5.5.11 - Arriving at last! (Tirur, Kerala, India)

5.5.11 - Arriving at last (Tirur, Kerala, India)

Long-haul flights of three hours or more are an endurance test, and this is tenth such we have made in less than twelve weeks, so arrival in India was a heartfelt relief.  Two and a half year old Molly perched on my knee, copper coloured hair plastered to her head, pyjamas damp with sweat, blue eyes large and dark with exhaustion.  Calicut Airport thronged with masses of people, mostly men, returning home from work abroad.  Crisp shirts, shining dark faces, they formed queues snaking from end to end of the humid Immigration area.  A little boy, at most eighteen months old, screamed his protest, a shy teenage girl practiced her English by asking why we were visiting.  This is not a tourist destination, so our pale faces identified us and at last we were directed to a desk marked ‘Foreigners’, where three laborious passport checks and much stamping of documents eventually propelled us into the baggage collection area.  The carousel was invisible beyond a densely packed mass of dark heads, trolleys piled high criss-crossed the area, like dodgem cars, the air full of the humming of voices and the clanking of machinery and the thudding of arriving baggage.  A lot of this appeared to be in the form of large cardboard boxes tied up with rope, a high percentage of which announced their contents as being sizeable flat screened TV’s, which apparently can be purchased much cheaper in Dubai than in Kerala.  Slowly – oh so slowly for poor little Molly, we retrieved our mountain of luggage piece by piece, while I kept up a flow of texts Bincy, who was waiting for us outside.  Bincy, a beautiful, feisty Indian girl, full of life and brimming with Christian faith, has lived in our flat in Glasgow since 2009, while studying at Glasgow University.  She became our ‘Indian daughter’.  Now she is getting married, so here we are, complete with Molly to be the flower girl, Catriona to be a Bridesmaid, and Calum, to cheer them on, and, along with Bill, to demonstrate the wearing of the kilt in temperatures of 30+ degrees.

Saris on motorbikes

At last we are outside, hugging Bincy, bright in her plum coloured salwar kameez (tunic) and white trousers, carrying a lovely bouquet for me.  The air is heavy and humid, the sun bright, the palm trees huge and dense.  The taxi trundles up and the driver, leaping barefoot onto the roof, tackles the intimidating task of loading our six cases onto the roof rack.  And then we’re off, Molly proudly in her car seat beside the driver.  Everywhere there  are people, walking, running, packed tightly into brightly painted buses, arms hanging out of the windows, or precariously astride tiny scooters, often with a lady in immaculate jewel coloured sari, sitting on the back, apparently not holding on at all and often with a baby on her knee.  And everywhere the little motorised rickshaws – a motorbike enclosed in a tiny black and yellow metal frame with leatherette top, and two seats in the rear for passengers.  And at last Tirur and our hotel, where Bincy’s mum and dad await, having booked the rooms, and prepared a sumptuous meal of curry, chapattis, rice, dahl and much more.  And so a chance to catch up on much needed sleep, in the blessed relief of the air conditioning.

Ubiquitous rickshaws

At 5, Bincy and taxi return, and we’re off, twisting and weaving among the endless rush and crush of people and traffic.  Driving here resembles a Strip-the-Willow or Dashing White Sergeant - Scottish dances which involve much twirling and weaving in close proximity with other dancers, and always at risk of an inelegant collision.  On either side, little shops with open frontages display piles of fruit – huge water melons, yellow apples, coconuts, bananas hanging in fat clumps still on their original branches.  Others are piled high with packets of biscuits, rice, chocolate; yet others are hung and stacked with metal or earthenware cooking pots; others reveal people at work on lathes and drills, making who knows what sort of complicated equipment.  A buffalo is tethered to a post outside one shop, goats outside others or in fields between houses, which peep half hidden from palm forests, or behind immense piles of logs.  At the roadside, small boys operate machinery which looks a bit like treddle sewing machines upside down, but which is in fact for pressing sugar cane to produce juice, sold at the roadside.

Bincy and Catriona at Bincy's church

Banana palm

Then we’re at Bincy’s house, welcomed by her mother  Usha (Amatchi  (Gran) to Molly), father (Apatchi (granddad) to Molly) and aunt, shown round their lovely airy white church across the road, garden full of cuckoo song and Cashew Nut trees, amazing for the yellow fruit surrounding the nut, (about the size of a tangerine, and apparently edible, although few people bother, we are told).  Then into their large, welcoming house, where Apatchi showed us his garden, overflowing with greenery – banana and coconut palms, papaya trees and tapioca, a root of which he harvests for us, while the frogs chirrup their endless nightime serenade.  The meal is coconut fish curry, ghee rice, semolina (fresh cooked, and like potatoes, cooked with mustard seeds and curry leaves), idli (little round rice and chickpea flour cakes), coconut chutney, mango chutney, date pickle and spicy pickle, all home made by Usha.

Fruit stall

And so back to the hotel, past all the little shops, now lit by paraffin lamps or petrol generators, the way busier than ever, people walking calmly down the road oblivious of the traffic mayhem all around, rather than try to negotiate the earthen pavements, strewn with merchandise, children and litter.  There’s vibrant life everywhere; energy and activity on all sides. Perhaps we’ll have some of it after a night’s sleep.