Travels, 7

Now the most manicallly busy part of the trip.

We had arranged to leave on the evening of the day after the conference, in case anyone staying around wanted more mathematical conversation. Midhuna availed herself of this opportunity, and moore than repaid by being our host on a memorable trip.

She and Aparna arrived at the hotel in the morning. Aparna loaded our bags into her car to take to the University guest house, while Midhuna set off with us in a taxi. We took a busy road with the elevated metro line in the middle (so there was always a delay at the gaps where U-turns are permitted). We followed this until it turned off, and soon afterwards arrived at the High Court water metro station. Ferries run from here to two stations on either side of the harbour entrance (Vypin and Fort Kochi). We took the second of these.

On the ferry journey, we saw huge container ships in the docks, the celebrated Chinese fishing nets, and a number of egrets standing on the tangles of water weed.

Fort Kochi is the original point of European influence on Kerala; Vasco da Gama arrived here at the start of the sixteenth century, and later died here. So the Portuguese were the first in the act; they were later chased out by the Dutch, and the Dutch by the British.

I do have to say that Vasco da Gama gets a better press in Kerala than he does in Europe now. Our guidebook has a section on the atrocities that he committed in forcing open the door to this spice-rich area, but Keralan accounts seem just to call him the first European to arrive. Perhaps they view all Europeans as equally wicked.

Our first stop was St Francis’ Church, which was used successively by the three European nations (Portuguese catholics, Dutch protestants, and Church of England); it now belongs to the Church of South India, which I think is an Anglican church, and is open to visitors except on Sundays when it used for services in English and Malayalam. Two notable things in the church are Vasco da Gama’s original grave (his remains were later exhumed and returned to Portugal) and the punkahs. These are large cloths hanging down from the ceiling over the pews on both sides, connected to ropes runnning through holes in the wall to the outside of the church. The punkah wallah’s job was to pull on these ropes, to circulate air to fan the European congregation inside, but not to take any part in the service. I don’t know their history, but this seems like British colonisation in microcosm.

Over the altar were big plaques with the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. But we were not allowed near enough to take a look.

Then we went to the Catholic Santa Cruz cathedral. It was closed for lunch, so we couldn’t go in; but we saw the outside. Just over the wall was a school (and, I think, also a convent); the schoolchildren were on their lunch break, and the noise was exactly what you would expect in a school anywhere in the world.

Then it was lunchtime, so we went to a very nice hotel and restaurant. I don’t recall its name, but the restaurant was the Armoury, with a fine collection of muskets on the wall. We had a very good lunch. Feeling that the best thing to eat here, right on the ocean, would be fish, I had fish and chips with mushy peas; not traditional Indian but very very tasty.

After this, the same taxi driver took us back to CUSAT and then to the airport.

It is quicker to drive than to take the water metro; it crosses several bridges between islands and over river channels. The city of Kochi is a bit like St Petersburg in this respect. By the roadside we passed an eclectic mix of businesses; a non-random selection of these consisted of a wedding card manufacturer, an IVF clinic, a manufacturer of luxury seat covers, a bakery equipment business, and a site offering advice on study in Australia.

Back at the University guest house, Vijay was there, and we were able to have a cup of tea and a buscuit before setting off for the airport. We were going to be travelling with T. Asir, our next host. (He explained that his name is Asir and also the reason for the T.; it is not like the story of topologist R. H. Bing’s name). I am afraid this was rather inconvenient for Asir, since it is a three-hour drive from Chennai airport to Puducherry, and because of various delays we didn’t set off from Chennai until 22:00. He told us later that we should have asked him to book the tickets for us; foreign travel agents are not allowed to book flights on Indian internal airlines except for flights with international code shares, so we had had to take the last Indigo flight from Kochi to Chennai.

So the taxi took three of us and a committee member who was meeting someone at the airport.

We had not had time to repack our bags, so it was necessary to sit on a bench outside sorting through our bags and making sure that the ticket vouchers were in our hands before we went in.

After that it was straightforward: it is a small airport, so not far to the departure gate; and although the plane (an Airbus A320) was full, boarding was quite quick. The flight was entirely hassle-free, and our bags were almost the first off the belt.

Then the next problem. Asir had ordered a taxi, but taxis were not allowed to come to the airport exit; we were supposed to take a battery car to the taxi stand. Undaunted, Asir pointed to Rosemary and her stick and managed to persuade someone to let the taxi through to pick us up, and then phoned the taxi telling it to come. Fairly soon thereafter, we were on the road south.

We had not had dinner, and although we were not hungry, Asir insisted on stopping at a place where fruit juice was to be had. It turned out even better. This roadside shack did choco-banana milkshakes, so Rosemary and I had one each while Asir and the driver ate something. Then we continued on our way.

It was a good road, apart from some roadworks at about the halfway point that brought traffic to a complete standstill. The main difficulty was the traffic. Most of it was buses and huge trucks. Asir says the buses are sleeping buses, and aa huge number leave Chennai in the evening for places further south in Tamil Nadu. The thought of driving in Indian traffic horrifies me, but the driver kept his cool, and we kept on.

At one point, huge flashes illuminated the sky, and before long, the rain started cascading dowm. This went on for some time, and slowed the traffic even further. Later there was more sheet lightning, but it didn’t bring any rain.

At a certain point, traffic levels just fell away to almost nothing. Perhaps we had overtaken all of that evening’s quota of sleeping buses. Anyway, we came to a turnoff (the sign said Puducherry straight ahead) and the driver turned off onto a small country road. We passed through several places which had names but not much else, until eventually we turned right and the roadside became more built up. Finally we reached the University, and drove in to the Guest House at 1:00.

We were expected; we were shown to our room, staff brought blankets and sheets and made up beds, and Asir brought in some fruit, instant coffee, and a brand new kettle. Finally at 1:30, the room was set up, Asir and the staff left, and we were able to go to bed.

Next morning, we expected Asir at arround 8:30, so we had a sound but not long sleep. He insisted on taking us to Auroville where there are good places for breakfast (though expensive by Indian standards). We settled on Marc’s, a cafe doing breakfasts and coffee. We ordered mango juice and black coffee; Rosemary had a fitness bowl (granola and fruit with coconut milk) and an omelette while I had a special (two poached eggs, cheesy toast with olives and pesto.

Then it was time for our talks, so we drove to the University, where my talk started fifteen minutes late, and Rosemary’s much later still. The building houses both mathematics and statistics departments, so the former came to my talk and the latter to hers, with almost no overlap. Nonetheless, it all went well, and we each had a number of questions, mine especially from Asir’s student Arshiya.

After that, to Asir’s office, and a heartstopping moment. Tamizh Chelvam was there as well: a coauthor of mine, he was born in Puducherry but spent his working life in another town further south; now retired, he was back in his birth town. He and Asir wanted a file, so I opened my email to send them a copy. I saw there was a mail from my friend Natalia Maslova in Yekaterinburg; it was asking if I were all right, given the terrible news from Ahmedabad. So we looked up to find the appalling news of the plane crash.

Then a small amount of time for sightseeing. Asir and his student Cheri to a beach (where we could not reach the sea because a sand washout had left a big drop). Then into town to see the old French quarter. There was not a lot to see, so we stopped near an open place which led to the beach. A little tourist shopping: I bought a musical instrument, and gave Rosemary a new wallet for a late birthday present. Then we walked down to the seat, where we had a relaxing moment sitting on a seat and watching the waves of the Bay of Bengal rolling in.

As the light faded, we moved on from there and went to eat. Asir found a good restaurant, not right on the seafront (those are very expensive). The menu offered a fish and green mango curry, so I went for that, and a can of Kingfisher lager (and very welcome it was too).

After the meal we headed back to the University guest house, where there was not a lot to do but go to bed.

That night, we were woken at about 2:00 by a couple of loud explosions. Given the day’s news, we were a bit apprehensive. But it seems it was just fireworks at a nearby temple festival.

Some impressions: In Kerala, a notice in Malayalan will almost certainly be followed by an English version; but in Puducherry at least, there were many notices only in Tamil. (“The Tamils love their language”, someone said.) Lots of flowers: the pink one which they call “paper rose” is bougainvillea to us, while the red one which I at first thought was poinciana is called gulmohar (red-flowering tree), also flame tree or royal poinciana. Lots of red and black insects called Indian redbugs; they mate back-to-back, and walk around while doing so, the larger of the couple going forward and its partner backward. (We saw some groups of about ten pairs crawling all over one another. Clearly the life of insects has unexpected surprises.)

Up early in the morning to pack (not a big job since we had not unpacked more than a few essentials). Asir arrived with his student Vardhini to take us back to Marc’s for breakfast (a bit smaller than yesterday’s since time was short). We left at 9:25 and were fuelled and on the coast road north by 9:40.