In America

     As the nostalgic Kathakali sounds welled into the road, we knew where to have our uber driver drop us at "Changampuzha Park". While walking towards the stage through all that music and ambience, my heart was already content. My father had found this performance from the newspaper and had initiated this plan based on interest that I had expressed in earlier visits.      "Kalyana Sougandhikam" is the story being played and initially I was at a loss trying to connect the hand gestures of "Bheema" with the story. Then a notice explaining a little more detail about the performance showed up in one of the chairs. Got a little more clarity from reading through.        Chenda and Maddalam were very impressive. There was no mystery here. Clearly, both the percussionists were crushing it and matching up with Bhima's acting. You could see the "Chenda" artist smile as he followed the actor's movements as an audience and matched them with ...

About half an hour drive from home in kadavanthra, fishing based tourism at Njarakkal was a very fulfilling experience. As today is a working day,  we were the only ones when we arrived. We crossed the wooden bridge, and started walking around the water. Saw a couple of bouncing rope swings. Kittu and Niya got into those and as they started swinging and bouncing, I had vague memories of parallel pendulum physics experiments.    A little further up was a sturdy hammock. I see hammocks as the better alternative to mattresses for rest/sleep. Especially, when the caressing breeze gets cooled by direct contact with water before hitting you. Tall coconut tree with it's shiny green leaves to the backdrop of the pleasant blue sky to look at if you need to open your eyes. Time starts to stop. You can just lay there for ever. You don't need to have the fish curry meals, or do the boating, and whatever else our tickets allow us. Just lie there for ever. Of course, if someone c...

We took an uber from Kadavanthra to Nedumbasseri airport while the rest of the group in the trip organized by Swapnatheeram had arrived in a van from Kannur. Waiting area in the airport was filled with young hearts in their sixties and seventies. The first task was to fill up "Visa on arrival" Thailand forms. The group was divided into about five tickets,  the check in process would be done per ticket. Our family and Deepti's family were in one group but my parents were part of a different group. Check in process completed, security check completed, boarded, about four hours of flying and we arrived in Bangkok airport early in the morning. At Bangkok airport,  which was quite unappealing, when compared to the Changi airport in Singapore, (which I had just visited) we got into the long and winding "visa on arrival" queue. As there were  kids in our group, an officer pulled us over to a separate queue, we were asked for the hotel reservation voucher, which ...

Arnav, Balu(senior citizen from Thrissur) and me were the ones from our group who had taken the tickets to do the underwater walk to see fish and corals up close by walking in the sea. We walked from our boat to the wooden podium in water from where the underwater walk would happen. Instructions     We removed our t-shirts, slippers etc, and were given an instruction briefing. Oxygen helmet would be put on our heads and we would go down straight into the water to the bottom of the sea which is just a few feet down. We are supposed to turn our heads left or right to look around and appreciate the beauty of the corals, but we are not allowed to look down or up as that would cause water to get inside the oxygen helmet. If we are in some distress, we are supposed to show the thumbs up sign (this was clearly a bit counter-intuitive) with the palm to indicate that we would like to be pulled up, and if we are all good, show the "A-Ok sign" (or the"adipoli" sign).  You ...

When you look through your well designed robust thick high quality frosted wall of indifference, you do not see that yesterday land slid, people died, and there is help that is due. If Divya goes shopping and a sales person  spends some time on her, then she feels obliged to buy at-least one, irrespective of whether she likes it or not.  We had a conversation and as we dropped some goods to the collection centre at the Regional Sports Centre, one drop of tear might have made it's way over the wall.