God's Own Country

On my way back from my recent visit to Hyderabad, I travelled via my home town Trivandrum, a city nestled at the southern tip of India between the Arabian Sea to the West and the Ponmudi Mountain to the East, the trailing end of the mountain ranges of the Western Ghat.  As the plane made its approach to the airport, I looked out the window and was stuck by the lush greenery, almost like a green carpet, that capped the ground.  The absence of sky scraper office buildings and multi story apartment buildings, that dot the sky lines of the other burgeoning metropolis in India like Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore, are an instant give away that Trivandrum and the State of Kerala is yet to arrive as a participant in the economic boom that is engulfing the rest of India.

It was late May and the monsoon season was just setting in.  I was greeted by a torrent of rain, the early rains of a month long season of non-stop rain,  that is so essential to the myriads of daily essentials, power generation through the many water powered electricity generating stations, the agrarian economy that still forms the backbone of this state.  The rainy season, while annoying due to the attendant traffic hurdles it creates, is one of the most beautiful seasons in Kerala. 

Trivandrum, which is situated eight degrees north of the Equator, is as tropical as it can get.  The temperature hovers in the thirties (degress centigrade) throughout the year, with occasionally crossing into the forties in peak summer.  The sun rises at 6:00 AM and sets at 6:00 PM.  There are only two seasons, hot and hotter.

The rainy season marks the end of the oppressive four month long summer that stretches from early February through late May.  The air was thick from the steam that emanates from the parched ground as the first rains hit the ground and the smell that emanates from the ground as the early droplets cool the ground feels more like an aroma to the familiar nostrils.  The taxi carried me through the winding streets and alleys, which unfortunately still forms the main thoroughfare between the airport and the other population centers of the city.  The roads were full of pot holes and there were puddles of water filling those holes.  As the rains intensity, it is going to wash off more of the asphalt and concrete and the holes will only get bigger.  In spite of the rain, the roads were filled with people unconcerned about the traffic or the dirty water that could drench them when a speeding automobile eventually fails to navigate around a pothole. I was filled with nostalgia of my childhood; of the years when, Raju, my brother, and I would come home from school fully drenched with wet note books and text books in hand and our mother screaming at us for not taking an umbrella with us.

The rain continued non-stop into the evening hours.  As I sat by the window listening to the sound of the rain, I could hear in the distance from someone’s radio, a maudlin movie song, an evergreen melody from yester years, that tells the story of a forlorn love or a broken heart. The sound of rain drops that fall on the tin awnings that decorate every house, or the sprawling plantain leaves of the banana plants and the yam leaves that seem to be everywhere, at first blush sounds like a cacophony of sound.  But you listen closely and you get the feeling that there is a rhythmic beat to the rain falling.  You could almost pick up a five beat cycle, or an eight beat cycle that an Indian is so familiar with in their music.  It is as if nature is erupting in a musical ecstasy to celebrate the arrival of the varied plant and insect life that is going to spring once the rain stops.

The admen for the State have coined the phrase that Kerala is “God’s Own Country” and it greets you everywhere in billboards as you drive around.  When I drove through the city, I felt a sense of sadness that my favorite town has not yet joined the ranks of the modern world, but after reflecting on it in the confines of my parents home, may be this is indeed God’s own country and He wants this place to be bucolic and left pristine.