he is but a boy). This boy at the wheel of an ancient white Ambassador has yet to be bothered by the complexity of a multi-blade Gillette razor; he is blissfully ignorant of a contour-hugging shave; he has some years to go before truly appreciating ‘the best a man can get’. Having said that he has freakishly hairy arms. Hirsute arms and a baby-smooth face: my first close-quarter encounter with a man of Kerala.
The Ambassador spirits its way through the traffic. That’s the thing about a country as deeply spiritual and religious as India, there is a strong investment in fate. It is their constant daily beacon through this life, as it has been through past lives and future lives. This unstinting belief in the Kismet Code by extrapolation surpasses any requirement for other codes, particularly the Highway Code. They drive like nutters. They seem to believe, quite seriously, that if fate dictates your time is up, then your time is well and truly up. Bad driving per se will not attract death; only the eternally pre-written event of your death will lead to your death. This renders lane discipline meaningless.
They laugh in the face of oncoming traffic, coming on from every side and angle; people, elephants, carts, bicycles, oxen, buses, children, goats, cars, lorries and a white Ambassador taxi all exchange space in the potential explosion of metal on flesh. The one thing about north and central India is that the cow is sacred. In the hierarchy of Indian highway management the bigger you are, the more right of way you possess; unless you are a cow, in which case you trump even the largest of military vehicles. This however does not apply in the south. There are more Christians than Hindus here and so the sacredness of the cow does not apply. And while the pandemonium of the north and centre is bizarrely regulated and calmed by random bovine acts, there is not this freakish cow-based control on Keralan and Southern Indian traffic.
Having reignited my own belief in the Almighty, based on the age-old premise that an inability to beat the belief system is reason to join the belief system, we weave and brake and hoot and horn and eventually make our way into Port Cochin.
The Chinese Fishing Nest turns out to be Nets. The vagaries of Indian–English road signs. But, Nets Shmets, I have come here to eat. Cochin is the centre of Kerala’s tourist trade, the gateway to the lush and verdant backwaters or, as I have planned, further south to the sea resort of Kovalam. Given its prominence on the Arabian Sea, Cochin has become a conduit for commerce throughout India and has a multi-faceted and somewhat chequered colonial history. The Portuguese first visited in the fifteen hundreds, closely followed by the Dutch and British. It boasts India’s first church and also a synagogue. Wandering around I discover a restaurant called Menora, with the image of a Menora, rather aptly, painted on its doorway. I rather excitedly enter assuming they would offer me fusion Indian–Jewish cuisine. But alas, it is but a ruse to pull tourists in. I leave empty of stomach. I wander around the small garden square by St Francis Church and up to the children’s park. Daytime is considering its position as evening suggests resignation, and families have gathered around the pretty park, the noise of the ice cream vendor’s generator sporadically punctuated with the laughter of children. Here I find a smart little terraced restaurant a hop, skip and a jump from the sea front.
There seem few more picturesque places to start such a journey as mine. India is a country of great and varied beauty; I suppose it’s a beauty I have always taken for granted and perhaps a beauty I have not always readily seen. Friends of mine, white friends, would come back from a few weeks or months in India and regale me with stories of stone-carved temples and white-sand beaches and mystic men with flowing beards. They would talk of the stunning natural beauty, the wild jungles and amazing architecture. I didn’t recognise the India they spoke of. If they had chatted about the dusty street in the Punjab where my grandfather’s house was, or the utter pandemonium of trying to get to the Golden Temple on a Sunday to pray, or having to use squat toilets while enduring a bowel-thinningly bad dose of diarrhoea, then perhaps I could have engaged with them. It felt like the beautiful India, the mystical and magical India had always belonged to someone else. Until now. Now, at last I might be able to experience that place for myself.
I settle myself at a terrace table with a front-seat view of a descending Cochin dusk: magical and mystical. Unlike the restaurant’s staff who take ten minutes to be alerted of my presence as the lone customer in the place, and a further five to bestow a menu upon me. Soon after receiving the menu I am joined by another two diners, swelling the custom base to a modest three mouths. They are a couple from Sheffield called Sarah and Paul. They are three weeks into their month-long Indian escapade, which itself is a quarter of their four-month South-east Asian extravaganza. They have both finished their first degrees; she is returning to read Law – I try my best to dissuade her – Paul has completed a degree in marketing but isn’t sure what he wants to do. Irony of all ironies: the marketing department of a university doesn’t market a career in its own subject with any amount of success. I am glad of some British company, yet being with Paul and Sarah I feel like a tourist. Which I am. I’m struggling at this point to know quite how to feel or how to act. I always dislike British Indians who go to India and act like they’re white tourists, speaking English loudly and slowly. They seem to lack any empathy or indeed humility. I’m worried that I might come over like this. Yet, I realise that I am effectively a tourist; I’m from Glasgow.
My waiter comes and I have a thirst on for beer. Cold beer. But this is India. Nothing is straightforward. They can’t serve beer until ‘later on’. ‘Later on’ is a phrase I am to hear lots of this evening, but more of that ‘later on’. Paul sidles over, his empty rucksack on his back and kindly offers to hunt down and bring back beers. I give him a hundred rupees and bid him a swift and safe return. Meanwhile the waiter comes to take my order. There is only one thing I would be eating in this part of India, a dish rarely seen outside the non-Christian south. Pork vindaloo. Given the 120 million Muslims in India, as a sign of secular respect pork is very rarely served in any region where there is a discernible Muslim presence. But the south is so heavily Christianised that this restriction does not apply. The waiter couldn’t be less enthralled by my order.
‘Ready later on,’ he says.
‘When?’ I enquire.
‘Twenty-five minutes,’ he proffers. ‘Pork still boiling.’ He fails to make eye contact.
Very precise, I think and with a reasonably accurate explanation for the delay. This must mean he knows what he is talking about. After all, I am here with time to kill. Twenty-five minutes would be a useful bridge to the next hour I have to spend before my fl ight to Trivandrum.
‘Fine,’ I say.
He glowers at me, as if somehow trying to summon an eloquent English language diatribe. Glower over, he skulks off. He would be back ‘later on’.
As I sit and wait I ponder my vindaloo. Vindaloo relates directly to India’s Portuguese heritage. As I’ve mentioned, it is said the Portuguese brought the chilli to India, and it is this very chilli that forms the basis of the vindaloo. The ‘vin’ prefix refers to vinegar and I suppose the ‘-daloo’ might be a version of a translation pertaining to ‘of water’(I’m guessing that, though). What is so very interesting about the preparation of a Vindaloo is that unlike most other Indian curries, where the onions and spices are fried in tempered oil, the vindaloo grinds the chilli, vinegar and spices to form a paste or masala, which is then added to the fried or boiled meat. This paste reduces and cooks, cooks and reduces, and provides the most complex of astringent, chilli and spiced sauces. A true vindaloo is a million miles away from the unsubtle British version that is served in restaurants on a Friday night, only to be re-served to some pavement or toilet the following Saturday morning.
My Yorkshire hero Paul returns with a rucksack that now clinks with the music of beer. A big bottle of Kingfisher each, wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper; not quite cold enough but hey, it is beer and it isn’t warm. The restaurant is not fully licensed so we are offered opaque coffee mugs to drink our beer out of: anything rather than betray the true nature of our beverage. My mug has images of American Football Stars on it, with the word ‘Stamina’ printed on the handle. Little do I realise the prophetic promise of my mug.
A further twenty-five minutes pass, over and above the initial negotiated twenty-five minutes. Still no pork vindaloo. The beer is warm now but