It has laid patiently in the recesses of my phone waiting for its day of glory. And 7 months of gestation has finally birthed diligence.
Besides it’s high time I tell this story otherwise I’m just going to (intentionally) forget and never write about it.

   * 11th Feb 2014 - 20th Feb 2014.

This isn’t merely an account of my journey to the beautiful south (my native) but also a personal record of my thoughts during my stay there. If things don’t seem to fit, you’re making the mistake to trying to make sense.

[raw/unedited - start of log]


!) *Getting there: Last night I opened the compartment door to an old man wetting himself with his lungi lying at his feet. Like a busted tap, trickling down his draws, he stood there in a decadent mix of ecstasy and shame.
I held open the door to let him pass.
I can’t say for sure if he saw my disgust seeping from the lines on my face, but I tried my level best to act indifferent. I am good at it.
Incapable of relieving oneself in one’s hour of need? I’d rather be dead. My stupid pride wouldn’t let me live another day.
The next morning we happened to get off closer to our destination than we intended. So did gramps. The stubborn mule, despite his aged regression and insanity wanted to get to the next platform by walking over the tracks. And like a Saturday night drunk he fell and laughed and drooled until he got what he wanted. **** me to hell if I see the day that I walk in those shoes.
There is nothing else I’d hate more.

@) There is where?: Welcome, this is day one. Boredom.
Stuck somewhere in the middle of ignorance and bliss. Con-*******-fused about my place here. It’s slow. Things are slow here. That much I know.

#) Blend: Sleepless smelly nights with the things that should not be. Asleep at last, half past 3. Awake again within 6 hours, no less, to a breakfast late enough to be breaking bad on me. Ants bit me, indigestion ****** me. Noises haunted, I was daunted.
Literally, everything is coconut oil. Last night it felt like a coconut took a crap in my mouth and its byproducts came out my rear end—or did they?

$) Relate: So I have a cousin sister here. Two actually and a handful of brothers too. I finally know something of the other side. I’m strangely liking this. Just knowing is enough it seems. I’m not a good brother.

%) Drift: A dead, calm, quiet night. The silence is almost overwhelming. Even the crickets can’t break through the static. [Sitting under a waxing moon on a lush green lawn surrounded by trees and vibrant silhouettes of the night sky] Such natural beauty freely available without demand. Who wouldn’t be lazy? The mosquitoes.
During the rains, the visual quality of this place reaches heavenly heights. And that should give you a fairly good idea of how stunning this place is the rest of the time. It’s only February.
If I lived here I’d never be the same. Good or bad? I choose not to wonder. But while I’m here, I’m going to soak all that I can in. I suddenly see so many different ways life could go by stepping out of my own comfort zone. It’s Ironic. But then all good wisdom is wasted upon amateur blabber that only soothes the soul momentarily. Nothing profound or earth shattering comes from the realization. Ah, there’s that comfort zone.

^) Halt: I can see why they call Kerala ‘God’s own country’, Because everything stays the same as though that’s how it was meant to be. 40 years or 50, makes no difference. The natural order of things here stays unchanged. It’s the opposite of how Bombay works. You can’t turn a blind eye for two seconds in fear of losing something that won’t alter your life inconsequentially. Yes.
Here, I could leave all my valuables outside the house for a week and no one would even bother. I may have exaggerated but not by much.

&) Eggo: This ‘person’ I’m with is insufferable. Good, great and jolly when HE chooses to be but a first class ******* the rest of the time. Makes me wish I wasn’t born to choke on his arrogance and idiocy. Whoever stuck that tree trunk up his *** must have had reasons I could relate with. This is all the love I can express. It’s hard to admire someone so narrow minded and primitive. I won’t lead, neither will I follow. Ego will meet eggo.

) No excuse: So I can be left at the table alone for as ******* long as it takes for me to finish, but for this man’s tantrums, for the impolicy his *lonely dinner creates (which he prefers, DAILY, back home) I have to oblige and start when he says so, only to have him leave when my plate isn’t even half empty, with a casual, “take your time” mental punch to the back of my head as though there’s nothing wrong with this whole ******* scenario.
Thankfully, all of this was succeeded by a full, beautifully bronze tinted moon floating in a cloudless ocean of sparkling diamonds and weeping crickets still struggling to overpower the silence; failing miserably.
I wouldn’t mind sitting here alone forever but alas, not all things are this easy. And this night will again wilt into day and the sad fight will spoil or be forgotten, conveniently. Eventually you learn, they all fester.

() Sugamano? (how are you?): My bowel movements have yet to reach an agreement with my diet. My cousin is going to teach me Malayalam through mail. Somehow I approve of this despite the several offers that I have declined from my friends in the past. Maybe I’m glad that my family just got bigger. It’s very important that I realize and cherish my ties. Who knows? I might end up being a nobody and moving here when I’m all withered and choked up with regret as a failure in denial.

!)) BAA BAA BOO BOO: My cousin’s kid. He looks a bit like me when I was that age. Wait, he isn’t even of age. He’s freaking 9 months and he’s crawling, rolling, slapping, pulling, strangling, screaming and imitating words people say around him that he can barely pronounce. I want to eat him. He’s cuter than anything I’ve ever seen. He’s gonna be a lady killer if he doesn’t go black (like most mallus do).

!!) Bliss: Classical night sky… Twinkles dance to the grand tune. Fireflies fall like stars, confusing senses to enthrall with exquisite precision. Feel the cosmos swallow thoughts and words as they mean nothing at all. If the sky shifted now, gravity would take a hike. And sooner than it takes for realization to set in, this world would become peaceful again.

!@) Role playing: The elephants are sight seeing on the backs of trucks. Humans are the escorts for these mammoths here. No more show business for these executives. They make sure the men serve as the slaves they own.

!#) Saving memories: I am a man who has forgotten how to smile. Even my tears can throw on a better performance for the mirror that breaks me. I have to force and instant’s glee to burst one out. I cannot hold joy as tightly as I do hatred or sadness. Family photos are the worst. I have to conjure a series of mental comical disasters only to maintain a smile that is fit for a *******. And that is on my best day. Every other day, however, it seems as though I’m constipated.
I spent the most awesome day today with my cousins who I barely knew 5 days ago. Although I haven’t spoken to them freely due to the language barrier it nevertheless feels like home. They’ve been thinking about me all the years we’ve been apart. Now it’s my turn to think about them. And it’s going to take quite a strong blow to the head to erase these wonderful memories I’ve had the pleasure of creating with them in my short stay here.

!$) Reasons: Valappad beach. If there is any place I would love to go to relax, to party, to be lost in thought and marvelous beauty for hours, to ******* OD and die, that would be the place. The beach stretches on forever. Horizon to horizon of clean white sand and foamy water. You could build castles as tall as skyscrapers in this sand. Gorgeous plantations just before on the shore line. Goa fails in comparison. With an enormous sky looming overhead and the ocean that appears to fall off the horizon you can’t help but wonder how such a natural work of art sustains itself. It doesn’t. The locals here do. All the trash from the beach is brought back inland so that there are no compromises with respect to visual ******. The ****** grains hug your feet and as soon as you hit the water you’re done for. It brings back a surge of euphoria that only your first spliff of hash would give you otherwise. I would give up the stash in a heartbeat for this fix. I wouldn’t mind being this high for the rest of my life.

[end of log]