Part V of my life in Kerala

Rains in Kerala are a phenomenon. It is the gateway to the South west monsoons on which most of India depends for is its survival. It is more than just a climatic phenomenon, it has over the years acquired the status of a climactic phenomenon. The earth, parched during the torrid summer months, eagerly waits like a loving female for the climactic drenching to occur and like clockwork, precisely on the morning of the 28^th of May every year, the people of Kerala wake up to dark brooding skies and the downpour starts soon thereafter. The green landscape of Kerala becomes further verdant during these four months till September and all sorts of vegetation sprout up. All the quaint little rivers of Kerala are in spate and considering their relatively short lengths and proximity to the sea as also to the tapering topography of the state, they are drained much faster unlike the long lasting floods of the monotonous and brutal plains of northern India.

Anchu Muri Madhom being on the banks of one of these rivers, also experiences these floods almost every year. They bring with them all kinds of washed in reptiles and arthropods like snakes and scorpions, which are left behind when the deluge recedes. When it rains it pours. Water falls down in sheets. People wore rubber hawai chappals and carried umbrellas everywhere. The ubiquitous red KSRTC buses, cramped with corrugated rubberized windows made the interiors into cauldrons. But when the rains ended by September the whole landscape was a silky green, freshly washed. The sun shone back and it was time for Onam, the festival celebrated to welcome back Maveli – the Malayalam version of Mahabali, the sixth dwarf incarnation of Lord Vishnu - Vamana, who ruled Kerala once. Maveli, though an arrogant demon was a benevolent monarch for his people and was cheated by Vamana into being buried under the earth, though not before the monarch extracted a promise from Vamana that he will visit his beloved kingdom on the anniversary of his death every year.

The people of Kerala eagerly await this day on the Tiruvonam star of the Malayalam month of Chingom (August September) every year for it also marks the end of the torrential south west monsoons. Onam vacations are long in Kerala and it was during these vacations in 1980, that I got a ticket to return back to Wadi for a brief sojourn. As the verdant greenery of Kerala gave way to the red hot earth of Tamil Nadu and the redder and hotter earth of Andhra Pradesh, the train entered the familiar black soil of northern Karnataka in Raichur. What a contrast! But what a relief!! I am back in familiar territory – one of dust and searing heat, one of love and brusque etiquette, one that evoked pleasant memories from childhood. Kerala these days is called the God’s own Country, but Wadi was not that. It was My own Country. And forever My own Country will be dearer to me than God’s. I can only marvel at Kerala but in my Wadi I had my rights. It was like going back to your hutment from a five star hotel. Home after all is home.