Lost in God's land..

An impromptu plan to land at Calicut (to catch up with an old friend from school days, Sushmita) n some surfing websites to see a glimpse of what I was heading for was also not enough to prepare me for what lay ahead….which mostly felt like a dream..!

Arriving from Calicut to Cochin to Aleppy after having had a ferry ride already, I thought I’d be prepared to handle another boat ride….but that was an underestimation of the day I’d spend ahead…


When we approached the backwaters, Sushmitha was looking forward to enjoying her long due holiday, I think Sinu( Sush's friend from college) just wanted to do some “bird-watching” while I was initially just worried bout getting sun burned and concerned about having a solid roof over the ferry !!


It was nice to have a small ferry to ourselves, and nicer to know that we’d get an off season discount in February…but the loose chairs on the upper deck were shaky n I decided to just settle on the floor n so did Sinu n Sushmitha (S&S) eventually.

The tour began n we settled down to the palm-fringed and tranquil backwaters which sometimes lead us to small canals and then suddenly came upon vast lake like openings only to lead us into another maze of canals…I instinctively felt like leaving behind breadcrumbs to find my way back !

It was just like the websites I had surfed through…and for a while I felt like surfing through one of them again, only this time I used a ferry instead of a mouse…n it took a while to realize that I was there for real ! Ofcourse the harsh sun woke me up soon n I went scurrying for cover cribbing about the sun burn…and the half-sleeved shirt was obviously a bad choice!

All of us had digital cameras and went berserk clicking pictures of the palms, the big, bold and beautiful houseboats, the under clad foreigners in them, the birds and the bees, the canals merging into each other and ofcourse, pictures of each other too! Sinu has the most awesome camera and it pays to sit right next to him!

The first half of the tour was spent just soaking in our environment, those awesome trees lining them, the small villages and fields we passed by and oh, I loved the ”boat-stop” on the way where villagers were waiting for a ferry to take them to their destinations. We stopped at one or two places on the way where we (read S&S) were able to admire all the birds n Sushmitha was brave enough to learn a bird’s name or two and utter it in every alternate sentence for the rest of the day!! Soon like all crusaders, we were hungry and thirsty and stopped at a field on the way to eat our bread and butter at bout noon.

Lunch made me perky and I was ready to do a Kate Winslet on the ferry but Sinu seemed energized enough to shoot me down n out if I rocked the boat! The ride continued through more canals and fields and after miserably trying to make small video clippings on my camera, I decided to let others do the hard work n just sit n admire the views and capture images in my mind. We missed having a music system at the point but I didn’t mind loosing track of time at all...though obviously we all had cell phones which occasionally buzzed and brought us back to the harsh realities of life with a thud !

The ferry driver stopped again at a small hutment where we were able to laze around again and have coconut water and delicious tender coconuts and I had this brilliant idea of growing a coconut tree in my backyard in delhi…and I met just my kind of bird too…a gorgeous red-head chick ! Sushmitha got really friendly with the hut owner’s dog and I think Sinu looked a tad jealous….even though there was the goat left for him to get introduced to…

From there we had to head back to the mainlands and the rest of the journey we all spend in being lulled into a dreamy sleep by the smooth waters and partially wished that this day would never end and partially looking forward to our next great day in this beautiful God’s own country. Thank you God for letting us in!!