Bird on the Railing

Taken at Boys Hostel, Symbiosis, Pune, 

bright Sunday morning, just after a rainy day.

Glimpses of the white sand Alleppey Beach

Introducing the Alleppey Beach. I was born 500 meters away from that shoreline (in the Beach Hospital).

Alleppey is well known for its backwaters. The white-sand beach is something that visitors discover after they reach the town. Post lunch is the best time to visit the beach, when the water is cool, the tide is low, and the beach is nearly empty.

This particular day, the tide was extra-low, the sky was overcast. The previous night, the tide was extremely rough,.. the hallmark of its fury being the smashed crustaceans washed up on shore. In some areas, there was a layer of broken shells, about an inch thick! I held the largest shell I've found so far... (not the largest one I've seen, but the largest one I've found)

The sea at Alleppey is usually very inviting, its hard to resist a dip. But calm waters run very very deep. A few meters away from the shoreline, the sea bed takes a sudden dive, and the currents are strong, and pull  swimmers down. Many experienced swimmers have perished. So, if you are going into the water, go till waist deep. No more.

Alleppey was once a bustling center of trade and commerce.. until the Cochin harbour was developed. Many decades ago, ships docked a few kilometers off the Alleppey coastline and tug-boats brought in the goods, which were loaded into railway wagons waiting on the pier. Now, Alleppey is a sleepy little town, and all that's left of the proud days is the skeleton of the pier.

Make no mistake, that pier's made of real sturdy steel... It's lasted for more than a century. I searched the pillars for some evidence of its early days. I expected to find inscribed on the steel "Made in England"... but the salt of the sea had already destroyed any such evidence.

:D I would pay to watch someone walk that pier, Super Mario style...

(Pics by Cyclops, the Android)

The Coconut Oil Mill at Trivandrum

The smell of coconut oil that comes out of the oil bottle you purchase from the nearest retail store is no where close to the original smell. To get that authentic smell, you need to visit a coconut oil mill. Walk in, and you are hit by an invisible curtain of heavy, warm, almost suffocating coconut flavour... I wondered if I would get high if I stayed too long.

The coconut mill crushes sun-dried coconuts...

... into golden yellow coconut oil ...

... and oil cake - which goes into cattle feed and biscuits ...

At the center of it all is the crusher machine. It takes in the dried coconut from the attic above. The pipe coming down from the attic chops the coconut into smaller pieces, which are then force fed into a horizontal, spiral tube which crushes the oil out. The oil drops down in the circular tub below. And the oil cake comes out into the basket, at the end of the tube.

Fresh coconut oil, they say, is healthier than the refined version. All I can say is, when you see that coconut being converted into that golden yellow oil, all you are thinking is, "I need something to fry.. NOW!!!"

Snapshots of TVM, a.k.a Thiruvananthapuram

That's the view from the Trivandrum Coffee Day.
Thursday afternoon, 2:30 IST

Shawn, my cousin, on his dad's Yezdi.

That bike's an antique and I can find a lot of people who'd love to 

lay their hands on that one!

A Protest in Progress.

A hallmark of Kerala, thanks to the Comm un.ist party

A Crystal Clear Day,... and Gandhi smiles :)

'Twas a morning after the rains... 

'Twas warm, bright, and so crystal clear you could see for miles together...

The sea was a brilliant blue and Gandhi seemed very pleased...

Too bad it wasn't a Sunday, else I would have had Breakfast on the shore.