Weekend at God's Own Country

This is not exactly a detour from the topic of the blog but an integral part of it.I had seen many ads and heard a lot about KERELA - "GOD'S OWN COUNTRY". This weekend GOD gave me a chance to visit his country.
What follows is my experience with some of the most beautiful places in Kerala.

On 8th August, I went to meet my friend in a place called Kothamangala.I took a bus from Tripunithara bus stand to Muvattupura. As usual, it was raining crazy during the entire journey. I was feeling as if i am in a different world.The people, the roads,the climate-everything was very new for me.It took 45 min from Tripunithara to Muvattupuram.As soon as i reached Muvattupuram, Subin came to pick me up. Then started the ride of my life. I had never seen such twisted roads in my entire life. No traffic lights, no signals, only trees all around. Subin switched off the light of the bike for few seconds and then there was complete darkness, by complete i mean COMPLETE. There was absolutely not even a speck of light in the entire area. Finally we reached his place.

The house was big one and the family there was even bigger. I had not seen such a huge family for a very long time, almost 10 years. The last time i saw such a huge gathering was during my uncle's marriage. All the relatives of Subin were gathering for his Grandma's death anniversary. After talking to Subin's uncles, i had the first meal with the family. I guess that was the lightest meal that i had there, all the meals that followed just got heavier and heavier(of course in terms of quantity).During this entire process, more and more relatives kept coming. After the dinner we went to another relatives place to sleep. There was something very special about the house as it reminded me of my house in Kolkatta. There was a huge garden all around the house with mutiple plantations.

The next day was the BIG DAY, the day for which all the relatives had gathered. We all went to the church for the rituals. We first went to the graveyard where his grandpa and grandma were buried.Then we went inside the church for the prayers.This was the first time i saw a church from inside. It was amazingly beautiful and serene. What made it even more special was the fact that it was built by Subin's grandfather. Then came the second meal for me with the family. The amount of non-vegeterian food that was served there would have made a PETA activist call for a strike. Just a thought, don't worry nothing like that happened there.

Then we went to Subin's house which is still under construction and tried to use our architectural mind to come up with a plan. The plan that the architects had given was a lousy one(according to me).The house has two 2BHKs on the first floor and the ground floor is commercial. That would give an idea, how big the house must be. Well that house became our pub for the night. It was one of the wierdest place to sit and drink, but one of the most memorable for me.Me and Subin talked a lot about family and family values.It may sound very strange to our friends that we were talking about family values and such serious stuff, but its true.Well, that night we went back to the same place to sleep where we went on the previous night.The next day morning I came to know some very interesting things - we could hear the sound of the clouds moving some distance away, there was an insect which was making such loud noise that it can act as an alarm clock and there was some herb which can cure all stomach ailments.

My stay at my friends place was came to an end and i took a bus back to Tripunithara via Muvattupura...

When i came back to my guest house, the area around which according to me used to be so green, all of a sudden looked nothing compared to Kothamangalam. I basically stay in Bangalore. For greenery, on a scale of 100 I would rate – Bangalore – 10; Kochi – 40; Kothamangalam – 95.

I will never forget those 2 days of my life and i am happy that I am a consultant. I say so coz this is the one of the few professions where traveling comes free along with the paycheck.

Two things that i will never forget from the trip - greenery and the amount of beef that i ate....