All of us have friends who love travelling, exploring new places and experiencing new things. Until recently, I had ensured that I did not have to mix with such company. However, as my bad luck would have it, I found myself on a rickety KSRTC bus with my boss who wanted to see the backwaters of Kerala.
We had a free day in between some work in Thiruvananthapuram, and unfortunately someone told him that the famous backwaters of Kerala were only a couple of hours away. Insistent on making this trip a discovery of India, he enlisted my services as translator and being a cheapskate, didn't even hire a cab!
The backwaters of Kerala is the Rohit Sharma of the tourist attractions: over-hyped and rarely the one who delivers. Having spent 22 years of my life in the state, the prospect of staring at green waters on a sultry January day did not exactly warm my blood. On top of that, having realised that I had to spend the next two hours in a KSRTC bus further dampened my spirits. After several close encounters with several body parts and fluids that you do not want to know about, we finally got off at Kollam. When we finally checked into our hotel with a beautiful view of the backwaters, I quickly proceeded to get drunk, mistook an old German lady for a pillar, knocked her down, got a warning from the hotel staff and cried myself to sleep.
The next day we lolled about like kings, and I noticed one remarkable statistic — I was the only Malayalee guest around. Since this was off season, the place was pretty much empty. There was one family that I deduced was from Gurgaon, seeing the enthusiastic way they were taking photos under coconut trees and inquiring about real estate prices. Then there was another group who was from Germany as I had discovered last night. That was pretty much it.
It is remarkable how peaceful Kerala is when you're not around Malayalees, I noted with a sense of elation.
After a quite magnificent lunch, which I later found out was not included in the room rent and ran into five figures, we settled for a quick nap and woke up in time for the complimentary boat ride into the backwaters. For a moment I thought my boss was suffering from withdrawal symptoms seeing how his hands were shivering, but was assured that it was the excitement at the upcoming boat ride. I reminded myself not to get tempted into pushing him off the boat.
The boat party was a small, and very lively group. Twelve Germans and us. It was a bit like World War II. Just then the boat's skipper walked in, accompanied by a boy carrying some bright orange thingy. His hair gleamed — clearly many coconuts had been slaughtered for the cause of oiling his hair. However, then he undid the effect by smiling as wide as he could at me, and exposing a set of teeth (or whatever remained of them) that were as black as his hair.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention," the man clapped his hands and announced himself to his audience. Everyone turned around. "I yam Varghese, boat captain. This is my assistant, Appu. Weyaar demonstrate lifebelt precautions," shouted the man with a flourish.
Without another word, he basically pulled the young boy to his front, very narrowly almost enacting a public beheading. You could hear the sudden gasps from the foreign contingent.
"Stand straight, boy" the man rasped at the boy, and put the seat belt over him.
To call the boy thin would be putting it charitably. It's a miracle that the lifebelt didn't simply fall down.
"You see, laydies and gentlemans, weyaar taking very much precautions about your safety", the skipper continued to shout with his back at us, and furiously trying to fit the contraption on the boy.
Somehow, he managed to finish, and turned us at with a flourish and said ,"this is how to wear lifebelt."
I have finished entire meals in the time that it took him to put it on. If this was how long it took to actually wear a life belt, rest assured, we were better off trying to swim back to the shore in case the boat capsized. To make the whole scene even more disturbing, the boy looked completely thrilled with his part in this spectacle — he could barely stop grinning and waving at the Germans.
At this point, the lifebelt simply fell apart from the boy's body and fell down on the floor. One of the Germans then punctured the awkward silence and asked the skipper whether he could fetch more of the lifebelts since there more than a dozen of us. Glad to make an exit, the man went off, dragging the boy with him.
After about 15 minutes, just as we were reaching the middle of the backwaters, the man came up with a sheepish look and announced that they had forgotten to take the rest of the lifebelts from the shore. Why they needed to keep them on land is a question to which I could find no logical explanation. At this point, the fat German lady piped up and asked: "So you mean to say that there is only life belt on the boat?"
"No madam. There is no life belt. Only one, it broke," came the stoic reply
"But this is so dangerous! What if the boat sinks?"
"You no worry, madame. If boat sink, I save you!" said the captain, all coconut oil and black teeth.
I turned around to say something to my boss when I noticed that he had gone to sleep. His new Ray-Bans had fallen to the floor. I was about to wake him up when I realized that if the boat did sink, he did not how to swim. Then I walked over to the other side of the boat, threw the RayBans into the backwaters, and with a sigh, let myself enjoy the backwaters.
Hrishikesh Varma blogs at www.hvrhome.blogspot.in