i don’t think the “god’s own country” campaign had started when i first went to kerala. it was in the summer of ’89, my first trip to south india; first bangalore, then cochin. i had no idea what to expect, but a malayalee friend would always speak of the different green of his state. his voice would definitely reflect a funny kind of pride when he mentioned that. being from bengal, another “green” state, with poets and lyricists devoting many…
fine fine off white cotton with a layer of shimmery soft gold on edges, on ends, six whole yards of it. i absolutely love the kerala kasavu. i never knew what it was called, asking in my inelegant way for “you know one of those white and gold kerala sarees,” when my friend said her mother was going to her home town in the southern state. aunty bought me my very first kasavu, and as i stared feeling pretty tongue…
by the time they drove up to the plantation it was almost seven in the evening and the sun had set. the journey had been long and sunita was very tired, beside feeling a little cut off from it all, bereft. everybody had spoken a lot at the airport, her mother was the only one who hadn’t come to see them off. she was distraught, and had been breaking into bouts of weeping since the previous evening. this was the…