India: Kerala #5: Ram, Stency, Lucinda and Little Baby Ramone

Ok, so after a 2-week break it's now time to return to the telling of our story of love: our love for Kerala, that is. Yes, our story of Rum, Rock 'n' Ram ('n' Soccer), Jew and Muslim Streets, Sewage River/Canal, Fort Kochi, loads of great music, Bill, The Thursday Night Party Club, A Bunch Of Guys Named Joe and more - all in the beauutiful, lush green, tropical Southern Indian state of Kerala. My first four Kerala letters only covered our first week in Kochi, so there's still a lot - a whole lot - more to tell. To quickly refresh your memory, it was on our fourth day in Kochi that we met Ram, who was to become our main key to the joys of Kerala, not to mention the joys of rum and the extra special joys of long-unheard music. The place was wonderful all on its own, but with a great friend like Ram it simply became amazing. Then there was Stency. And Lucinda too.

It was 10:30 AM on Sunday January 18th that, as planned, we met Ram and his friend of nearly 20 years, Stency, a 38-year old Syrian Christian man. Syrian Christians, by the way, aren't in fact from Syria at all, but are actually the original Indian Christians: a 2,000-year old sect started in A.D. 52 when the Apostle Thomas came to Kerala to "spread the word". Today approximately 25% of the people in Kerala are Christians, though the majority of those are now Catholics, many forcibly converted by the Portuguese when they were spreading their terror (sorry, I mean civilization) 400 - 500 years ago.

Anyway, we were going on a day trip with Ram and Stency in Ram's car with Stency driving, but the thing is no one seemed to know where we were going. Ram had said "Let's go for a drive on Sunday. We'll show you somewhere nice". Now he was leaning back and asking us in the back seat: "Where are we going?". We, of course, had no idea, so we just said "Anywhere you think is nice". And so off we headed north-east out of the city, still clueless as to exactly where it was they were taking us. After a couple of hours driving through the lush green countryside (very similar to Sri Lanka) we arrived at a big church next to a river, though this church it turned out was not, in fact, our destination.

After walking along the river bank for a couple of hundred meters we got into a tiny "ferry boat" powered by an old man and his long pole. On the other side we walked for about 15 minutes before arriving at our destination: a government-run elephant orphanage where they bring orphaned baby elephants from all over the state. And, wow, were these babies ever cute! Especially the one with the Ramones haircut. I'm serious - she looked just like me at age 12. These elephants, unlike the ones we saw in Nepal and Sri Lanka, were quite hairy and this one baby had a full head of hair that looked to have been cropped off just above her eyes so that she could continue to see - just a straight line across the forehead. Definitely the cutest wild animal I've ever seen. We couldn't touch the babies, who were still untrained, but the guy let us go up and touch the 7-year old, including its tusks, which had been cut off only an inch or 2 out of his mouth. Beautiful animals; however it was sad to see them chained from the leg, even if it might be necessary (??).

What definitely wasn't necessary, however - and was actually quite appalling - was the adjacent "zoo" full of other "rescued" animals. Horribly small cages, with the monkeys, in partiicular, going nuts inside. Depressing, as most zoos are, unless you're talking about one of those huge safari-type places. This sure as hell wasn't one of those! Seeing animals that should be running, roaming or flying free in the wild locked up in small cages for people's entertainment is simply disgusting. The only entertaining thing there at that little "zoo" was reading the signs. The sign in front of the mongoose cage, for example - apparently made about 2,000 years ago - read "Distribution: India, Ceylon, Persia and Mesopotamia."

Back on the other side of the river we took a look at the church. First built in the year 900, supposedly on the exact site where St. Thomas had preached 850 years earlier. It was quite a nice church, but it'll soon be replaced by some huge 10,000-seat monstrosity that they'd just started building next door at a cost, according to the pamphlet there, of U.S.$700,000 (a massive amount of money in India, especially out in the countryside). What a waste of money! I always thought the same thing traveling around Europe too and seeing all those huge, insanely expensive churches and cathedrals everywhere: "Why don't you use the money for something useful?!". I'm no Christian, but I do know what Christ taught and it most certainly wasn't this: "Make sure to build huge churches everywhere in my name while you neglect the sick, the poor and the suffering. I really like big churches. Build many!"

Next we drove 30 minutes or so until we came to a mahogany forest inside a small state park. We parked then started walking through the woods, which is where we suddenly came upon some real live tree dancing (round and round while singing), right out of a Bollywood movie. They were filming some sort of music video and they asked me to be in it, but I told them I don't do bloody tree dancing. Ok, so they never really asked me, but that's what I would've said if given the chance.

Down by the river (yes, that great Neil Young song again) we found dozens of people shouting and singing. Some were having picnics under the trees while most were sitting in small groups in the water drinking. That's right, everyone was hammered. Then we remembered that the guy at the front gate had asked if we'd brought our beer. But we hadn't so we just stood there and watched and listened to all the shouting and singing. Then all of a sudden the shouts became "Hellos" directed at us and a couple of guys came running over to talk with us and shake hands. Next a group of 10 guys were dancing around in a big circle. It was one big afternoon party. The sun was intense overhead, but, as is the case all over India, no one was wearing a hat. So they were not only happy and hammered, they were all sunstroke too.

                     Son and Ram down by the river

Walking back through the forest I had an interesting talk with Ram about his family, particularly about his dad. Born into a rich landowning family, his dad became a "freedom fighter" (an official designation in India with many benefits) in the Gandhian movement (there are also recognized freedom fighters who rejected Gandhi's ideas and who instead used violence to resist the British occupation). He was arrested by the British and spent 6 months in prison in 1942. In the 1950s he became a Marxist and joined the Communist Party, which, incidentally, formed the first democratically elected Communist government in the world when they came to power in Kerala in 1957. However, he eventually became disillusioned with the Communists and left the party. He had been working full-time for years for the party for very little money and after leaving he ended up broke and unemployed. He went into real estate and then, in 1985, the government decided to privatize parts of the national petroleum corporation - gas stations and distribution services. But this was no ordinary privatization. The government gave these away (gave, not sold, according to Ram) to "freedom fighters" and Ram's dad, being an officially certified freedom fighter, applied for and got a cooking gas distribution service, which Ram and one of his sisters still operate today. Quite the life: from rich landowning family to freedom fighter to Communist Party worker to disillusioned and broke ex-Communist to relatively rich capitalist gas distribution company owner. He died in 1996, but Ram's mom, brother and 7 (!!) sisters are all alive and well. His parents' marriage was a love marriage, which already set them apart, as even today most marriages are arranged.

Back in the car on our way "home" to Kochi Ram suddenly pulled out a little piece of heaven: a cassette of Lucinda Williams' "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road". "What the fffu??!! Why didn't you whip that out earlier Ram man?!" But no complaints because it simply doesn't get much better than driving through the lush green Kerala countryside with 2 great guys up front and Son by my side in the backseat while Lucinda belts out "Concrete and Barbed Wire" AND "Metal Firecracker" AND "Lake Charles" AND "Greenville" AND... Yes, one of my favorite albums of all time and definitely one of my Top 10 from the past decade. I know you can't understand, but that's ok. Unless you really love music as much as I do and unless you've been away from it for as long as I have you can never really understand the true thrill, the true joy, the true jubilation of being in the backseat of Ram's car with Lucinda blaring away as you head on out down the highway. Pure heaven!

And did I mention the beer? After 2 songs of Lucinda we stopped in for dinner and some beers at a fancy hotel bar. We had to fight with Ram and Stency in order to get them to let us pay the bill. Can you imagine the insanity of them taking us on this great day trip AND pulling out the Lucinda and then actually paying the bill as well? Simply ludicrous!

It was then back into the car for the final 30 km ride into Kochi with Lucinda playing and Son and (especially) me singing all the way. Life was indeed amazing.

We pulled up in front of our hotel just as the tape finished. Yes, we heard every single song. What an album! What a day! "How is it, exactly, that we continue to get this lucky?" I wondered. And "How can we ever return home if traveling continues to be this perfect?". Tough questions, but questions best left for some other time. They definitely didn't need to be answered at the end of such a great day. Hail Ram! Hail Lucinda! Hail Kerala!

To be continued...

Mike Cowie (Oredakedo)
Thursday, July 8th, 2004