A PLACE OF ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES

I was leaving Fort Cochin. I was to take a boat jetty out of the island towards Cochin City. I stood on the edge of the island on a 6 O clock shade of warm sunlight as the bulk carriers sailed busy towards the Persian Gulf. Amongst the mumblings of a language of the salty malabar, I stood and looked at the ocean trying to find a moment that I can take back with me. Couldn’t find anything. Instead, I saw the slow end of a hard day. A day of loading and unloading, a day of fishing and selling, a day of everyday people going back home, in a boat, from one island to another. it was a usual day in an unusual place. There were no evening train rush, no traffic, no signals, no cafes, no bars. Yet, it ended, with the same tiredness. It was a strange feeling. I didn’t know what I was expecting. The little boat anchored as I got in it, I looked back at the island to bid a quiet goodbye, uncertain at that moment if I would ever come back. The sun was setting, mechanically, as the orange rays silhouetted the Chinese fishing nets, now still after a day of gambling. The air was humid and heavy. I could see the Dutch mansions wrapped in palms, the five hundred year old bastions, the Jewish synagogue, the quiet roads tucked back in time, the old cemetery, the rosewood room where I stayed and the faces of people, strange, yet so familiar. I guess, that was it, the moment I was looking for. In a place of arrivals and departures, in a place that felt timeless, in Gods own country.

Saturday, September 28, 2002