We are in the usual chaos of packing to go to India next week. I keep thinking that I have done this so many times that it should only take me an hour or so. I remember writing about my packing in my book, and nothing has changed much.
I looked to John Murray, a nineteenth century expert:"Murray’s advice on packing initially reflected my own need to put everything into my suitcase “just in case,” but my luggage was not a patch on the Murray inventory. He helpfully divides the lists into two, one for men and one for women. I doubt whether any woman’s wardrobe today contains the vast numbers of garments essential for a visit
to India: huge amounts of underclothes including mosquito trousers for sleeping, flannel petticoats, four dressing gowns and a morning robe, forty-six handkerchiefs and quantities of thick lisle stockings. For the long sea voyage the 3 cwt, or over one hundred and fifty kilograms of baggage
allowance did not include the furniture required in the cabin, but did include three sofa covers and mattresses and a bag with a hammer and nails. This was more like it. I thought that a hammer and nails would be useful for getting the mosquito net to stick to hotel fittings, but Murray added them as an essential for nailing your cabin furniture to the floor in case of rough seas."
A recent visit to SS Great Britain in Bristol made me rethink the hardiness of these early travellers. The cabins were cramped and claustrophobic, even in first class and I couldn't imagine where they put the furniture.
"Current baggage allowances did not faze me, but there were things which I would not throw out of my case. The medical kit, at first crammed with disinfectant, water purifying tablets, of which I used precisely none, antibiotics, medication for various kinds of internal disorder, antihistamines and so on gradually shrunk to a manageable size. It still held enough stomach upset medication in it to Mr Modi. a large ox, even though we never have had a tummy bug in all our visits, lots of anti-insect products, high factor sun screen and pain killers. James kept telling me you could get anything in India where there was little restriction on the sale of pharmaceuticals, but I had seen an Indian pharmacy where everything sat jumbled together in the heat. The mosquito net remained a packing essential. I would have relinquished my pants quicker than those reassuring white billows. If the air-conditioning worked, the mosquitoes went away, but electricity was a fickle commodity and mosquitoes weren’t the only things which menaced me in the night. Geckos and detritus from their wriggling meals and on one occasion, a tree frog, fell on us. Mice raced around the rafters in the more eco-friendly places and there were tell-tale bits of ecological stuff on the bedspreads. An empty bag went into the large suitcase to take account of purchases and to hold the dirty washing, festering in the heat, kept apart from the things I have managed to get to the dhobi."
I would now add a couple of clean pillow cases and a wind-up torch.
As well as looking forward to seeing how the biennale is progressing, I am interested to see what the people are making of their new Prime Minister, Mr Modi. On our last visit I was fascinated that everyone, Muslim, Christian or of no faith had decided that Narendra Modi was the one to turn the economy round, as he had done in Gujerat. A year in, some of my less optimistic prophesies are beginning to come about, as he divides the country via the language, proposing to make Hindi the official language of government and turning a blind eye to some of the excesses of his ultra-conservative party members. His apparent move towards Pakistan and developing relationship with the USA look good in terms of global capital, his desire to get rid of organisations like Greenpeace which upset the status quo, less so.
Sunday 25 January 2015
Tuesday 20 January 2015
Object No. 8: The palm tree
Many years ago, before I had caught the travel bug, I made a bucket list of all the things I wanted to see in the world. I did not go in for activities or places, but rather humble things that I wanted to experience. Along with the coral reef, (Tick!) a rain forest, (Tick!) and a growing pineapple (Tick) was a coconut growing on a tree.
Now it seems crazy that I should have picked out something so available as special, but then I had only seen coconuts in pictures of tropical beaches and wild lagoons. The coconut is special when thinking about Kerala. It is a resource that has sustained the country for millennia and is still locally important, although the market value of coconut products varies wildly and is generally low.
The food of the South relies heavily on coconut oil. The many fried snacks are prepared using coconut oil, which takes the place of the Northern clarified butter in traditional dishes. The palm tree has an important part to play in the reclamation of the backwater paddy fields. Palm trees are planted, along with bananas, along the clay bunds, helping to take the water out of the soil and to stabilise the boundaries. AS well as providing a crop, the precious land is enough to tether a cow or two.
There are two products which are all-important. The coir, which forms the basis of the coconut matting trade, experiencing a great resurgence with the demand for sustainable products, and which has always been in demand for rope, and toddy, the fermented palm wine which is drunk all over the South and wherever palm trees are found. The tourist on a houseboat ride is sometimes taken into a dank and noisome den to sample the toddy.
Since announcing the ban on alcohol, which would have mant that only 20 five-star hotels would have been able to sell it, and none on Sundays, the government has faced challenges in the High Court which means that the state will stay damp, but not quite dry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-30544717
Seeing my coconuts on the trees has led me to an appreciation of the essential nature of the trees and their part in the life of South India
Now it seems crazy that I should have picked out something so available as special, but then I had only seen coconuts in pictures of tropical beaches and wild lagoons. The coconut is special when thinking about Kerala. It is a resource that has sustained the country for millennia and is still locally important, although the market value of coconut products varies wildly and is generally low.
The food of the South relies heavily on coconut oil. The many fried snacks are prepared using coconut oil, which takes the place of the Northern clarified butter in traditional dishes. The palm tree has an important part to play in the reclamation of the backwater paddy fields. Palm trees are planted, along with bananas, along the clay bunds, helping to take the water out of the soil and to stabilise the boundaries. AS well as providing a crop, the precious land is enough to tether a cow or two.
There are two products which are all-important. The coir, which forms the basis of the coconut matting trade, experiencing a great resurgence with the demand for sustainable products, and which has always been in demand for rope, and toddy, the fermented palm wine which is drunk all over the South and wherever palm trees are found. The tourist on a houseboat ride is sometimes taken into a dank and noisome den to sample the toddy.
In "dry" Kerala, toddy drinking is sometimes seen as an embarrassing workman's habit, and there is no doubt that is adds to the total of alcohol-related problems. It persists, though, and provides employment for nearly a thousand in the skilled work of tapping the trees, and several thousand in the toddy shops. It is a treat to watch the tappers shin up the trees, a breath-holding circus act, as they are without any kind of safety rope and some of the trees are very tall. The sap of a cut bud is collected as it weeps into the jar during the day. By nightfall the sap has fermented in the heat and toddy is made, all by itself. Toddy collected from palms other than the coconut takes longer to mature.
Recent moves to make Kerala a dry state and to close the grudgingly licensed liquor shops led to plans to expand the toddy industry and to clean up the bars and shops which sold it.
Since announcing the ban on alcohol, which would have mant that only 20 five-star hotels would have been able to sell it, and none on Sundays, the government has faced challenges in the High Court which means that the state will stay damp, but not quite dry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-30544717
Seeing my coconuts on the trees has led me to an appreciation of the essential nature of the trees and their part in the life of South India
Thursday 15 January 2015
Object Number 7: Houseboat Food
I am not sure that any aspect of the huge range of the food in Kerala can be contained under the heading of a single object, but if there is one thing that resounds and reminds when you are back home, it is the memory of the food.
Often, the most memorable meals are the ones taken on the houseboat. The houseboat cooks are not trained chefs, but often village men who have learned their craft from the best cooks of all, their mothers and wives.
A selection of vegetable dishes, often a chicken curry and, if you are lucky, a kareemi fish cooked wrapped in its own banana leaf appear, accompanied by the huge, red-streaked grains of Kerala rice. Anything and everything can appear on your banana leaf plate, beetroot, cabbage, bitter gourds, yard-long beans, tiny, puffy papadums and a red-hot sambal, and it all keeps coming. A plate of raw cucumber, onion, tomato and carrots will probably be safe to eat, and when you are so stuffed that it is a good job that your only task will be to sit and watch the backwaters go by, the leaves are thrown overboard to add to the pollution and to feed the fish and the crew go astern to finish up what's left over.
A plate of carved pineapple and bananas appear next to finish you off completely.
The lucky passenger will have a dedicated cook who pulls out all the stops at breakfast too. A traditional breakfast of curries and sambal will be available, but if you are like me and can't face hot and spicy breakfasts, you might get appam, a tapioca pancake, puffy, fermented iddlies along with floppy toast and an omelette,
Although the food is moderated for pathetic Western palates it will still be fiery with pepper and aromatic with all the spices which have been grown here for millennia. Each spice is worthy of an object in its own right, as are the dhosas and parathas and variations of coconut products, the lethally fried snacks and street food. I still have plenty of objects to go!
Often, the most memorable meals are the ones taken on the houseboat. The houseboat cooks are not trained chefs, but often village men who have learned their craft from the best cooks of all, their mothers and wives.
A selection of vegetable dishes, often a chicken curry and, if you are lucky, a kareemi fish cooked wrapped in its own banana leaf appear, accompanied by the huge, red-streaked grains of Kerala rice. Anything and everything can appear on your banana leaf plate, beetroot, cabbage, bitter gourds, yard-long beans, tiny, puffy papadums and a red-hot sambal, and it all keeps coming. A plate of raw cucumber, onion, tomato and carrots will probably be safe to eat, and when you are so stuffed that it is a good job that your only task will be to sit and watch the backwaters go by, the leaves are thrown overboard to add to the pollution and to feed the fish and the crew go astern to finish up what's left over.
A plate of carved pineapple and bananas appear next to finish you off completely.
The lucky passenger will have a dedicated cook who pulls out all the stops at breakfast too. A traditional breakfast of curries and sambal will be available, but if you are like me and can't face hot and spicy breakfasts, you might get appam, a tapioca pancake, puffy, fermented iddlies along with floppy toast and an omelette,
Although the food is moderated for pathetic Western palates it will still be fiery with pepper and aromatic with all the spices which have been grown here for millennia. Each spice is worthy of an object in its own right, as are the dhosas and parathas and variations of coconut products, the lethally fried snacks and street food. I still have plenty of objects to go!
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