Those were Days,when I stayed in Kerala for almost three years. Its was a mysterious God's Own Place; downunder for me from Hyderabad. It was not a Holiday, that I had planned. Well during my stay,I was more a of nomad moving from place to place visiting the length of the coast from Kasargod to Trivandrum.
Most Week ends when I am free of my Job hassles, I used to take off on Early Saturday Morning and move around discovering Kerala. There was no Planned Itinerary or Guides. The Travel would be by Bus, Boat or even a Walk...back-packing with mostly books and edibles. I used to return back on Sunday Evening back to my den in Cochin.
On one such trip, I landed at a place which may have never been visited by tourist. So As I walked alone into the small Village from the boat ferry with all Eyes peering at me with lot of whispers,I could pick up. Unfortunately for me in my initial days in Kerala I did not pick much of the language, I was getting acclimatised to the place. I had my own reservations of learning the language and mixing with the Malayalis. Most of those reservations have not change with time. The means of communication was mostly English as such my knowledge of Hindi was also bad. Those were lonely days. I had to kill my Saturday and Sunday discovering the God's Own Country Side.
I managed to work out my Saturday peacefully without being a disturbance to the local population under the tree shades by the beach. But on the Sunday afternoon, It started to rain. And Never will you be able to predict when it will rain in Kerala. There were times when as your stroll down the street suddenly it pours down and up the umbrellas pop out from nowhere. I never owned an Umbrella during my stay. I was drenched and was seeking a place to hide from the downpour. I noticed a Old house and an old man lazing in his chair in the veranda enjoying the rain with his newspaper. I approached him for help and a place to keep myself dry from rain. He had this wonderful smiling face and sparking kind eyes. I asked for help and shelter, to which he said something in Malayalam and I replied the only three words I knew in that language. Enikku Malayalam Ariyilla ...(I don't know Malayalam).
The old man began to communicate with me in his broken English and Me in my English and Hand gestures. I sat on the other chair in his Veranda very happy that I could have a conversation with someone. He told that his name was Thankachan and that he had not spoken English for a very long time. However he managed to communicate well with gestures, words and with lot of laughter. Thankachan then invited me to join him and his wife for lunch, and we had a lovely Meen curry with Tapioca(Kappa) and with typical brown rice. We did spend a lovely afternoon together. At the end of the day, towards evening when time came to say bye byes, I wanted a snap of Thankachan and me together standing in the veranda, which the old lady managed to click after a struggle with how to click a snap.
I took the Bus back to Cochin in the evening. When I got back my den, I got the roll developed after a few days and thought, how nice it would be to send a photo to Thankachan. Unfortunately, I did not have the address. So I decided to send the photo addressed to Thankachan, Puthiya Veedu,Beach Road, and the name of the village(Well, that is how You can Write Address on Post Cards in Kerala and Believe Me they will reach the destination without fail!). I wrote a short note to him and his wife for their hospitality and posted the envelope with the snap into the post box not knowing if it will reach the destination.
I never really believed that the envelope will reach the destination. In fact I thought It may come back to me as I have written my Address on the back. Some three months later after the incident, a letter arrived for me from that remote village. To my surprise, it was a letter from Thankachan, thanking me for the snap and telling me his news.
I was surprised and amazed that the post had managed to get the envelope to him. I did continue to write few more letters to him and was actually able to learn a bit of Malaylam because of the event. This was many years ago, Thankachan Passed away, but I have not forgotten him because of him I was able to manage to assimilate the new culture and discover the interiors of Kerala.
