More than a year before a friend of mine have suggested that I should take a boat ride through the back waters of Kerala, from Allapuzha to Kollam with D.T.P.C. (District Tourism Promotion Council) I told him that I would consider it. But I was not very enthusiastic about it because I was not very keen on taking an all day boat ride through the canals and lakes for I do not know how to swim and it was in this route at Kumararakodi the boat sank and the noted Malayale poet Kumaranasan had drowned, besides what is there to see, I thought. Almost all the places I had seen, lakes, canals, seashores, beaches, even the places where people take their baths and wash their clothes were all unkempt, dirty and even filthy. I had no interest in seeing those things all day long. Moreover, what is with seeing the waters-back or front- since one can not see more waters than he had seen while flying over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
I had lived almost all of my adult life in the United States of America. Like some other people I too was under the impression that "I had seen it all" because that is the place "to be in", that is where all the wonderful, marvelous, beautiful, exiting, thrilling, great and glorious things are.
I never had any doubt about the overall natural beauty of Kerala. In fact, I had gone so far as to say that there is no other place on earth like Kerala. There are only two kinds of people who do not appreciate the natural beauty of Kerala, the first, Keralites themselves and, the second, those who have never seen Kerala. Mostly those who left this state and re-visited it really enjoy the place’s beauty.
I did not come back to see Kerala’s natural beauty in detail. My interest was to live in the calm and quit, serine and tranquil, peaceful and undisturbed countryside for a couple of years before my health fails and Kerala is transformed into a Westernized commercial state. And, also travel and visit India’s holy and historical places. I did not have great interest in going for a boat ride.
Then, in late April 2000 the same friend once again recommended this trip and half-heartedly I agreed because two other young friends were willing to join me on the trip.
So, three of us left home at 6.30 AM on Thursday, May 5,2000 by bus and reached Allapuzha D.T.P.C. Office by 8.30AM. We were told that the boat would leave at 10.30AM. To make sure that we will get seats to sit down (remember, this was to be an 8 hours journey) we asked if the boat would be full. The official said that it would not be because it is off-season but there are other passengers. We had two hours to kill. So, we had our breakfast and then walked around the area. I was sad and depressed with the sight around me. The water in the canal was filthy. Plastic bags, empty bottles, papers, boxes and other debris were floating in the water. The whole area was dirty and filthy. It seemed to me like the duty of the public is to make the place dirty and filthy, and the job of the government is to clean it. I felt sad not because that place was dirty but because it did not have to be. Keeping that place neat and clean was neither a Himalayan task nor a Herculean job, either it required foreign aid or the Gulf money. Alas! Fifty years of democracy did not make India a Paradise.
At 10.20 we were asked to board the boat. There were chairs lined up on the deck, the small front area was open to the sky and the larger back area had a canopy. We went straight to the deck and took our seats under the canopy. The day was hot and humid. Three more passengers joined us, two teenage looking Irish girls and a middle aged man from Nottingham, England. They too took their seats under the canopy and next to us. Exactly at 10.30 the boat started moving.
After few minutes the conductor com-guide came up and checked our tickets.
The boat was inching forward and I saw the dirty water turning into muddy.
The conductor asked us very politely to move to the canopy-less front
portion of the deck because the boat was going through shallow waters
(remember, it was off season and the water was low) and the back bottom of
the boat was hitting the ground. We all got up and started moving to the
front area. I was the last. I was about to cross the bumpy area separating
the front and back when the conductor told me to sit on the chair under the
canopy. One of my young friends turned around and asked, jokingly " How come
you can sit there in the shade?" I replied, "Because I have gray hairs".
They all laughed and the conductor added, " That is right. We must respect
the age". I must admit that was one of the few times I felt good about being
an old man. As we were talking to the conductor I have learned that the boat
that could carry up to 80 passengers and 4 or 5 member crew had that day 6
passengers and a 4-member crew, a total of 10 people. It was like we just
rented that boat for the ticket price. After the boat moved out of the
shallow waters every one was allowed to move back under the canopy. All 6 of
us spend the whole day on the deck except when we left the boat to have
lunch and coffee.
The boat moved from the narrow canal to a wider one.
Then we entered the Punnamada Kayal. There was a small man made island that
was covered with overgrown weeds and grass. Few feet away a round area with
a flag post without a flag. "That is where we sat last year", one of my
friends said, pointing to a bank of the Kayal (Lake). "When?" I asked. "When
we were here to watch the Nehru Trophy Vallom Kali (Boat Race)" he replied.
I did not recognize the area. The water was as dirty as it was then. The
plastic bags and empty bottles and other debris were floating in the water
just as when more than 65,000 people were gathered on the banks of that lake
to watch that event. This time the water was almost covered by the ugly looking waterweed called
Pocha. The boat made its channel through the Pocha
that parted by the hull of the boat but rejoined after the boat passed and
the waves died.
We traveled through narrow and wider canals shaded by coconut and arocknut
palms, mango, jackfruit, and other trees. On either side stood houses,
small, medium, and big; primitive, old, and elegant. It was a microcosm of
India as a whole, all intermingled; next to the most primitive mud hut stood
ultra modern concrete house. Rich and the not so rich, the poor and the less
than poor lived side by side. The woman wearing torn old cloths was taking
with her neighbor in a Kanchipuram Silk Sari. Men were playing cards in the
tree shades. Children were playing on the ground or wading in the water.
People bathed in the water, washed their cloths, pots and pans, and their
animals. Ladies from the poor homes without running water took it from the
canal.
Yet, people threw all their wastes into the same canal water. No one seemed
concerned.
The most appalling sight was the behavior of the children aged, may be two,
to fifteen and sixteen. The tourism department conducts this boat ride.
Generally the passengers were mostly foreigners, meaning Europeans. As soon
as the children hear the boat coming, they will run to the bank of the
canal, shouting "Sahib, give me a pen"(Whitman or woman, give me a pen). I
do not know the true origin of this phenomenon, but I suppose sometime in
the past, some Europeans passed out pens to the "poor, native children to
get a good education" My consolation was that only one time I heard a child
calling out "Sahib, give me rupees", and two different times someone asking
"Sahib, give me the bottles"(That is, their empty drinking water bottles).
To my complete satisfaction no one gave anything to anyone.
While their children did their "informal begging", the parents, especially
the mothers watched gleefully with the satisfaction that her child can
communicate with "foreigners" although the child knows no other word of
English. How little do they realize that they are encouraging their children
"to beg", no matter how insignificant the object may be? They too are
perpetuating the Indians to remain as " an eternal rag picker at other
people’s dust bin".
We passed through Kuttanad, the "rice basket of Kerala". The rice fields were stretching out on either sides of the canal as far as the eyes can see. "How beautiful it is" I said. "How peaceful it seems" was the Englishman’s response. That was our last conversation during the journey until we docked at Kollam boat jetty and shook hands and said good by to each other, and I wished him a good time in India. Knowing the English habits, I had introduced him to those two girls, soon after we commenced the boat journey, and said, " Now you have some one to talk with" and then on I was conversing with my friends only.
At Karumadi I had a passing glimpse of the Black Statue of Buddha, the only
known black statue of Buddha anywhere. It had a concrete dome and walls
around with openings on four sides. The statue may be three feet tall.
Except that it is black nothing spectacle.
We passed through Kumarakodi where the boat caring noted Malayalee poet
Kumaranasan, sank, and the poet drowned. At the bank, there is a memorial
for him and a library in his name.
We had our lunch at Thrikunnapuzha. This was a small island like place.
There were only three simple buildings. The dining area was in a building
with only three walls. The front was open. The ground and the surroundings
were clean, orderly, and devoid of any offensive odor even that of fish
which is unusual for a fishing village like that. You walk from the plank of
the boat to the ground and through the white sand walkway step up to the
front veranda and then step up to the dining hall. There were no carpets, no
white linens or flower vases on the table. There were 6 or 8 tables and
chairs. The tables looked like tennis tables less the net. There was no air
conditioning but with the ceiling fans it was comfortable inside. The meal
was simple. Rice and vegetable curries served on traditional banana leaves.
You can order, if you wish, fish fry or fish curry. No meat. Our foreign
co-passengers were offered spoons, which they declined and eat with their
fingers like us. It was a good lunch, better than the food you get at some
of the Star Hotels.
After lunch, we continued our journey. The water and the surroundings started looking more and more clean. There were no more pochas in the water, or any debris. The color of the water turned from muddy to light green.
At a distance we saw a large complex of freshly painted buildings. The conductor com-guide told us that that was the Kayamkulam power generating plant.
Now, we were in the open waters of the Kayamkulam Kayal. Until now I was not
particularly thrilled by this adventure. Not boring for a first timer. But
was not very impressive either. Suddenly my eyes got wide open. Something in
me stirred up to the full vigor. I have started fully enjoying it. The lake
was far and wide. Water was so clean and blue. The only debris one could see
were the empty, small, plastic canisters and stair- form pieces tied to the
fishermen’s nets to locate the nets and to warned the boat drivers so that
they would not drive through the nets. Our boat passed close by the power
generating plant and I had a fairly good view of it. It was at the mouth of
the Kayal and at the edge of the water. The place was kept spotlessly clean
and orderly.
Then we entered the river that connects the Kayamkulam Kayal to Ashtamudi
Kayal. There were several scores of abandoned and discarded Chinese nets.
Only a dozen or so were in use. The rest were stood like skeletons, arms
broke, joins loosed and the log pieces hanging down. The channel for the
boat was through the center of those net polls, standing on either side. So
they looked like escorting us through the waters.
We stopped at Ayiramthengu (Place of Thousand Coconut Trees) It was a typical Kerala village. I was happy to get out of there after finishing my hot tea.
Finally we entered the Ashtamudi Kayal (The crown Lake with Five Projections.) The lake was wide open. The shores seemed far away. Water was sky blue. It seemed shining under the evening sun. The slanting light reflected on the waves created by the breeze, some speedboats and the fishermen’s canoes. There were scattered small islands. The five projections and the waters in between them were so beautiful. The waters were boarded by thick, lush green coconut palms. Ashtamudi is the largest open water Kayal in Kerala. (Kayal means Lake) The beauty of it is breath taking. For my love of nature and the respect for the beauty of it, I was on my feet on the deck of that boat. To me, it seemed sacrilegious to sit on a chair in "Nature’s Studio".
The only eye sore is the huge and ugly multi story (may be fifteen or twenty story) headquarters of Ma Amrithanthamaye’s Ashram at Amrithapuri, thrusting out far above the coconut trees.
When I saw the Grand Canyon I thought that I had seen the ultimate in natural beauty. Now I am convinced that nature does not have a masterpiece. It would be a vain effort of mine if I try to describe the beauty of this place. Therefore, I invite the whole world to come and see it for themselves but leave it undisturbed and without commercial adventures and undertakings, for the generations to come.
Our boat docked at Kollam boat jetty at the stroke of 6.30 P.M.
From there we went by bus, reaching home around 10 P.M.