On a Sunday in Trivandrum

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple

Did a version of this story for the July issue of National Geographic Traveller India.

Rise early on a Sunday and join one of several free walking tours conducted in Thiruvananthapuram (also known as Trivandrum). While Tree Walk explores the city’s tree wealth, Heritage Walk delves into its social, cultural, and architectural history. I’ve found these freewheeling walks to be a great way to discover facets and stories of the city that would otherwise pass right by us. Both tours usually start at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings and, over a couple of hours, cover one of the city’s neighbourhoods. Though both walks typically happen at least once a month, they tend to be more frequent from December to April. (Details on future walks on Facebook pages: Tree Walk www.facebook.com/groups/115646138581706; Heritage Walk www.facebook.com/groups/heritagewalktvm)

No visit to Thiruvananthapuram is complete without admiring the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, possibly the world’s wealthiest religious institution, and exploring the busy Fort neighbourhood around it. (Only Hindus allowed in the temple, which also has a dress code: men go bare chested wearing dhotis while women wear saris or dhotis wrapped over salwars. Dhotis are available on rent; footwear, cameras, mobile phones, bags, etc. not allowed inside the temple; )

A few hundred metres from the temple’s main entrance is the Kuthira Malika Palace, also called the Puthen Malika, which houses a museum of artefacts belonging to Travancore’s former royals. (No footwear allowed inside)

A Tree Walk at the Model School

For a further dose of history, art, and greenery, head to the tree-filled government museum complex that contains a couple of museums, a zoo, and an art gallery. At the very least, visit the eye-catching Napier Museum with its mélange of architectural styles and collection of archaeological and historical artefacts. (Open 10 a.m.-4.45 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursday-Sunday; 1-4.45 p.m. on Wednesdays; closed Mondays; entry adults Rs 10; children Rs 5; no cameras allowed.)

Next, stop at the nearby Sree Chitra Art Gallery to see paintings by Raja Ravi Varma and Nicholas and Svetoslav Roerich. (Open 10 a.m.-4.45 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursday-Sunday; 1-4.45 p.m. on Wednesdays; closed Mondays; entry adults Rs 20; children Rs 10; no cameras allowed.)

For a booster shot of history, head to the Keralam Museum of History and Heritage located opposite the main museum complex. The museum, which opened a few years ago, traces the region’s history and global connections across the ages. Its collection includes Neolithic stone axes, a jar and bowl used in Iron Age burials, Roman coins, and sculptures of bronze, wood, and stone. (Open 10 a.m.-5.30 p.m.; closed Mondays. and public holidays; entry adults Rs 20; children Rs 10; foreigners Rs 200.)

Round off a heritage-filled day with a mesmerising Kathakali or Koodiyattom performance at Margi, a cultural organisation that promotes Kerala’s classical performing art forms. Margi conducts regular Kathakali and Koodiyattom performances through the year, but when planning a visit, it’s best to give them a call to find out what’s on. (Tel: 0471-2478806/2473349/98470-99941.

Kovalam calls

Hawah and Lighthouse beaches from the deck of the lighthouse

Did a version of this story for the June issue of National Geographic Traveller India. 

Some of my earliest memories of family vacations in Thiruvananthapuram involve Kovalam. The seemingly never-ending drive zigzagging along twisty roads, the gradual descent between palm groves, the tanginess in the air and the sudden expanse of the beach, with the sea stretching off into the yonder.  

Back then, Kovalam was little more than a fishing village, with few visitors and fewer buildings on its three main beaches—the Ashok or Grove beach, Hawah or Eve’s beach, and the southernmost Lighthouse beach. Today, it’s a small town, the beaches lined by rows of shops, restaurants, and hotels. 

Kovalam’s beaches and its warm, shallow waters ideal for swimming are its biggest draw, which is why it can get pretty crowded with visitors on weekends and holidays. But there are also other ways to explore this laid-back town. 

Deck with a view  

The best place to get a fix on Kovalam’s topography is the observation deck of the candy-striped lighthouse that commands the southern end of the eponymous Lighthouse beach. It’s an approximately 157-step barefoot climb (footwear is not allowed inside the lighthouse), including a final stretch up an almost vertical metal ladder, to the deck. You’ll probably arrive breathless, but the climb is worth it for the view. And if you go up as soon as the lighthouse opens for the day, there’s a good chance you’ll have the deck to yourself for a few minutes (daily 10 a.m.-12.30 p.m. and 2-5 p.m.; tickets Rs 3 to Rs 25; camera passes Rs 20 and Rs 25). 

Surf for a cause 

Kovalam has a small, but growing surfing scene thanks to the Kovalam Surf Club, which opened here in 2005. The club offers surfing lessons to people with varying levels of expertise. The only requirement is that learners have some basic swimming skills, says Mani Sreekumar, the club’s director. It runs classes through the year, except during the monsoon months from June to August. The club also has a shop that sells and rents out surfing gear. And the club’s profits go to Sebastian Indian Social Projects, a non-profit that supports women’s empowerment and education programmes for school dropouts in the area (kovalamsurfclub.com; classes Rs 1,000 for 1.5 hours). 

On the water 

For the mildly adventurous, there are snorkelling expeditions on a catamaran and speedboat rides (prices start at Rs 3,000 for 2.5 hours and Rs 300/person respectively). The speedboats usually head a few kilometers out to sea and zip along the coast, giving those on board a view of Kovalam and its adjoining beaches. Kovalam’s best snorkelling spots are off the rocky headlands that separate its main beaches, but the sea can get rough during the monsoon. So the best time to go snorkelling here is from December to March, when the sea is relatively calm. The region’s marine life includes mussels, plants and a dazzling array of fishes including bat fish, parrot fish, angel fish, groupers, moray eels and so on.  And in May 2015, the Kerala Adventure Tourism Promotion Society launched scuba diving in Kovalam (Rs 3,000/person for 30 minutes and Rs 1,500/person for 15 minutes).  

The sessions, which include 30 minutes of familiarisation in a swimming pool, are best booked ahead. (For more call  +471-2320777/+91-94460-74020 or email: adventuretourismkerala.gov@gmail.com)

Sundowner  

The best way to recover from all this activity is to end the day the Kovalam way — with a sundowner (now mostly non-alcoholic thanks to Kerala’s new liquor laws) and a meal at one of the restaurants that line the Hawah and Lighthouse beaches. 

While the best bet on Hawah beach is the multi-cuisine restaurant at the Sea Face hotel, Lighthouse beach has many options, ranging from Lonely Planet (known for its vegetarian-only menu) to Beatles and Malabar Café. My personal favourite, though, is the German Bakery on Lighthouse beach with its terrace with a view, relaxed ambience and eclectic menu. 

Kovalam also offers upper-end beachside dining options at the Vivanta by Taj-Kovalam and The Leela Kovalam. Dinner at either hotel comes with distinctive views of Thiruvananthapuram’s coastline and fishing vessels twinkling like a thousand fireflies on the sea.

All is not revealed

Did a version of this for the May issue of The Hindu Literary Review

A few pages into Ajaz Ashraf’s The Hour Before Dawn I started feeling mildly panicky. Rasheed Halim, a New Delhi-based journalist and the book’s principal protagonist, had just stumbled across the possibility that the cancer he’d fought and seemingly defeated could return. And his rising panic at this discovery was infectious.

Rasheed’s struggle to deal with the trauma of a possible relapse is one of the stories at the core of this rather hefty book. Another major narrative is the mysterious appearance every morning of ‘Secret History’ — a series of posters on the walls of residential colonies in New Delhi — across November 1992. This ‘Secret History’, which portrays Muslims as invaders intent on plundering the country and wiping out all traces of Hinduism, claims it presents the ‘real’ history of India. ‘Secret History’ addresses Hindus, who it declares are “the only true people of this holy land” and exhorts them to rise and destroy the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992.

Several other narrative threads run through The Hour Before Dawn. These include Rasheed’s blossoming relationship with Uma, who helps run a helpline for people with psychological ailments; efforts by Rasheed and a bunch of others to unmask and stop ‘Secret History’s’ anonymous author; and the story of Wasim Khan, who is Rasheed’s neighbour, a devout Muslim with a catholic worldview and an Islamic scholar on a quest for “the nectar of the Invisible.”

Weaving all these strands into an engaging tale is a challenge that Ashraf tackles with limited success, as the narrative plods on to an ending where not all is revealed.

Some sections are extremely evocative, especially the bits that deal with Rasheed grappling with the idea of a relapse and all that it means, including the possibility of imminent death. Rasheed withdraws into a little bubble of dread and doom. And Ashraf captures this sense of darkness so well that it almost becomes a living being, one that sucks out every shred of positivity from the world around. Sample this passage that captures the pain, fear and confusion that envelop Rasheed: “Like drops of water falling from a leaking faucet, the thought of dying dripped into his consciousness. His was the pain of a man overwhelmed by the cruel certainty of his fate.”

I was also struck by how well Ashraf has crafted the various episodes of ‘Secret History’, with their catchy, over-the-top portrayal of events from India’s past. Of course, you soon realise they are exaggerated and fictionalised accounts; something Ashraf confirms in the afterword. Yet, there’s something beguiling about them, a bit like those e-mail forwards you get and promptly forward to people you’re not too fond of!

At the same time, the writing is often uneven and stilted, with convoluted sentences like this one: “They felt the emptiness similar to what is experienced on missing out on reading the newspaper in the morning, a regimen adhered to for years.”

The book is also afflicted by a jarring ‘article-itis' and ‘preposition-itis’ epidemic; with articles and prepositions being used in the wrong places and missing from where they’re needed.

I also found some of the sub-plots and details that crowd the book tangential, at best, to the overall narrative and quite exhausting. They add bulk to the book, but little heft to the plot. 

Which left me feeling that some incisive editing, which cut away the flab that weighs down this book and shaped a tauter tale, could have saved The Hour Before Dawn. That it didn’t happen is a pity. For the book presents a slice of recent Indian social history, the effects of which are still being felt. Equally important, it is a work of fiction, a historical thriller that also throws culture, religion and medicine into the mix. At another level though, it nudges us to reflect on what terms such as ‘history’, ‘trust’, ‘friendship’, ‘religion’, ‘liberal’, ‘fear’, ‘love’ and ‘life’ itself really mean.

Meeting the Blackbird

Did a version of this story for the March issue of National Geographic Traveller India magazine. 

My heart begins to race, even as my breath slows. Roosting on the polished floor, almost within arm’s reach, is something that has fascinated me for years: a ‘Blackbird’. Officially known as the Lockheed SR-71, the Blackbird is the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft and flew reconnaissance missions for the US during the Cold War, before being pulled from service in the mid 1990s.
Aircraft have always interested me, possibly because of childhood exposure to military aircraft courtesy my aeronautical engineer father. My fascination with the Blackbird, though, began when I encountered it in Frederick Forsyth’s The Devil’s Alternative: “On a single thin nose wheel assembly, the bullet-like nose cone thrust upward at a shallow angle. Far down the fuselage, wafer-thin wings sprouted, delta shaped, being both wings and tail controls all in one… Body and engines resembled three hypodermic syringes, linked only by the wing. Small white U.S. stars in their white circles indicated its nationality; otherwise the SR-71 was black from nose to tail.”

The Udvar-Hazy Center's F-14 'Tomcat'

But that wasn’t quite the real deal. So when a trip to Washington DC came my way, on my ‘must visit’ list was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. Described as a companion facility to the better known Air and Space Museum in downtown Washington DC, the Udvar-Hazy Center is aircraft heaven for an aviation buff. Its two cavernous hangars, adjoining the Dulles International Airport, house several hundred aviation and space-related artefacts including stars like the space shuttle ‘Discovery’, a Concorde and, of course, a Blackbird.
As I enter, the Blackbird is virtually the first aircraft I see, with the bulk of the Discovery looming in the distance. I learn that on its last flight on 6 March 1990 this particular SR-71 set a speed record, flying from Los Angeles to DC in 1 hour, 4 minutes and 20 seconds — an average speed of about 3,418 kilometers an hour!
Wandering through the Boeing Aviation Hangar, it strikes me that many of the aircraft on display have played a part in events that shaped the history of the world. The Boeing B-29 ‘Superfortress’ ‘Enola Gay’ changed the course of World War II when it dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Others, like Bell’s UH-1H ‘Iroquois’ or ‘Huey’ helicopter were, literally, the face of the Vietnam War.

Some of the Udvar-Hazy Center's aircraft, including the Concorde

Aircraft in the museum’s collection have also played less muscular roles in history. The pencil-thin Air France Concorde that straddles one wing of the aviation hangar was the first supersonic airliner to fly from Paris to Rio de Janeiro, Washington DC and New York. And high up, almost near the hangar’s roof is the ‘Spirit of Columbus’, a Cessna 180, that Geraldine ‘Jerrie’ Mock flew in her record-creating feat to become the first woman to pilot an aircraft around the world.
I spend so much time with the aircraft that there’s little time left for the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar’s collection of rockets, missiles, satellites and other objects used in human spaceflight. Besides the Discovery, I make obligatory stops at the Mars Pathfinder Lander and a Mobile Quarantine Facility for astronauts returning from the Moon.
From a catwalk on the upper level I get a birds-eye view of the museum’s restoration hangar with several plastic-shrouded aircraft. My time is almost up, so I dash back to the aviation hangar for a rendezvous with the F-14 ‘Tomcat’, a fighter I first discovered thanks to the film Top Gun. There’s also just enough time for one last circumambulation of the Blackbird to end an aviation-fuelled morning.

As I leave the Udvar-Hazy Center, I realise that I’ve not sampled its other pleasures — the observation tower with its views of Dulles airport, the simulator rides and the Imax theatre. But then, there’s always next time I tell myself. 
The Vitals

Another view of the Blackbird

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is at 14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway, Chantilly, Virginia, close to Dulles International Airport. The museum is open 10 am to 5.30 pm on all days except December 25, with free conducted tours at 10.30 am and 1 pm. While entry is free, the simulator rides and Imax shows are ticketed. Public transport options to the museum include the Metro Sliver Line from DC to the Wiehle-Reston East station, transferring to the FairfaxConnector Route 983 bus to the museum. Alternatively, take Metrobus 5A from L’Enfant Plaza in DC to Dulles airport and a taxi or the Fairfax Connector Route 983 bus to the museum. For more: http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center/

Art matters

A Guesswho creation in Fort Kochi

The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is an interesting idea. Not merely because it is an event that has been started by artists, but because it has got people in the region, particularly those in Kerala, thinking about art.

Of course, what art is, is another matter altogether. What for me is art could be pretentious junk for someone else and vice-versa. 

Visiting Kochi a few weeks ago, the biennale popped up in almost every conversation I had. Not all the people I spoke to will actually visit the biennale — which ends on 29 March — but they were aware of it and interested in it.
And at the biennale itself, what was really exciting was to see that a large number of visitors were from Kochi and other parts of Kerala. Equally interesting were the expressions — or lack of them — on the faces of many visitors. In some instances, visitors’ expressions were actually more fascinating than the art on display. 

A Guesswho creation in Fort Kochi

Artists whose work struck me and linger in my mind include Benitha Perciyal, Lavanya Mani, Anish Kapoor, K. M. Vasudevan Namboodiri, Dayanita Singh, Gigi Scaria, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Martin Creed, Nikhil Chopra and Daniel Boyd.
For me though, the most striking intellectual souvenir of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 has to be Guesswho’s art on the streets, even though it isn’t part of the event’s official programming. At first glance, the artist’s arresting marriage of local and global themes and icons evokes laughter. But then, you realise how layered they are. I was especially struck by the one next to the ticket booth at the Fort Kochi ferry station; the one featuring yesteryears Malayalam film star Prem Nazir as James Bond and the eclectic ecosystem of posters that had sprouted around it several weeks ago — public speaking classes, yoga, labour unions, a religious convention and the man with the gun. That’s a heady mix.  

By the lake

A version of this story is in the February issue of National Geographic Traveller India

As we drive through the gates of Anantya, my mobile phone buzzes indicating that it has no signal. And it stays signal-less for most of our three days at the resort. I wasn’t complaining though, for the holiday at Anantya was about getting some real downtime. 

The resort, which opened in 2013, is only a 90-minute drive from Thiruvananthapuram, but feels like it’s a world away. Situated in the midst of hundreds of acres of rubber plantations, Anantya is built on a patch of land that juts into the lake created by the Chittar dam, at the foothills of the Western Ghats. Once part of the erstwhile princely state of Travancore, the region is now in Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari district. It’s a charming amalgam of Tamil and Kerala influences, some of which are reflected in the resort’s mud-plastered walls, tiled roofs and woodwork.

Anantya’s heart is its open-plan restaurant and the adjoining infinity pool, both with spectacular views of the lake and the hills. Mealtimes were, in fact, one of the high points of our stay thanks to the very welcoming restaurant team and an eclectic menu that featured dishes like the sinfully rich, fiery Chicken Ghee Roast.

Patchy mobile phone signals and a few other quirks notwithstanding, the resort has many of the essentials of modern living; Wi-Fi and satellite television, for instance. And its spa has a range of ayurvedic therapies.

Activities on offer at the resort include a visit to a rubber plantation; bicycles to explore the resort’s winding pathways; facilities to play a bunch of sports; and a ‘games veranda’ with a view, an assortment of board games and a small library. The resort is also a good base for treks to the nearby hills and for day trips to the Padmanabhapuram Palace, Thirparappu waterfalls, Kanyakumari, the temples at Suchindram and Thiruvattar and the Chitharal Jain monuments.

We however, chose the easy life.  Our days were spent in our villa’s gazebo soaking up the view — the lake framed by the green of the rubber plantations and the hills beyond, a breeze ruffling the lake’s placid waters, darters fishing, dragonflies skittering across lily ponds, butterflies weaving through the lush vegetation. And luxuriating in the silence that we could almost touch, amplified by the thwack of an axe tearing through wood, the mewling of a prowling Brahminy kite and the distant drone of a vehicle engine. We just didn’t realise that time was passing by.

The Vitals

Anantya Travancore is in Kaliyal village, about 50km southeast of Thiruvananthapuram, in Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari district. The nearest airport is the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport (60km) and the nearest railway station is Marthandam (30km).

The resort has 21 villas across four categories — Chakra, Siddhi, Veda and Sadhana — varying in price from Rs 7,000 to Rs 15,000 (excluding taxes) from October to March. While all villas have views of the lake, the Siddhi villas, with an outdoor shower and gazebo (especially villas 6,7 and 8), and the Sadhana villas, with private plunge pools, have stunning views of the lake and the mountains beyond.