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Published: December 25th 2018
I knew I’d find a pleasant walking route. After all, I came here for rice paddies and quiet, a slower pace of life, less traffic, friendly people. I’m finding most of that, here on the outskirts of the bigger city named Chalakudi.
Across the main road from where I’m staying, a side road skirts agricultural fields and plunges into coconut palms, jackfruit trees, and a host of other trees useful for shade and medicinal purposes. Houses and their concrete enclosure walls line the road. Most are freshly painted with bright colors—shocking pink, lemony yellow, lime green.
There’s a reason for the fresh paint. This area was one of the worst hit in Kerala during the devastating floods in August of this year. After heavy rains, the government opened all the dams to prevent their failure, inundating downstream areas. Some houses were completely submerged. Others were flooded with six to ten feet of water, forcing occupants to flee. People had to be rescued by boats from their rooftops.
And when they returned to their houses, a thick layer of muck covered everything. Mold and discoloration climbed up the walls. The stench was overpowering, because the debris carried sewage, agricultural
waste, rubbish, household trash, oil products from the cars the water had crippled, dead animals, everything you can imagine.
Concrete walls were toppled, wells contaminated, fisheries and gardens destroyed, vehicles turned into dead metal. And so the clean-up began, yielding coats of paint, replaced flooring, rewired circuits, new exterior landscaping. The people had begun the business of recovering their lives.
That was just four months ago. I marvel at what they’ve accomplished in that time.
But back to my walking route. I could hardly tell the devastating flood had washed into their lives so recently. The road with the bright houses curves through greenery and recently planted banana trees, and flows into a low area with rice paddies on both sides. Water birds—egrets, storks, an occasional ruby and turquoise colored kingfisher flit by, others with gangly legs, hunched over bodies, and long necks peck at the paddy goop, looking for bugs or tiny fish, or edible seeds, or whatever they fancy.
A water buffalo lounges every few hundred feet. Each buffalo has a white pal or two, or three if it’s lucky. I’m talking about a companion egret. The birds stay close to their bovine friends.
I wonder, do they address one another on a first name basis? Does each buffalo have the same egrets hanging around him? Maybe they’ll grow happy with each other in their old age, each knowing the other was there to keep him/her company as they grazed in the grasses, or when the buffalo dipped himself in a murky pool.
The crows abound, caw-cawing their way through trees, on power lines, along the road as they scrabble for patches of flattened carrion. I like them. I try to talk with them. I guess my accent is a bit off.
And at the end of winding through the paddy fields, a big lake stretches, and fishermen try their luck with simple poles and worms or wheat balls for bait. I’ve seen the fish—tiny things, as big as a half-dollar coin, spotted red on the side. An enthusiastic man offered me a whole bag of them one evening. I declined.
But there are big ones. Tales of 5 pounders. I just saw them, because the annual fish round-up just occurred, when giant nets corralled the fish in a small area. I watched several men laying one of the nets.
They dragged it through the water, clearing debris in front of it. I cheered the fish that hopped over the top to freedom. There is not much sport in fishing with a big net.
And the yield was impressive— mounds of fish gasping for air, eyes cold and glassy.
I could walk this route without saying a word to anyone. But people on motor bikes drive by and stare at me, the same with people on bicycles, and others walking the path. Sometimes gangs of boys hang out on the side of the road, doing what boy gangs do, and they stare as I walk past. And gaggles of women glide by in their saris, or a sour-faced woman might be walking at the end of a rope attached to a cow. They stare, too.
So the only way to deal with the stares is to look directly at them and say, “Good morning!” Ha ha!! That really throws them! The stares turn to smiles, and they usually, not always, but usually say, “Good morning!” Saying “good morning” to a stranger is not common behavior here in India. It’s so much fun to do something unusual and
harmless.
During one walk I said “good morning” to three separate people, one right after another. A man trying to start his motor bike wore a bit of a scowl on his face, so I didn’t say good morning to him. But fifty feet later, when he passed me on his motor bike, he slowed and looked at me and said, “Good morning!” He had felt left out, you see. I had rudely ignored him, and he wanted to collect a “good morning!” from me. Maybe he’ll start a “good morning!” trend along the road, yelling from his motor bike at every startled passerby, helping people to smile in spite of themselves.
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Jim
non-member comment
Thanks
Nice entry...love the grumpy old man story...