Day 2: Exploring Kochi

Sleeping peacefully after a long time I realized what is it to sleep without alarms and honking traffic. As I got up I saw a bright welcoming sunshine just outside my window. Enjoying the whole scene, I was just wondering what an awesome day and what will be for breakfast? I rushed to Beena's kitchen to see what’s cooking? And to my surprise Beena's husband was waiting for me to make the traditional "puttu" for breakfast because I had requested that I want to see how it is done. I just got my camera ready to capture everything as I was so excited to see the whole process. A very old and traditional bamboo cylindrical mould was mounted on a vessel with boiling water, so that it steam could be used for cooking. It amazes me as to how traditionally simple techniques people use for cooking, no worries about temperature and steam control, no question of overcooking or burning it. To begin with, our raw materials -wheat flour and freshly grated coconut were ready to be used. The mould is removed from the vessel and the wheat flour mixed with salt water and coconut was added in layers to get the perfect texture, taste and size; in just a few minutes our puttu was ready. The interesting part was removing the puttu from the mould, all you have to do is just remove it from the vessel and insert a long slender tail like thing at the end with a gentle push and it is in your plate. Our breakfast table was laid well with puttu, Kerela style channa curry, fresh and juicy fruits like pineapple and papaya and of course banana. So we tried puttu with the authentic channa curry and then with banana along with some honey. We were so full but just didn’t feel like stopping. What a breakfast?

We thought of renting a bike and taking a tour of Fort Kochi, but with the uncalled rains we didn’t want to take a chance. Keeping the rains and the thought that we didn’t even know the way around Kochi, Beena arranged for an auto rickshaw. The driver “Kartik” was very delightful and spoke good English and we started our exploration. We first went to Santa Cruz Balastic Church that was just 5 mins. from the home stay. A huge church with an impressive look, and as you enter you just feels so divine. As you walk down the aisle towards the grand altar just feels as if God is welcoming you with open arms. Crossing the beautifully carved wooden pillars on both sides as you go ahead, just one look at the ceiling will leave you mesmerized. The ceiling was full of pictures from Christ’s life and skillfully carved flowers for decorations, which had more of a Portuguese influence. I guess churches are the only places where you can get the calm you are looking for; it was so quite that I just felt so connected with God at that point. I have never felt so pure, so divine and blessed as I was feeling at that very moment.

Next was the Chinese fishing nets on the Malabar coast that is hard to miss. There were people mostly locals all over the place with giant fishing nets. It works on the principle of balance simple technique yet a bit tricky. There were like 2-3 men trying to place the net, with long three-legged poles constructed out of teakwood and bamboo. 5-6 men trying to balance the poles by adding/removing the weight attached to very thick ropes. It just looked like some pulley arrangement to me, but I was wondering why are they using such an ancient technique to catch fish….why don’t they use some new methods? May be sticking to the old ways is why kerela is called “God’s own country”…as they love keeping their surrounding as God intended it to be.

For obvious reasons they have a very big and popular fish market close by the fishing nets, and to my surprise it didn’t smell at all. Everything was fresh and well laid out that we were very impressed. I looked at each and every type of fish they had from small fish like promfret, mackerel, kingfish to big fish like red snapper and the giant tiger fish. They even had all sizes of prawns and crabs that you could fathom. We also saw the cow ray fish that seemed very elegant. Other things that we checked out along the coast were a giant anchor, some old boilers used in the ships. I definitely shopped for some stone and shell necklaces as there were a hell lot of options and you can imagine how hard it was to shop. ;)

To be continued.....