THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Netherlands’ Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander are on a two-day visit to Kerala. But there is another Dutchman already here, the 70-year-old, Martien Weber, who struck an emotional chord with the God’s Own Country way back in the 1980’s and started a nature-friendly resort in the famed beach destination of Kovalam in the name of his adopted Kerala son.
The name of the resort itself stands out - ‘Maharaju’ resort. When TNIE met Martien Weber at his resort, the first thing we noticed was its strange name. When we inquired whether it was a mistake or misspelled, he said, “It’s ‘Maharaju’ not Maharaja. I know the meaning of Maharaja and for me Maharaju is same as Maharaja.”
He had first come to the famed destination 37 years ago. Weber, a teacher for speech and hearing-impaired children in the Netherlands, had adopted a three-year-old child then from an orphanage in Palakkad, who he brought up along with his another son in the Netherlands.
Thus started his unending association with Kerala. He began visiting Kerala regularly and developed an emotional connect with the state. In 1999, Martien bought a plot near the lighthouse beach and set up a nature-friendly resort there. At the time of its christening, he didn’t need to think twice and named it after Raju, his adopted son who is now a chef in the Netherlands and recently married a Kerala woman.
The resort that fuses Kerala architecture with western traditions has a host of unique features. Its ‘honeymoon’ cottage has open windows. There are no television sets in any of the rooms. According to him, the resort is a nature-friendly retreat whose calm is its most attractive element. “The resort is designed in a way to get connected with nature,” he says. Almost 90 per cent of the guests in the resort are foreigners.
It is expected to be full during the month of December, January and February.
Meanwhile, Weber has some concerns about the upkeep and maintenance of the famed beach destination by the local authorities. “When I first arrived in Kovalam, it was really a paradise with beautiful pristine beaches and surroundings. But now everything has changed and it’s no longer a popular destination for Europeans,” he says.
Poor upkeep, mushrooming buildings, pathetic waste disposal and other issues virtually disrobed the famous beach of its beauty. During the 80s, majority of the tourists here were Europeans, but now their numbers are very less, he rues.