101 reasons to love Kerala

Count the number of ways you can love our land. Here’s a list of 101 reasons.

Amazing Travel Journeys: Part III

Jungle Trek. Night. With friends who respect Nature. With the engine flicked to neutral, the only noise from the jeep was of a couple of loose nuts, a break pedal getting squeezed for a desperate grip on slippery rocks, a cautious shifting of gear to rein in the glissade, and a muffled rattling of a couple of annoying tools hidden somewhere deep in the vehicle. The rubber bounced from boulder to boulder taking us down through the thick darkness towards … Continue reading

101 Reasons to Love Kerala: Jungle Brooks

Won’t you sit here with me by the brook for a minute and listen? If I could choose only one voice which lingers beyond death, I would go with a babbling river tinning in my ears. Ah, its music! The water which trips from stone to stone has a soothing timbre which tingles in the wounds of a soul. Other human philosophies and gods could only baulk and stand outside by the door. Listen. Every time you let a river … Continue reading

101 Reasons to Love Kerala: The Nights

If I go anywhere else and settle, I fear, I’d miss this night. Of course there is night everywhere – the fields awash with faint starlight could continue to trigger weird imaginings in other villages as well,  the night-time aromas could detonate the same memories in other towns too, and even the orchestra of nights could be recaptured faithfully to the last note anywhere else in the world. What else can one miss! But, still there is something here which … Continue reading

101 Reasons to Love Kerala: Bus Journeys in the North

I haven’t watched the movie ‘Thattathin Marayathu’ yet. But whenever I see its poster along the way to my college I hit a tripwire and soft smells of long-forgotten love detonate inside my soul like mines. I don’t know whether there is a scene in the movie showing the star-crossed lovers bouncing along the dirt roads of Kasargod inside a bus (there would be hope’s little wings flitting about them like eeyal, drunk with new rain and love invisible to … Continue reading