Christmas this year was very different to my previous celebrations. Instead being in Berlin, Kabir and me were on the streets of Kerala, God's own country, to go to the wedding of two colleagues and friends. And after a super short stop over in Bangalore, I went to Mumbai for the new year's eve party and the reception of the fresh married couple. But one after the other...
The wedding was scheduled for the 27th December 2012 from 12h02-12h47 at Kochin. As I was told, the date was astrologically optimal for the wedding, and the place is the home of the bride. Kochi is a coastal city in Kerala, south west India, which stretches over a few islands and the mainland, and happened to host the first biennale (art festival) in India. In fact, the main land city is called Ernakulam and the island part is Kochi.
The state
Kerala is also known as 'god's own country' based on a myth that Vishnu (in orm of Parasurama) ordered the sea to depart from this land, which might be the reason for its beautiful nature, richness in spices and coffee and for the wealth and education of its people.
With this as back ground, I agreed instantly to Kabir's idea to head off from Bangalore on the 24th December with a night bus to Kozhikode (spoken 'Calicut') and to cycle from there along the coast to Kochi. It was the first time for me to do a real bicycle tour, and we planned 2 and a half days for the distance of about 200km, but managed it finally in one and a half days.
We arrived in Kozhikode at 7.30 in the morning and started to cycle calm through the city looking out for a breakfast and found the perfect place: a restaurant called "Disney World"!!! there, we had our first encounter with the praised Mallu food and savoured chicken roast (including heart, liver, and
Appams. Freshly energized, the fun started and we took the NH17 (national highway) towards south. Th equality of the road was fantastic and even though we were warned for crazy bus drivers, the traffic was quite calm and easy to handle. The first 40 km went through a slightly hilly region, not directly at the coast and paid us back the efforts with views over beautiful palm tree forests, vast green fields, rivers, small villages... and everything was so clean, no waste on the roads, most of the houses were in a good shape, as well as the people living in. At some point, we left the national highway and took smaller roads offering us a better insight into the countryside. After about 70 km, at about 14h00, we arrived for a late lunch in Ponnani, where we thought to stay for the night. But after a closer look, we realized that the city was not so interesting and had a very limited number of hotels (we found only one, which was full), so that we continued for another 30 km to Guruvayoor. This place is known for its Vishnu temple which is an important place for pilgrimage which made it very easy to find a hotel. It was great to experience the buzz of hundreds or thousands of pilgrims around the holy buildings. The waiting queue was super long both in the night (about 22h00) as well as in the early morning (6h00), and all around stalls with spices, flowers, souvenirs and devotional objects.
The route on the next day was much easier, riding the straight and flat NH17 along the coast with no heavy traffic, no trucks, no noise due to Christmas day, which is holiday in India and well respected in Kerala which has a large Christian community. It was another beautiful day on the roads and we easily reached Kochin in the afternoon, just before tea time ;-) instead of tea, we had an ice cream at Marine drives where many people were enjoying the free day. And in contrast to previous holidays, where most of the shops are open, Kochin surprised me. Only one of seven shops was open. In the evening, we went to the hotel, where also the other guests for the wedding were supposed to reach and finished the day drinking a beer and watching Rocky IV.
Dec 26 was Kabir's birthday and was devoted to art at the Kochin biennale. First, Shree (another NCBS colleague), Kabir and me went to the bus station to pick up Neeraj, who arrived from Bangalore. The biennale happened in the Fort district(but there is no ort anymore) and could be reached via a ferry boat. On the way from the bus station to the ferry we crossed a house of the Indian Coffee company-this made our day. We had perfect coffee -a pot of black coffee with a separate little can of milk (not common in India)-there is nothing more to say...and then we reached the biennale. It was the first of its kind in India, and I have to admit that we were really astonished by the quality curation and how well the space and the beautiful old buildings were used improve the impression of the art objects.
We stayed until the evening at the art festival, took back the ferry and met some other friends who had important luggage for me: the clothes for the wedding (which I could not take on the bike ride), and then we went back home, watched some films and had a good rest.
Dec. 27, the big day of the wedding of our friends! Some more friends and colleagues arrived in the morning and all of us were excited and prepared for the event. The wedding was scheduled from 12.02-12.47pm (some astrologically good time) so we reached the place quite in advance. It was an impressive big hall with a nicely decorated stage. We could see and talk to the groom, but had no sight of the bride.
The ceremony was a mallu wedding (i.e. Kerala people), which is supposed to be one of the fastest Indian weddings. Other ceremonies can take up to three days and not only 30 min...it's hard to explain all the single steps of the procedure, because most of the stuff happened in a private manner without any explanation or even presentation to the guests. Only the closest family surrounded the couple on the stage, and the MC (master of ceremony) explained every step.
It was a very harmonic event with nice music, at the beginning, a line of women (family and close friends), each holding a plate with flowers and a candle, went from the stage out the hall to first get the groom. After he sat happily at his place, the ladies departed again and brought the bride, shining beautifully with all her rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, but all was over-glowed by her smile!
One of the nicest moments was when the couple put a necklace of white flowers on each other, and when Anup's friends suddenly lifted him up, so that Anupama had a hard time to accomplish her task, but finally did it being lifted up by her friends!
After about 30 min, the main part was over and we could step up the stage to congratulate the freshly married couple, followed by a very tasteful south Indian lunch. In the evening, we saw our friends again for the reception in a nice hotel and had a great evening together.
For my final day in Kerala, I said good by to Kabir who continued his cycle tour to Coimbatore and went with Mugdha and Aditya again to Fort Kochi to show them the art festival, but also to explore the other parts of this area. It was again a very nice day, and I was surprised to see a synagogue of Indian Jews, the dutch palace or other unexpected places where art was exposed.
Because we returned quite late and got a bit delayed during dinner at the Indian Coffee House, we had to hurry back to the hotel to catch our luggage and to get to the bus station on time. I will not forget this part of the travel: I followed the autoriksha with Mugdha and Aditya (and our lugage), which rode quite swift (including high way and fly overs) the fastest way to the bus station-a nice 7 km ride before sitting over night in a bus!
