power to return. During the wait, I talked with Mr Ozhathil and his sons. Mr Ozhathil is keen for his sons to learn correct English pronunciation and I’m happy to help if I can. When requested, I also explained the differences between England, Britain and the UK!

Tomorrow Ajeesh is driving someone to Kollam (aka Quilon). Not sure if I’m going: I feel I should stay and plant cardomom in the holes I dug. However that depends on Gopalakrishna, Santosh or someone else being available and willing to tell me what to do. I’ve very aware that for them, this isn’t a game, no matter how much they joke and laugh. This tiny-scale farming is a major part of the family’s income and I want to get it right so that they get crops from the work I did and so that I haven’t been making my back ache for no reason!

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Ajeesh asked me how British people farmed their land. My answer was ‘most don’t! We’re very urbanised and farming is mechanised so that tiny numbers of people work large areas of land. The nearest most of us get to farming is a garden with a lawn and a few flowers or maybe an allotment.’ I’d appreciate your comments on how near to the truth this is, mostly so I can give Ajeesh a correct picture of the UK.

OK, I think I’ve spun this one out as far as I can – time to go Mr Floyd!

So today is my last full day in Nedumkandam. I’m very sad about this, even though I’m happy to be going on to other places.

EXTREMELY random gruntings
Yesterday was Malasadass (‘monsoon meeting’), the schools event at which I was to talk. It was opened by an MLA. Other speakers included the Deputy Director of Periyar Tiger Reserve, a local director of education and a fantastic poet/singer. Malayalam folk songs can be entrancing even when I don’t understand a word of them!

My talk was delivered, in my opinion, really badly. (Although no-one else to whom I mentioned this appeared to share this opinion.) And I’m horrified and thrilled in equal measure to learn that my mumblings were broadcast as far as Trivandrum. Er, this was my fault for arriving back at Nedumkandam at 3 am yesterday morning. And the reason for that? Well, my Indonesian friend’s family live in Pekanbaru and Padang, not at Madan as I’d previously understood. So I spent an extra night in Madurai so I could try to change my booking on Monday morning. Then I decided that I wanted to reduce my bus travel backside-bashing and so take a train from Madurai to Theni. The train was smoother and I got time to write postcards! But it took longer than the bus and so I eventually arrived in Cumbum at about 6pm, after the direct last bus to Nedumkandam had departed.

A soldier (a member of India’s EME) got me on a bus to Kumily, his next destination. Surely I’d be able to get to within walking distance of Nedumkandam from there, or so I thought. We chatted all through the journey and so it seemed to pass in almost no time.

At Kumily, I was told there was a bus to Kattappana (and thence to Ernakulam): at 11.50! It would pass through Puliyanmala. From there I could get a night bus to Thookupulam (where Malasadass was due to take place) and from there an auto (or walk – it’s only 10km) to Nedumkandam. All went according to plan apart from being forced to sit underneath a loudspeaker on the Ernakulam bus and suffer high-volume radio Tamil until my ears bled and then at Puliyanmala watching the night bus go sailing past me without even slowing at the stop. Eventually I took an auto – it cost Rs150 (more than the rest of my buses and train to and from Madurai put together) and caused extreme teeth-gritting.

Oh well, this is how Random Bozo’s life goes. With hindsight, I can smile about it all. At their request, I’ve typed the text of what I tried to speak and will email it to a newspaper that’s covered the event. I’ve already sent them the photos that were taken with my camera. And I’ve finally finished the essay I’m writing for DS! OK, time to go!

Fame at last!

Maybe I should give up reading newspapers.

While waiting for Ajeesh last night, I picked up a copy of The Hindu and read this and this.

As the op-ed piece says

Whatever the estimates, it cannot be denied that the innocent people, especially the tribals, are the ones who are put to hardship. The Maoists are supposed to be espousing the cause of the tribals. Ironically, because of the continued violence and killings, even the few development projects and facilities they would have got in the normal course, have now been denied to them. The Maoists need to give up the terrorist ways and come to the table for substantive talks, and not continue mindlessly on the path of violence.

I wonder what the chances of this are? Will the government go into the areas that support the Naxalites with iron fists and jackboots? The letters page carried quite a few letters suggesting that it would be acceptable for ‘civilised’/’democratic’ rules to be bent or broken in order to combat this menace.

Perhaps it might be better, as the BJP suggests, to look into how the Naxalites came to such strength in these areas, i.e. who or what (if anything) permitted them to grow and what are the reasons for people joining these movements? Why on earth am I in line with a party that’s allegedly based on religious fundamentalism and extremism. (I’m told that it does have christian and muslim leaders.)

Actually, I’m not sure if I can care any more. A, where’s my plastic box?!!!!!!!!!!!

More drivel falls off my fingers because it’s too dark to work in the fields…

Typos here can be blamed on the mozzies which have hassled my feet. Remind me to bring socks tomorrow.

BTW, tales of niceness here should not be taken to mean that people in other places aren’t nice too. Over the years I’ve run into people from all over the place (Scots, Australians, Indonesians, South Africans, Americans and English folk spring immediately to mind) who give with both hands.

Wednesday 7th continued
I walked back to the house – mostly avoiding rain (or managing to control my umbrella effectively) but sheltering for 10 minutes at a fish & general stuff stall when it pelted down.

Near the house is another house where someone had wanted Rs10 from Ajeesh or I in the morning. Neither of us had it so I said I’d sort it out on the way home. Slight mishap – I found the right house but none of the family spoke any english so I couldn’t make myself understood and so disturbed them for nothing. What’s the road to hell paved with?

Thursday 6th
A day of enforced idleness – Ajeesh was still in Cochin and I wasn’t allowed to even make tea for myself. I did have a go at trying to extract the Malayalam alphabet from Ajeesh’s Malayalam-English dictionary. (The front-matter and end-matter are all in Malayalam so I couldn’t directly crib it.) Jaya tried to help but I’m still finding learning new alphabets hard. Malayalam is like Devanagiri in having 6 or 7 vowels, then about 40 consonants and then modifying those to show the vowel-sounds that follow them or to show that there are two (or more?) successive consonants. This may show you what I mean.

Anyway, I gave up for the moment and read my way through Jaya’s chemistry text-book. It’s meant to be around A-level/SYS/Advanced Higher standard. I could cheerfully shoot the proofreader (was it proofread at all?) and the authors for allowing huge factual mistakes to get through. I suppose it’s mean to fault the english language and writing style as well but they seemed extremely unhelpful too.

I was given an inhalation treatment: sticking my head under a blanket with a bowl of boiling water with some Vick’s vapor-rub and tiger balm. I was also given three doses of the ayurvedic medicine – glasses of boiling water containing the ingredients I’d bought along with crushed pepper-corns. Despite the massive amount of sweetness from the karipatty (apparently palmyra sugar), I could only sip this concoction slowly and through gritted teeth.

I seem to have slept well and the cold is almost gone – hoorah! So I think the treatments worked – huge thanks again to Jaya and Radhalaxmi (Jaya and Ajeesh’s mum).

Friday 7th
Ajeesh returned this morning. After a lot of discussion centred on a cousin who’s wasting his time and leaving his immediate family’s land unfarmed, we came to town.

I had a quick blog while Ajeesh visited an office in town. Then we drove to his bank. I appear to have slagged the wrong bank – the bank whose directors are demanding a bribe appears to be Nedumkandam Service Co-operative Bank. So I unreservedly apologise to the Idukki Co-operative Bank. However, this was a small branch – the nasties are being played out in the head office and I don’t yet know where that is.

We had lunch at the cafe I’ve blogged about before. The owner is called Mini and her daughters are Raji and Remia. I’ll continue to eat and drink there but I won’t have any more sugar until Mini gets rid of the ants that infest her supply. Aarrgghh!

We then went to the local plant-nursery to pick up some plants: apprently wild strawberries although they they looked nothing like the strawberries I know. (I think they’re cherries.) Apparently, when the owner told me they were for the local public/government school, he gave them for free. DS, Ajeesh and I then went to the school and chatted with the headmistress while waiting for classes to end.

The children (at least the lower classes) were assembled into the one of the school’s main building. (It appears that there aren’t partitions between the various classrooms in this building.) Ajeesh, the headmistress and I were sat in front of them and the headmistress introduced Ajeesh and I. I feel a bit uncomfortable at being referred to as ‘doctor Bruce’ (I don’t like people to think I’m full of pride [except when I am] or particularly special*) but if can help them aim high, then I guess it’s ok.
*I’m sure I’m just a random bozo who gets it wrong a lot of the time

I was then invited to speak to the children – I started by thanking them and their parents for the wonderful welcome I’ve had here. I then asked them about their ambitions. All of this had to be translated by Ajeesh because very few of the pupils had enough english to understand me. We finished with Ajeesh leading the children in a repetitive song/clapping rhyme.

I can’t tell you how un-nerving it is to have 100 or so bright, young faces staring at me while I attempt to fill up the silence with useful and non-patronising words. Aarrgghh! I’ve offered the headmistress my services as a very temporary english tutor – we’ll see what happens!

We then went to the school fields to plant out the unknown-fruit trees. I have some good photos (thanks DS) of me wielding a mambati tambar. We also got Ajeesh’s former teacher and two of the children to plant out other plants and I tried to push the idea of not dropping the plastic waste that had been their wrappers.

I’m now here while Ajeesh is at a meeting to organise Jaya’s wedding. (If there were subtitles then I’d love to attend. However I don’t think I can add anything to the proceedings just now and listening to a prolonged discussion in Malayalam would just make my head explode.)

I should add another nice thing: today is the cybercafe/architect & design studio owners’ 19th wedding anniversary. Someone brough in some large fry-cakes and they gave me one. Thanks to this unknown donor and congratulations to Mr and Mrs Ozhathil!

I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow but am looking forward to finding out.

Click here

(unless you regularly follow links on my ‘friends’ page)

So I was walking slowly along the shops where Ajeesh had told me I could buy the medicine ingredients. All of the shop signs were in Malayalam and none of the shops appeared to me to be an ayurvedic pharmacy.

A bloke leaned out of his car and asked me what I was looking for. I showed him the page of my diary where Ajeesh had written the items in malayalam (with english transcriptions). He recognised I was looking for ayurvedic ingredients and told me I was in front of the correct shop. (It has sacks of food such as rice and pulses hiding the more exotic stuff.) He then came into the shop with me and read out the list of ingredients and quantities.

The shop folk got it all together smilingly and explained where possible what each ingredient is:

• gerakam is cumin seed (jeera in Hindi)
• chukku is dried ginger
• karipatty appears to be a bit like jaggery (raw cane sugar).

This little piece of spontaneous niceness, especially of the bloke who guided me, has me almost in tears. I’m going to head back to the house now but I had to let the world know about it first.

Almost contiguous electricity strikes again! I’ve been here about four hours: during which the elctricity has been off for about 90 minutes in total and I’ve waited 30 minutes for the cybercafe owners to complete some urgent work. The cafe is also a architect and DTP studio, running Autocad 2004 and PageMaker 7 under Windows 98!

Sunday 2nd July
I didn’t get to sleep until about 1 am, thanks to the noise of wind and rain. I was woken by Sandra’s voice around 9am. I think she was complaining about being dressed smartly for temple but I can’t be sure of this because

1. I only have a few words of Malayalam
2. I’ve mistaken the sound of negotiations between Jaya and a merchant for a deadly family argument.

Everyone but Jaya and I left for the temple: Jaya stayed to serve my breakfast (aarrgghh!) and get through a mountain of laundry. (Just in case you’re interested, breakfast was puri (circles of flat bread that inflate when fried) and jackfruit-seed curry.)

I was sorting through some stuff when I heard what sounded like Jaya and her father arguing passionately. It turned out to be Jaya and two other women negotiating with a merchant who sold household goods – mostly plastic items. He had a net-ful of merchandise which could be compacted so it was a meter across and then carried on his head. Jaya eventually bought 4 or 5 plastic bins/storage tubs.

Around 1pm I left the house to come to this cybercafe: the owners’ older son (Abin) had offered to open it just for me. It would also allow him to do his homework in peace. The cafe’s UPS had power but their internet connection wasn’t working so I spent time working on an essay I’m writing for DS. He wants me to give my opinions as a tourist on how places like Nedumkandam could attract more tourist-income.

As I was typing, Abin introduced me to various friends who arrived and wanted conversations with me. These were usually short and full of giggles and embarrassment on both sides as language barriers crashed down on our heads.

Eventually the UPS ran out and I went out to photograph along Nedumkandam’s main street. Mains electricity had returned by the time I did – it lasted a whole 10 minutes.

Ajeesh, DS and Shaji arrived, along with Ajeesh’s martial arts friend. He just about demanded that I visit him for a massage now it was the right season and directly asked when I would come. I said I would phone him and arrange something to our mutual convenience. He then gave me a lecture on the evils of alcohol and tobacco, then walked across the road to a bank.

As soon as he was out of earshot, DS said ‘You can stick your ayurveda and health, mate – I need a cigarette.’ Ajeesh also commented ‘he’s a good man but his tongue is too long.’ Nicotine-cravings satisfied, Ajeesh and co went to Shaji’s office while I stayed to wait for power to return.

I left about 6pm, phoned home and I think I walked up the hill – my diary doesn’t recall. However I recall walking out of a movie because it wasn’t funny without knowing Malayalam – the promised action-comedy didn’t materialize and the volume made my head ache. I know it wasn’t last night (Tuesday) so Sunday seems the only possibility.

Monday 3rd July: reasons to like Nedumkandam part X
Answering Nature’s call during the night had been hampered by not being able to find my torch – the toilet is in an outbuilding at the back of the house and I have to go out of the front door to avoid disturbing others. Fortunately, urination is just done onto the ground – it’s a rural area and there’s plenty of rain to wash it away – so at night I can just step out of the front door.

My torch wasn’t in my bag or anywhere I’d normally put it. I had either left it at the chai-shop nearest to Ajeesh’s house where I’d bought some bananas on the way home or in the phone booth, or dropped it on the way up the hill or left it at the cinema. I walked to town, scanning the road and verges, stopping to ask at the chai-shop – no sign. However, back at the shop from where I’d phoned, the owner happily handed over my torch and some other stuff I’d left. He was pleased to do so, even though his phone-booth had blown over and smashed in the night. I wonder if this would have happened in a more tourist-centred place?

Meanwhile Radio Bruce was on a rampage, coming up with refrains from A saucerful of secrets, Interstellar Overdrive (from Piper at the gates of dawn), Hammering on the gates of nothingness (a piece of crazy Hungarian heavy rock which features songs celebrating the Hun’s victories over the Turks (?) in who-knows-when – can a historian elaborate please?) and even Judas Priest’s United, mashed up with Corporal Clegg.

I’m not keen on changing travellers’ cheques at Nedumkandam’s banks so I took the Kerala switchback to Kattappana to use the ATM and ISDN connection there. On the way back, the rain came through the bus windows, soaking my shoulders. It was unpleasant but amusing and may have been the start of my current lurgie.

Back at the house, Sandra was full of cold and so was dressed in trousers, a heavy jumper and a balaclava that gave her a cute-smurf look. (These balaclavas are very common among young children. I hope that on Friday I can get some photographic proof.) The local cable-TV station news had a feature on Ajeesh’s attempts to get people not to litter the hill-top temple with waste plastic – there was even a flash of him on TV so he was very pleased.

This evening the wind and rain noise were intense – I got to sleep after 4am

Tuesday 4th July
I woke around 7.30 – again, I think it was Sandra’s voice that got to me. She was dressed in a princess/ballerina dress that surely couldn’t have been very warm, topped with her balaclava. Ajeesh’s mum persuaded him to take her to school – the weather was truly vile. During just the walk to the car (about 500 metres), we got soaked to the skin. At the school, a grotty-looking set of concrete buildings that remind me of 1960s UK inner-city estates, I was introduced to the headmistress. Apparently she’s invited me to address the school on Friday and give some more spoken-English sessions. Of course I’m happy to do so but terrified!

Ajeesh and I had breakfast in a wee restaurant. (I learnt later that he likes to use this place because the owner’s husband ran off 10 years ago, leaving her to look after 1- and 5-year-old children on her own.) The tea is good but I can’t comment on the food except to say that I’ve seen Ajeesh, Shaji and Anish apparently enjoying mutton and beef curries there. I saw in that morning’s newspaper the Malayalam for ‘Wayne Rooney’ so my life is now complete. (BTW, the second World Cup match I’ve seen is the one where England dipped out. Have I missed the final?)

Back at the house, I changed into a t-short and lycra shorts because I knew my lunghi would make work near impossible – I haven’t yet become adept in keeping it folded up. Also it was still soaking. Ajeesh rested (He’d also slept badly) while I washed some clothes. The return of mains electricity to the house means that washing-water can be pumped from the well into the house’s storage-barrel. Currently this water isn’t suitable for drinking*: drinking water has to be carried from a well about 300 metres from the house, further up the hill. To get washing water, I’ve seen Ajeesh perch himself on the sloping sides inside the well and dip a bucket into the water. He then pours the contents into a waiting container on the concrete lip. The path to the well is muddy and slippery – I find carrying even a closed container is difficult so I’m amazed that Ajeesh can carry two open ones – one in his hand and one on his head.
*I’m told that usually this well’s water is safe to drink because it’s been filtered through layers of rock but during the monsoon, run-off from the hillside gets into it and pollutes it.

We dug out six failed banana plants (apparently, insects and wind can cause up to 50% losses), removing the roots entirely. We then either enlarged the resulting holes or dug new ones to receive transplants. This is bloody hard work! For a start, we were gadding about barefoot on muddy, sloping land with all sorts of undergrowth and shrubs to trip over or grab hold of. The holes had to be about 4 feet in diameter and over 1 foot deep. At the bottom, loose soil was made into a volcano-shape. A young plant (these were taken from other parts of the family’s land where apparently they had less chance of giving a decent crop – you can also buy them in town) was then put into the ‘caldera’, then soil and some nearby undergrowth (i.e. natural plant food) was packed down over the roots. The aim was to leave the young plant’s shoot poking out of the center of the floor of a 6- to 9-inch deep crater. This crater apparently will help to retain water and fertilizer over the twelve months the bananas take to grow.

Digging the holes was hard work for me, especially barefoot and using a tambar – a spade whose blade is perpendicular to its handle. (A short-handled tambar is called a koryi tambar and a long-handled one is called a mambati tambar.) I found it easy enough to increase my holes diameters with a koryi tambar but very difficult to then lift the soil out and get it far enough away so that I didn’t then have to move it a second time when enlarging the hole. Using the mambati tambar was just dangerous for me. The difficulty was exacerbated by the soil’s stickiness – I had to clean the tambar’s blade every four or five strikes to be able to dig any more. Cleaning the blade was done with the back of a curved farming knife or a handy stick which I learnt to keep tucked into my right shorts-leg.

My efforts led to some amusing exchanges with some women who passed by. I don’t know if they were more amused by the sight of a foreigner doing this work or my exhausted lack of skill. We also had to take several breaks when the rain became too heavy. We sheltered under the eaves of a neighbouring house and chatted (in my case using body-language and gestures only) with the family who live there. The husband wore over his lunghi and shirt what appears to be ‘typical’ rain-proofs: a plastic sack tied around his waist to protect his lunghi and another tied around his head and dangling down his back.

Back at the house, Jaya scolded us for coming home before she’d finished cooking. Ajeesh and I took quite a while to wash the sticky soil from our hands. My feet and lower legs were utterly filthy and for once I was glad that the house’s floor was just packed earth. (I had started washing my legs but Ajeesh dissuaded me.)

Ajeesh told me that the next job was to clear undergrowth from around cardomom plants and then feed them with an organic fertilizer called neem cake. Two large sacks of this have been perfuming the front room for about a week. (Sandra also enjoys jumping onto them and then clambering onto the windowsill, then jumping into the arms whoever she can persuade to catch her.) I’m tempted to ask to take some home – the smell is an almost intoxicating rich, bass-fruit perfume.

Shaji and Anish then arrived and Jaya served an utter triumph: ‘red’ rice; banana and jackfruit-seed curry; melon curry; mango, lemon and chilli pickles*; and chatni. Ajeesh, Shaji, Anish and I ate until we were stuffed while Jaya and her mum looked on, apparently enjoying us appreciating the meal. I was concerned that I was taking more food than I should but Jaya told me there was plenty more for her and her parents. I’m still bothered that she and her parents ate second but there isn’t enough room around their table for the whole family to eat together.
*This was reminiscent of Indonesian sambar: extremely fiery chillies and a tomato boiled in minimal amounts of water to produce a sauce that looks like ketchup and burns like napalm. Jaya’s version also had whole red chillies (about 1 cm long and bursting with capsaicin.

After lunch, the boys and I drove to town and I blogged for a while, then met the others at the restaurant where Ajeesh and I had breakfasted. Ajeesh tells me he likes to eat here so that his limited funds can support someone in unfortunate circumstances: the owner’s two daughters missed at least a year’s school due to lack of money. Anish seemed a bit drunk – he was much more confident, even brash, about speaking English and loudly demanded ‘boost’ (gutka – chewing tobacco). No-one had any but Ajeesh spoke with the restaurant-owner* who then brought out a head of wild garlic. Apparently, crushing a small clove between your teeth, then placing the resulting mash between your front lip and first-incisor gum is meant to have the same effect as boost. I tried it – I won’t be trying it again. It just added to the coughing and spluttering but it may have helped loosen my chest so I could cough up the yuck that had been impeding my breathing. (I may try sucking an uncrushed garlic clove – that way I’d get the beneficial chemicals at a much slower rate which I hope wouldn’t burn my mouth.)
*she doesn’t actually own the building but rents it for Rs6000 per month. It’s roughly the size of mycelium mansion.

Back at the house, Jaya served spicy peanuts with a coconut and rice-flour ‘granola’. (We’d met Ajeesh’s father buying the peanuts at the shop next to the chai-stall nearest to the house.) I still felt lousy and exhausted but an almost uninterrupted eight hours’ sleep has helped a lot.

Wednesday 5th July
I’m feeling much better but still a bit dozy. Ajeesh has gone with Shaji and Anish to Cochin for a government/social-work function. Apparently Anish and Shaji are paying for the petrol – Ajeesh is still desperately trying to scrape together Jaya’s dowry and the bribe he’ll need to pay to get it. I’ve suggested talking to the policemen who lives halfway between the house and town: I hope that bringing down the MLA (member of parliament) who is demanding the bribe will benefit his career.

Before this, Ajeesh’s middle sister (Ambali) and her husband and daughter, Rajiv and Pavitra) visited. Ajeesh tells me they have water problems too – the nearest well to their house is 600 metres away. Jaya invited me to try making noodles – a stiff dough is put into a mould the size of a tin of baked beans and then a plunger is used to force the dough through tiny holes at the base of the mould. I could barely get it to move, much to everyone’s amusement: Jaya and Ajeesh could squeeze the plunger down with apparent ease.

When I’ve finished here, I’m going to buy ingredients for an ayurvedic cold remedy (the only one that Ajeesh could translate is chukku: wild ginger) and go back to the house. Ajeesh’s mum is apparently pleased to make this medicine for me.* Then I’ll try to get her and Jaya to give me some domestic chores – I don’t think to work outdoors for the moment.
*Should I need them (which I very strongly doubt – apart from a sniffle just now and a slight headache, I feel normal) antibiotics are easily available at the town’s two pharmacies.

freeloading news
My flight to Sumatra will be on 2nd August. I’m staying here until around a week before this. I don’t feel so much that this is freeloading, partly because I’ve done some work and intend to do a lot more and partly because I have managed to help to Ajeesh and his family in a way that no-one here is willing or able to do. I’m still trying to think of ways he can at least avoid having to bribe his way to the dowry money and now I am asking my readers whether they’re able to help with low-interest loans. (The less he has to borrow from the bank, the less he has to pay out in bribes.)

Well, fairly reliable power supplies have been restored. We even had the luxury of TV last night. (Fatal temptation of fate: just as I typed this, the power went down and I’m busy draining the cybercafe’s UPS.)

Friday 30th June/Saturday 1st July
I think I’ve got up to about Thursday of last week. On Friday, Ajeesh drove us back to Moovatupuzha (about 3 hours from Nedumkandam, even driving on good roads and crazy-Ajeesh speed*) so that his car could be valeted and serviced. With us was his younger journalist friend, Anish, who needed to attend a meeting somewhere on the way.
*I don’t recall curling into a fetal ball in fear in a car before, although I have been very scared at times. I don’t think it was the speed alone that got to me this time. You may have read my opinions of Indian drivers: this journey reiterated them.

We also called in at a court-room in Ernakulam district so Ajeesh could witness in court that a certain debtor had (albeit belatedly) repaid his creditor. I wasn’t too keen on having a visit to officialdom and law sprung on me without warning – I’d have dressed a bit differently for a start!

However, with that out of the way and the car in the garage, I found a local cybercafe and bought my tickets to Sumatra. I think part of the prevarication so far has been my fear of going to somewhere completely unknown. India was colonised by Britain but Indonesia was colonised by the Dutch and Japanese (and has a very complex history before that) so my knowledge is all gleaned from a guidebook, a few snippets of other books, a cynical Essexian marxist and his Indonesian wife.

On the way back, Anish opened his bottle of ‘Doctor’s Choice’ brandy. 50ml was enough to start him puking – he didn’t open the window in time and so covered his lap and Ajeesh’s shoulder and spattered my jacket-cuff.

It was too dark to clean up, so Ajeesh drove us on past Idukki. Around 11pm, he’d had enough so he stopped on a side-road in the middlee of nowhere, then he and I relaxed the front seats and slept on them while Anish curled up on the back seat.

We woke around 6pm and found a nearby chai-stall: breakfast was tea and fried wheat-cakes. Then Ajeesh walked off to visit a relative (like the phfor, they’re everywhere) while Anish and I sheltered from rain in the car.

We then drove back to Nedumkandam and stopped at a water-pump at the foot of the hill leading up to Ajeesh’s house to clean the car. There wasn’t too much puke but some had got into immovable mats in the rear footwell. (Several days later, it’s still discernable.) I’m very impressed by Anish’s timing – puking into a just valeted car. I’ve told him that I’m a doctor and that it’s my choice that he doesn’t drink any more rancid donkey-semen. This version of brandy smelt worse than fenny or toddy: both of which give me the dry-heaves.

Back at Nedumkandam, I had yet another first: it wasn’t the first time I’ve ironed clothes to dry them* but it was the first time I’ve used a portable kitchen hotplate to do so. I’m very glad I was attempting to dry my clothes, not to make them look smart. I should add that this ironing wasn’t frivolous – I’d run out of clean clothes while waiting around 3 days for clothes I’d washed to dry.
*That particular record occured when I was a dole-mole, living at Forkenford Farm in Edinburgh.

There then followed a long and vain wait for power to reach the cybercafe.

I’ll have to go into Sunday, Monday and today’s fun and games later because it’s late and I’m feeling ill* and tired. Suffice it to say I now have learnt a little about how hard planting out banana-trees** on a hill-farm can be. Oh well, if nothing else, it’s a wee bit off the mountain I feel I owe them, even though Ajeesh says I don’t.
*chesty cough and cold: the effects of lack of sleep and reasonably frequently getting rained upon, then not drying out properly
**well, actually they’re grasses – so don’t tell them your guilty secrets!

See you later space-cats!

… of the fleeting reference to you in a comment made by my dad. (I’ve deleted the comment because it now serves no purpose and might even confuse matters.)

When the power went down, I used my cellphone to leave a message on my parents’ home voicemail, asking my dad to put a comment explaining that I was now unable to email, blog or anything similar. I asked him to put it below your comment but he didn’t understand the message I left.

So nothing sinister, honest!

There’s a lot I want to say about the last 36 hours in Madurai. I thoroughly recommend it as a place you could easily spend a week, mostly just getting your head around the Meenaksi temple.

However, I’ve just been highly amused by something and wanted to share it with you.

I phoned home from an open international call box just outside the temple. The owner’s son and his mates were there. We got talking and one of them offered me a palm reading. (The palmist spoke no english but his mate, Ramesh, spoke very good english.) Most of the predictions were ‘your life will/can be nice, especially if you do (various sensible things)’ and ‘something very nice will happen in November/December’ but the thing that caught me was the prediction of me fathering 2 or 3 children; i.e definitely not by adoption but ‘by your own sperm‘. (This is a verbatim quote.)

I have the interlocutor’s email address so I will be very pleased to keep in contact about the number of children I sire, even if I end up less than pleased about what that number turns out to be.

Grinning like a loon, as ever!