Krazy Kochi

T he only barrier between me and the tusk less rogue is the languid river. Hardly fifty metres wide. On the other side, in the Thattekad forest the rogue elephant is said to enjoy his little game. The mischievous game of hiding, stealthily sneaking and chasing humans has earned him a wicked reputation. My tent at the Hornbill Camp flaps in the sultry night air but the deep and treacherously calm River Periyar is my infallible guard. And at night it is not the tusk less rogue (Mozha) that captures my dreams, but Twitchers* do. Being an amateur bird watcher I am seized by insurmountable anxieties about sharing space with Twitchers. (*A Twitcher is prepared to travel great distances or go to great effort or expense in order to see birds, often just a single bird, that he or she has never seen before so that it can be marked on their list of birds seen (called a “tick” or “lifer”). Hornbill Camp 6 am . I am up and ready but so are the indefatigable Twitchers who have arrived straight...

" O ne for Sorrow Two for Joy Three for Letter Four for Boy Five for a Secret never to be Told." (Oops I got that wrong. Comment alert.) It goes.... "Five for Silver Six for Gold Seven for a Secret Never to be Told." -Old School Rhyme I still dread spotting the solitary Mynah. It is the Seal of Sorrow. And it adds to my pain of spotting another, the Joy. The usual was after an unsuccessful attempt I would resign to my fate and promptly forget the miserable portent. It was at that time- when the Day wilted and the hour curled around the edges and drowsiness captured my thoughts and dulled it slowly. The wail of the Oriental Magpie Robin pierced the stillness and interrupted my siesta. It was an agitated wail, high pitched, enough to move me from my bed to the balcony. My mother likes to call these birds Kundikulikki translated it would mean Bum Shaker- they have a certain swagger when they wa...

I don’t know what genre the critics have slotted Nishabd. I think, so do the amused theatre goers in this small city, that it fits rather snugly into Senile Comedy ( i.e.Comedy gone senile). The self inflicted compulsions of watching the ridiculous ( Nishabd) or reading the ridiculous (Booker Prize: The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai ) is the result of studying with religious earnestness the reviews of fat and rich critics and agonizing weirdly that I will pass into the next world without seeing the Indian Lolita- an old man ascetically denying himself the touch of youthful silky lush flesh or before I finish the “momo”fied banal writing that is being brandished as the classic of the times. I cannot miss such stuff of the times if I need to comprehend the national debates that are indefatigably aired in my living room night after night. (The Gose and Barkha variety!) Set in beautiful lush Munnar, the old man ( you know who I am referring to) drives around, takes a few photograp...

THEN It was my first piece as a reporter. The elections were over and we were awaiting the results. Prannoy Roy was just making his mark as a psephologist and there I was contributing to a small time magazine-the name I forget- I think it went something like ‘Career Entrance Master’or ‘Competition Entrance Master’. I had made a careful list of who to interview in Trivandrum city: Two doctors, two politicians, two government servants, two trade union leaders, two tea shop drinkers and so on. The subject -the outcome of the elections and other general blah. I had an appointment with this genial doctor who had all the time in the world and who happened to be conveniently a relative of mine. So this hotshot journo presented herself at his doorstep and his beautiful wife opened the door and said with smug contempt, “Oh it’s yooou?!” I took that in with tremendous maturity and replied with deadpan silence. I was ushered into the drawing room and the dear Doctor was there waiting for me. I ca...

HE: But Bai, is a reflection just a body? WOMAN : What else? What do you see in the mirror-your mind? Your heart? Your Soul? - Mahesh Elkunchwar in Pratibimba Elkunchwar’s “Pratibimba” was recently staged by the Cochin Theatre Group. I found it disturbing - it disturbed my comfortable routinized thoughts: What happens if you lose your reflection? What happens if one fine day you wake up and cannot see the way others see you? The play opens with the protagonist HE aka Blockhead discovering the loss of his reflection in the mirror. HE is aghast. HE who had cared little for his reflection and never gave it a second thought is completely filled with nagging thoughts of the loss of his own reflection. And now consumed by this loss he cannot think of anything else: What does it mean? Does it mean the loss of one’s identity? HE is a paying guest and the coquettish hostess WOMAN (Shirley) has no time to spend pondering over such inane question...

Arakkal at the book launch at Kochi Review In Touch With My Roots: A Creative Journey Through Kerala By Yusuf Arakkal Penguin, Rs 1250 One of the most telling images in Yusuf Arakkal’s book In Touch With My Roots is an oil painting titled “Tea Kada”: it reveals the dilemma of the hyphenated self. He has used an unusual combo of English and Malayalam to title the ubiquitous wayside teashop in rural Kerala! The artist who had spent his early years in Kerala had in his teens sought Bangalore and made it his adopted home. When he embarked on a 15-day “creative journey” through Kerala in 2001 to rediscover his roots, there was much he could not comprehend. He says, “Here was I — a non-resident Keralite who loved his hometown but found it difficult to comprehend the psyche of the locals and his land.” He begins his musings with “Kerala is colours — magnificent colours” and details the varied hues of green Kerala: striking emerald, viridian and sap. “Starting from the dark green grass –so ...

A wee bit accusatory, the cleaning woman’s sly question: “You don’t hang a star or put up a tree?!” I wanted to be blunt and say it has become one big bore. But instead I shrugged and let the question pass. It is not just Christmas but all festivals have become aggressively predatory. The festival is packaged to entice and lure the unsuspecting stupid believer and then it closes in to make the monetary killing. Once upon a time Christmas was simple. Life was not easy but the real fun was there and that was long before the ersatz fun became packaged ware. Planning began months before. The pinecones were collected from hill stations then painted silver, gold or left plain and painstakingly wired into the wreaths. Bright red suede with green leaves and dry flowers tucked into it became table runners and pretty candles entwined in tinsel became centre -pieces. We even borrowed Christmas decs when we had a dinner and that was about wowing and sharing and wowing again! Ev...