Men in Makeup and Fishing Tips

Kochi is the main city of Northern Kerala. It has an old town, very crumbly remains of an old fortress and a nice seaside promenade, where tourists mingle seamlessly with local fishermen. Or at least I mingled seamlessly with fisherman for three full days and a bit. As did these puppies (any excuse for cute puppy pictures):
Kochi is a town with an active harbour, much history, an on-going arts biennale and quite a few tourists. Promenading on the waterline you can watch the sun set behind passing cargo ships after which you can go to a music concert (part of the Biennale programme. Beautiful music, but the star vocalist was rather too fond of talking. So the 2,5 hour concert consisted of 1,5 hours of him going on in hindi and, alas, only 1 hour of music).
Being a very artistic type of blogger, I also took the chance to visit Kochi's famous Kathakali theatre. Also, I just like to watch men dance.
First we had the pleasure of watching boys put on makeup for an hour,
then the show began. As I am deeply indoctrinated into the secret art of Kathakali, I can reveal to you the plot: First there was this good guy (good guys always have green faces). He was looking pretty pleased with himself.
But after a bit of singing and dancing along came this black and red dude (clearly a bad guy that is) who started messing around and hitting topless assistants with vihtas (the birch twig bunches one hits oneself with in the Finnish sauna).
So anyway, the red guy was hitting away with the vihtas and it was starting to ruin the zen and mojo of the green guy. So in the end they had a bit of a dance-off and the green guy totally beat the black guy. I think the black guy died. Or at least he was weeping.
There's no denying that these dancers are dedicated to their art. They study for years to get all the hand gestures and eyeball-rolling down to pat. Also just before the performance they put an irritating substance into their eyes, so that the whites of their eyes turn blood red.

If not Kathakali dancing or being and irritating auto-ricksaw driver (could I PLEASE walk 20 meters without one of the drivers trying to persuade me to take a one hour sightseeing with wind-conditioning?), fishing seems to be quite a common occupation in this, the oldest corner of Kochi. For many a profession, for some a loved hobby and welcome source of extra proteine for the family. The mode of fishing are numerous, the humblest being a hook, some bait and fishing line held in the hand. Then come the anglers with their fancy rods. Then fishermen wading in the sea to throw nets at the waves.
The net throwing fishermen are at it until well after dark.
After this the next upgrade is rowing boats and nets, then motorboats and nets.
I haven't seen any of the more fancy, big fishing boats that I saw in the backwaters floating this way. So the biggest guns locally are these guys, Chinese fishing nets.
These ingenious contraptions were first introduced here by traders from the court of Kublai Khan. Internet tells us: "The net is used like a big ladle to scoop the fish from the water. The net is supported on a wooden frame and suspended from wood or metal poles (up to 30m high). The counterweight are massive rocks tied to the rods and it takes at least four persons to operate the strucure".
All that, and they're pretty too, especially at sunset!

With all this fishing going on, it's probably no surprise that the seafood in Kochi is glorious. The catch is sold fresh and flopping around straight from the beach.
Potential customers gather round to view the pickings.
I spent my days in Kochi very pleasantly: Mainly eating, drinking fruit juices, walking on the shore watching the fishermen and staring at the waves. And also starting, once again, to read James Joyce's Ulysses. It's a faithful travel book, which I've been carrying around since 1999 on my travels and have read, several times, until around page 250. Shame the book has over 650 pages. Why I never get past the halfway mark is a mystery to me, since Joyce's text, though demanding, is absolutely beautiful! Sitting in my favourite juice bar by the Chinese fishing nets, sipping a freshly squeezed pineapple juice (oh, heavens above, they're so good!) I read the following depiction of Stephan Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego in the book) sitting on the shore and watching and listening to the waves:

"Listen: a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speach ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling."

Now if that isn't the most beautiful description of the seawaves breaking on and then retreating from the shore, I don't know what is!

In words less poetic but as sincere I said my fond farewell to the sea in Kochi, since this was the last time I will see the sea on this trip. Now I have moved back inland, and taken to the mountains. After freezing my socks off in Darjeeling, I am a bit worried what my current hill station, Ooty, has in store tonight. I'm already acclimatized to 35 degrees. Ye gods, how will I survive when I get back to Finland? Just have to sit in the sauna a lot, I suppose. With vihtas.

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