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| The fabled Chinese fishing nets rest against the setting sun |
It is 2008, but in the fading light, as the sun melts into the Arabian Sea, it could just as easily be 1000 B.C. The dark hulks silhouetted against the darkening sky could, with a little imagination, be merchant ships from the courts of King Solomon and Nebuchadnezzar.
I stand facing the estuary where Vasco da Gama’s armada sailed in. They came looking for pepper and souls to be won for the Bride of Christ — the Roman Church. Before him had been others — from Syria, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Arabia and China. Now, in the gathering dusk, the still-glowing embers of the dying sun scattered on the sea, their ghosts are everywhere.
The next day, the shadowy ghosts have vaporised in the bright Kochi sunshine as I step out of my hotel, the Brunton Boatyard — a 100-year-old shipyard reinvented as a boutique hotel, at the mouth of Kochi harbour. It stands at the site of what was once the prosperous Geo Brunton and Son shipyard.
With its sweeping balustrades, high rafters, lime-washed walls, pillared portico and terracotta-stained polished floors, the hotel has the resonance of centuries.
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| The 400-year-old Jewish synagogue |
Which is amazing because it’s all new. Designed by a Swiss architect and longtime resident of Kochi, Karl Damschen, the Brunton faithfully recreates the style of early Dutch architecture, and blends seamlessly with other Dutch homes still seen in the area.
A long verandah with massive Malaysian teak beams are hung with hand-pulled cloth punkahs, sourced from old government offices. In the shady courtyard stands a specimen of the iconic raintree, whose branches dip with their own weight during the monsoons to touch the ground.
The Brunton rooms overlook the delta where ships and fishing-boats pass. Every hour, your window opens onto a different landscape and a differently painted sky and sea.
Adjacent to the boatyard are Kochi’s fabled Chinese fishing nets, legacy of seafarers from Cathay. These giant contraptions line the waterfront like huge extra-galactic relics from pre-history and amazingly, they are still used for fishing.
Enormous cantilevered structures made of heavy teak-wood frames, are raised and lowered with pulleys and a counterweight of rocks strung together. A team of five fishermen, chocolate-skinned and muscled in their short mundus, strain at the ropes, lowering the net into the sea. I settle down on the coconut trunk platform to watch. Jamaal comes over to chat, offering me a swig of his rum. He is a Moplah, he tells me, descendant of the Arab merchants who fell in love and married the coffee-eyed, kinky-tressed Malabari beauties. He’s also a graduate in anthropology!
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| St Francis Church |
The one thing you learn very quickly in Communist Kerala is to share your table with your driver, guide, cook etc. For a society with hundreds of castes and sub-castes, it is remarkably egalitarian. Then there is that famous 90 per cent literacy rate which every Malayalee feels the need to tell you about.
Jamaal presents me with a creamy, white frangipani blossom. His grand-aunt, he says, told him that its tree is the abode of the yakshis — the beautiful, voluptuous demonesses of Kerala, whose blood-red lips and shining eyes spelt death.
I try my hand at the nets, putting all my weight on the rope, and we pull in a splendid catch — silvery scales quivering and leaping in the sun. Here it’s possible to catch your own lunch and have it grilled, fried or roasted at a roadside clay fire.
I select a plump calamari, and twenty minutes later it is served up, golden brown and crunchy at the edges. Grilled on hot coals, fragrant with smoke ,seasoned with Kerala’s celebrated spices, and washed down with tender coconut water (TC in local-speak) — it is the finest dining in all Malabar.
That evening I watch a Kathakali performance on a makeshift stage lit by a many-tongued, brass nilavillaku oil-lamp, strung with electric bulbs. A conch is blown softly and then triumphantly. The drumming of the chendas vibrates the muggy night air.
Then suddenly a pair of taloned hands rips the curtain as under and a demon leaps out at us screaming in fury. It rolls its flaming eyes, reddened with loathing and flower-seed oil. Around and around the eyeballs dart — crossing themselves incredibly in a figure of eight!
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| The century-old Brunton Boatyard is now a boutique hotel |
The huge costume billows out, scarves streaming as he stomps and raves. It’s very different from watching Kathakali in a city auditorium where the dancers seem somehow diminished. Here in Kochi, the drama is immediate and disturbing, the dancers are truly possessed by gods and demons. The vitunatakam dance drama enacts stories from medieval Europe, and Emperor Charlemagne is a popular hero!
Fort Kochi has been declared a Heritage Site and the best way to see it is a leisurely walk shaded by the wide-rimmed conical Chinese straw hats. The experience is one of walking through an enormous museum; Dutch and Portuguese mansions and bungalows with their distinctive facades, carving and tile-work, once the offices and homes of prosperous coffee merchants and tea-brokers, tell the story of colonisers, merchants and adventurers who left their homelands to follow dreams of wealth and power.
As we walk further back in time to the Jewish settlement at Mattancherry, narrow cobbled lanes are lined with trading houses still dealing in spices, coir, rubber and tea. Their names read Carritt Moran, Pierce Leslie, Forbes and Figgis. Some in Kochi still bear Dutch surnames.
Within a day I’ve crossed and re-crossed several time references and several cultures. Kochi is like a spreadsheet, where you can trace the two axes of history and geography that intersect every element of Kerala culture.
Ready reckoner
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ORIENTATION: Kochi is made up of several parts. It includes Fort Kochi and Mattancherry on the southern promontory. This area contains almost all the historic sights.
Willingdon Island is an artificial island and the main port area. Across the causeway is the mainland township of Ernakulam. Most of the hotels are located here. Kochi International Airport at Nedumbassery is 20km. from here. The railhead is in Ernakulam town. Just opposite Ernakulam jetty is Bolgatty Island, and beyond it Vypeen Island. All these parts that make up the city of Kochi are connected by ferry or by causeways.