15.5.11 – Shopping and praying (Alappuzha, Kerala, India)

15.5.11 – Shopping and praying (Alappuzha, Kerala, India)

Patterned bus

Before the burning heat of the day challenged us beyond our limits, Catriona, Bill and I negotiated the broken, ragged (or non-existent) pavements, over the bridge, squeezing tight to the parapets to avoid being swept away by the dusty, patterned buses, the magnificently painted lorries, and the eternal motor rickshaws.  We turned into a side street, beside one of the numerous waterways, covered in green water weed and overhung by palm trees.  

Leafy waterway

Carrying the shopping home

The buildings were older here - a small blue painted mosque, little shops selling ropes, fishing nets (gossamer thin, with white plastic floats), and glittering streamers which appear here and there wherever you look.  A woman passed, carrying a large wicker basket on her head.  It was early Sunday morning, and in this is a predominantly Christian area, few shops were open.  However, one dress shop attracted Catriona like a large multi-coloured magnet, and soon we were in the now-familiar situation of being surrounded by enthusiastic and laughing shop assistants, pulling out box after box and piling the counter high with rainbows of chiffon, gold embroidery, sequins and beads.  I bought a salwar kameze, which delighted the Mr. Kumar, the manager of the hotel, when we returned laden with bags.  I found it to be a very comfortable form of dress, loose and airy in a hot climate.

Megs Salwar Kamese

Beach food

Lunch over (a buffet of mysterious but tasty dishes), we hired an air conditioned taxi and headed for the beach.  It was a long, clean ivory-white strand, people dotted over it with parasols.  Little four wheeled carts, constructed of bicycle wheels and a wooden box, bumped over the sand to sell Indian style delicacies.  Other families were sheltering in the shade of the trees, and so we headed there with Molly, while Calum purchased ice creams.  These proved to be of a fairly uniform taste, but in an array of brilliant colours.  Such is the love of Keralites for bright colour everywhere. The heat was intense, but a little sea breeze kept it in check as Catriona and Calum paddled in the Arabian Sea.

Thence the taxi wove its way through Alappuzha and out into the country, driving on roads perched on embankments above the Backwaters.  There were the houseboats, such as we had been on only yesterday.  The rice fields stretched out on either side, pylons and telegraph poles striding across the water unhindered.  Buffalo grazed at the roadside here and there, a brilliant blue bird flitted across the road and into a tree.  Everywhere, the canals crossed the road or ran alongside, heading for some waterway or lake nearby.  

St. Mary's Church

At last we came to St. Mary’s Church Champakulam, an ancient building, at the side of a wide waterway.  This church is one of seven founded by St. Thomas, and is therefore of great significance.  The actual building was erected by the Portugese around five hundred years ago.  For some reason it called to mind the church in far away Virginia, USA, where I attended an ordination service in December last year - the atmosphere was the same although the culture and style of worship very different.  A service was underway in the shady building, fans spinning in the ancient beamed roof, people crammed in – no pews, only rush matting on the floor.  One one side of the church, men stood, chanting and praying, on the other stood the women and children, their saris moving gently in the slight breeze.  I walked around the church and joined a group of women outside the main door.  I could see the priest in the dim distance at the other end of the aisle, white and gold vestments and altar cloths, candles, incense.  As he chanted and intoned, echoed by the congregation, I was able to join in mind if not in voice with their Malayalam praise and prayer.  An experience of togetherness that I will not forget.

Catriona shopping