An evening at the beautician's

The Mona Lisa beauty salon on Varkala cliff does the best massage and facials in town. I like Jodi, the owner, a lot; she, Mahi and Annu feel like old friends now, and I get 'Indian prices' whenever I visit.

Jodi is a real survivor, a muslim woman trying to stand her ground in a man's world. Her arranged marriage lasted just three months; she hasn't said much about her husband, only that he was a 'bad man'. Then, just when she'd got her small business up and running on the cliff, she had to fight off her landlord's advances, resulting in him kicking her out of the salon, and refusing to return her equipment. She's a fighter, and has started again in a new place. But with no husband or brothers to protect her, she's vulnerable.

Last Saturday, Jodi asked if she could use me to model 'bridal make-up' for her photo gallery. Here are the results...

Love and marriage

Two mornings a week, I teach at B-GHUD, the English language college run by the irrepressible John-Sir. Most of his students are in their early to mid-twenties, studying English in order to gain the international IELTS qualification they need to apply for work in any English-speaking country.

I hope the students have learned something from me during the time I’ve spent there, because I’ve certainly learnt a huge amount from them.

I would never have dreamed, for example, that I could stand up for an hour and a half in front of 60-plus students talking about etiquette and manners in the west. And I had no idea I knew so much about British politics, education systems in the western world, the impact of feminism, crime and punishment, to name just a few of the random issues John commands me to speak on at each session. Yet somehow, from somewhere, I’ve found a voice to talk confidently on (nearly) every subject, with no time to prepare, no advance notice, and every session done on the hop.

I’ve learned that I can speak strong, clear English; that I can keep control in a classroom; and that I can (occasionally!) make them laugh. For someone who quakes in her boots whenever asked to give a simple presentation in front of a small handful of people, this has been a revelation. I’m starting to find an inner confidence, and it feels good.

My favourite times with the students are when we’re working together in a small group of five or six. And, it doesn’t matter what subject we start on, by the end of the session we’ve always arrived at the thorny issue of cultural differences: love and marriage in particular.

Traditional Keralites, like most Indians, have marriages arranged by their parents. Women tend to marry in their early-twenties, while men marry after 28. The matches are arranged according to culture, so Christians always marry other Christians. With Hindus, the system is more complex: not only must a Hindu marry another Hindu, but the husband and wife should come from the same caste and be astrologically compatible. When a baby is born to a Hindu couple, the precise time and place of the birth is carefully noted so that its astrological significance can be used later in life to find a compatible match.

In Delhi, Mumbai and other cities where life is more cosmopolitan, Indians are more likely to marry for love. But in most traditional towns and cities, it’s rare – and particularly rare when those marriages cross cultural and religious boundaries.

When I ask the B-GHUD students what they think about having a husband or wife chosen for them, around 95 percent say they want to follow their cultural tradition. Just a few (and never the girls) say they want to marry for love. Because marriage here isn’t just about the connection between a husband and wife: it’s a connection between two families and two communities. It’s almost unheard of for a husband and wife to have their own separate home. Most Indians live in extended family homes, with parents and siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents and other members of the extended family.

So the whole family has to buy into the marriage, and parents take great care to find a mate for their son or daughter who will fit into the family unit. It’s a concept so alien to us in the west, and I’ve been forced to confront my prejudices and try to see things from an Indian perspective. While forced marriage is always abhorrent, it seems that an arranged marriage, planned by loving parents who understand their children and their needs, can work well. My Keralite students tell me that they are allowed to say no to a prospective partner but that, in the main, they trust their parents’ judgment.

What they don’t tell me is that, certainly in Kerala, and probably across India as a whole, there is a high suicide rate among unhappily married husbands and wives. Divorce is a stigma; families will go to great lengths to preserve a marriage, even when there are clear problems. Among poorer educated communities, for example, it’s common and even acceptable for a husband to regularly beat his wife.

My students find it hard to comprehend the way we do things in the west, and are scandalised by our high divorce rates, co-habitation and same sex relationships. Their views tend to be coloured by what they see on TV, in magazines and the movies, and I think they imagine most western women live like Madonna! I tell them that yes, the divorce rate is high in the west, and yes, people sometimes give up too easily on relationships. But many other people have long and successful marriages, work through their problems and live together as a team.

There’s so much our cultures can learn from each other. I can’t imagine ever having an arranged marriage, but I’ve started to understand the benefits of husbands and wives being part of a carefully chosen community. Keralites are shocked at the idea of divorce, but surely that’s preferable to being trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, however much support you might receive from your extended family. I’ve tried to keep an open mind about the things I’ve seen and heard in Kerala, and have advised the students to do the same when they move to the west, because they’re in for a huge culture shock when they arrive.

A very good day

Vishnu stitching


Susan working hard on the school banner


Susan teaching Manju how to stitch


Susan and Vishnu


Midhun, my star pupil


Ambadi, a cheeky monkey but very keen


Viji (one of the teachers) blowing up a balloon Indian style


Joicy with her pink balloon


And again, just before it popped


Jerin, who can't decide between ballooning and cricket


On the 'pitch' in the school grounds


Sharon, a volunteer from Canada, tries her hand at badminton


Recovering from cricket with the boys


Having a cuddle with the school pudja

It’s been a good day today (Tuesday). In spite of the heat, I slept well and woke feeling refreshed. No session this morning at the college, so I enjoyed a leisurely start to the day (huge bowl of fresh fruit salad and a chapter of An Indian Odyssey), followed by a walk down my favourite route.

The jackfruit are huge now on the trees, hanging down from the branches in monstrous clusters of vivid green. Although (or perhaps, because) it grows everywhere, you can’t buy it from the fruit stalls, so I’m relying on somebody to bring me a piece from their gardens. Not holding my breath though, as I’m still waiting for the elusive papaya, two months after my first request.

Spent the morning at the internet café sorting out legal forms (to do with my vile previous tenant at the flats) and replying to emails. It made a pleasant change not to be in a mad rush.

Then a short walk to Jyothis, where the kids and I are working on our end of term project: a cloth banner for the school. We’re stitching large coloured letters on to a bright turquoise back cloth to spell out the name of the school. Above and below the word JYOTHIS will be WELCOME in English and Malayalam.

I’m involving as many of the kids as possible in the stitching, so that they can all feel they’ve done a little bit and that it belongs to them. One or two are showing some promise, so I’m keeping a note of their names as it might be something their teachers could pursue with them.

Stitching and tailoring are big business here, what with all the embroidered sarees and the fact that most people have their clothes tailored for them rather than buying them ‘off the peg’. It would be fantastic if any of the children could learn to stitch to a high enough standard to get work in that area.

A lot of them are very limited in what they can do. Some have motor skill problems, others are visually impaired. I have to make the stitches and then show the children how to pull the needle through the fabric. One little boy kept pricking himself on the needle. I hadn’t realised he had poor eyesight, and felt really mean when he started to cry sudjee venda (I don’t want the needle). Had to give him a balloon to make it better.

Susan and Midhun are my star pupils. Susan has Downs Syndrome and is a teacher/helper at the school. She sits with me patiently for an hour and a half each afternoon, sewing and helping to keep the other kids in order. Midhun is a lovely boy, probably around 14 years old, with long sensitive fingers. Although apparently he’s a slow learner, his stitching is incredibly neat and fast, much better than mine. He comes to me after lessons for half an hour, then everything stops for chaia (tea), and we all troop into the main hall for drinks and snacks. The chaia is made of boiled milk and served with lashings of sugar. I swear you could live on the stuff if you needed to without any food passing your lips.

While Midhun is speeding through his letters, I’m taking one pupil at a time to painstakingly go through the procedure of needle into cloth, pull it through, straighten the stitch, then start again. Meanwhile, to keep the other kids from ram raiding our sewing table, I’ve handed out hundreds of pencils and crayons, photocopies of jungle animals to colour in, and balloons if supplies permit.

Most of the teachers, by this stage, are drooping on the school steps, exhausted from a long day of teaching in the searing heat. Some of them literally fall asleep, heads down, until the call of chaia wakes them up. The more energetic ones will grab a colouring sheet and join in with the children.

Feeling a bit more energetic myself today, I joined the boys playing cricket after chaia, and surprised myself by managing to catch the ball while on fielding duty – result! Then a quick game of badminton, and ten minutes with the school’s new pudja (kitten).

This particular pudja is so small it doesn’t yet have a name. I’ve suggested they call it Joanna. It was rescued by the priest’s wife Lindsay in the school grounds, having been attacked by crows, and the fur still hasn’t grown back on its little paws. Lindsay thought it was going to die, but put it safely in a box just in case. Since then, it’s shown a strong survival instinct. It’s a tiny little thing, maybe four or five weeks old, with a feisty personality and a big purr for such a small creature. I take it out of its box every day for a cuddle – can’t resist – and today it started licking my fingers for the first time. I think I’m in love!

After a thorough hand wash (it might be cute, but it's not particularly clean!) I walked to B-GHUD for a two-hour session with a small group of students. The sky had clouded over and was now dark grey with cloud. And, at 6.30, the rain came. It was glorious! Cool, refreshing, smelling of earth and greenness. We had a spectacular thunder storm, with huge flashes of lightning clearly visible against the evening sky, and I stood outside and let myself get drenched through, enjoying the rain and the freshness and the cool breeze it brought.

Call the fashion police

Fashion in India can be a hit and miss affair. While most women look graceful and gorgeous in jewel-coloured sarees or neatly co-ordinated in matching churidars, others have a style all of their own. Since snapping the delightful ensembles above, I've spotted even more lurid creations popping up in a shop window in town, and have been mighty glad of my sunglasses.

The Indian 'housedress' is also ubiquitous behind closed doors. Flatteringly cut to bear a close resemblance to the potato sack, this hideous garment buttons up to the neck, falls to the ankles and seems to be available only in the 'one size fits all' variety.

But that's enough of the ladies. I've mentioned popular menswear before, and here it is: the dhoti in all its glory. Not usually worn with a vest, I should hasten to add. Oh no. Fashionable men in India (or rather, their wives and mothers) buy their dhotis in packs, complete with matching western-style shirt. So, if your dhoti has a pink stripe down the side, the matching shirt will be in the same shade. Men are western from the waist up, with their neatly brushed hair and crisply laundered shirts complete with pen in the pocket, but traditional Indian from the waist down, the dhoti wrapped nappie-style above the knees leaving bare legs and sandals poking out below.

Worn as originally intended as I've seen in Hindu festivals, where the dhoti reaches the ankles with the chest left bare, it looks dignified and timeless. Combined with western-style above the waist, it's a tad incongruous!

Life in Varkala

In a paddy field with Sarah...


... and with Lu. I'm in a ditch in both of these pics as Sarah and Lu are both very short!


If the crown fits... Queen Julie holds court


... which I guess makes Sue, Marlene and me her courtiers!


Manju and her big sister, my two favourite 'shop keepers', aged 13 and 15.


Ethelina, the Abba cat




Wearing my favourite saree in Varkala last weekend

Every weekend I think I should be doing something more adventurous, but I always seem to end up in Varkala. It’s become my second home, with its western food choices, café society, sea views and the people I’ve met here. Jodi the beautician, Ozzy the jeweller, Mr Ali the shop-keeper and the two little girls who run the bag and bead shop all greet me like an old friend now. It gives me a real lift every time I come back.

Julie came for a day trip last Sunday with her friends Marlene and Sue. They’re on holiday in Kovalam, less than an hour away by train. I’d just recovered from 10 days’ of food poisoning, so felt really well, and so happy to see a familiar face from home. We did all the girlie things: tea and cake, shopping, lots of chat - and the promise of an emergency appointment to deal with the ridiculous mane of hair I’m now sporting. Both hair and nails grow so much faster in the sun.

I was on my own when I arrived yesterday, but you’re never alone for long in Varkala. Over dinner at Trattorias (papaya juice, fish sizzler with vegetables), I met Anders and Magdalena, a Swedish couple. Sharing a couple of bottles of Kingfisher, we exchanged views on immigration, Islam, women in India, travel experiences and the recession. My opinion that they were thoroughly decent people was confirmed when Anders insisted on paying for my meal!

Lu and Sarah joined me today from Thiruvalla, a larger town about 40 minutes away from Mavelikara where the other Kerala Link project is based. They work with women who have been abused or have mental health problems. There’s a school for the children, a half-way house for the women and a centre for elderly women.

We met in Abba Café and were entertained by Ethelina, the café cat, whose new favourite thing is licking butter off my fingers.

Hot, hot, HOT

Mavelikara is heavy with heat. I’m (unreliably) informed by the Footprints guide to India that temperatures in Kerala remain at a steady 32 degrees. The Footprints guide lies… Temperatures are currently hovering around the high 30s, and the humidity is just this side of bearable.

Stepping out of the front door to go to work, I’m wet through by the time I reach school or college. In a land of gurus, own personal favourite right now is Ford Prefect and his advice on the importance of keeping your towel with you at all times. I’m planning to bequeath my own collection of small towels for the next grateful occupant of the steam bath I call home.

Evenings are the worst. The apartment furnishings absorb the sun’s heat throughout the day and, by bed time, my beloved pink mattress feels like it’s wearing by an electric blanket. Whatever small breeze there has been during the day disappears entirely by sunset, leaving the fans to push sluggish hot air around the room.

Even the locals are complaining about the heat. They’re all wilting in the humidity and I’ve even seen a few brows being mopped (my own has a towel attached to it pretty well permanently – I’ll probably come back with pink and white stripes across my face…) Apparently I’m living through the hottest spring they’ve had in years, so that’s nice.

German beachwear and the inscrutable Russian

It’s always a joy to see the Germans on the beach, and one that we were more or less deprived of in the north. Luckily there were Germans, French and Brits aplenty in the south, giving me an excellent opportunity for beach fashion spotting.

Number one destination for this was possibly the Turtle Beach Lounge on Agonda beach. Now, if you want laid back, the Turtle is the place to go. Picture if you will the swaying pot palms, shaded canopies over deep outdoor settees, luxuriously upholstered sunbeds, stylish black marble bathrooms, and bottled water at 45 rupees a pop… HOW MUCH?! Scandalous, but so worth it for the experience.

Turtle Beach Lounge is run by a camp and very friendly German, possibly the least Germanic German I’ve ever come across. He’s obviously been infected by the Goan sunshine and laid back spirit because the Turtle is tranquillity itself, and anything you order takes half an hour to arrive. Most of our fellow loungees were also German, men with exquisite taste in beach wear. Classic blue, minimal white, tangerine and flowery, it was all there for the eye to see. I lay on the sunbed in my black M&S one-piece feeling terribly unadventurous.

Back in Palolem for our meal that night, we again spotted Olga, the exotic and mysterious Russian. We’d seen her on our first day in the south, then the next. In fact, most evenings she and her party would arrive at whichever eating establishment we’d chosen to grace with our custom.

How to describe Olga… tricky without a photo, but I’ll give it a go. She was about average height, built to exert a fairly strong gravitational pull, startlingly blonde (I’d hazard a guess that it might not be her natural colouring) and sporting rather severe black rimmed glasses.

It’s more than possible that both Tris and Mike had a little crush on Olga; they certainly protested over much when she was around and talked about her in great detail when she wasn't. Strangely, whenever I offered to set up an introduction, they put up a strong resistance. Can’t think why. Ah, Olga, we miss you!

Goa in pictures

South Goa and the Don’t Luke Now hotel

(With apologies for the dreadful pun)

It has to be said that the north Goa experience this year was superior to the second week in the south; which is a surprise, as we’d been expecting the opposite.

Palolem, a jewel among Goa’s beaches, is still beautiful but starting to look over-used and a bit ragged around the edges. There is a lot more hassle than I remember from two years ago, more beach shacks, and rather too much blue tarpaulin holding them together. Bit like David next door’s shed, but that’s another story.

Our favourite juice bar (fondly remembered for its hammocks, sunbeds and comfortably lazy atmosphere) is still there, but without said hammocks, sunbeds and atmosphere. Having waded waist high through where the river meets the sea to get there, we were disappointed. Pineapple juice from a carton? In Goa? A girl has her standards, you know!

Having done a comprehensive online search for a villa/apartment and failing to find one that was available (the choice is much more limited in the south), we’d settled on Luke’s Residence as our best option, even though it cost substantially more than we’d paid to come here last time.

I was sold on the description of ‘deep, comfortable beds’ – which indeed they were. However, what the website didn’t talk about was the road noise (5 am call to prayer, anyone?), the chain-smoking hostess and the sleazy owner. (Well, it wouldn’t, would it?) There was no air-conditioning, which was fine for me, coming from the steam room that is inland Kerala, but was a problem for Tris and Mike. And no pool, which was a shame, as there’s nothing nicer after a long day at the beach than dipping your hot, sandy feet in the hotel swimming pool.

Breakfast was provided; standard issue eggs and sweetened sliced white bread, but the coffee was good. Less appealing when garnished by Mr Luke’s alcohol breath, but needs must. Thankfully most mornings we were served by the toothy and mainly silent kitchen girl, who I tried to engage in conversation (‘That’s a lovely churidar you’re wearing this morning…’) but without notable success.

Mr and Mrs L spent a lot of time sitting on their verandah, which we had to pass every time we went to our rooms on the first floor. After various (unsuccessful) overtures to me to join him for gin and tonic, Mr L then informed me he was going to book a ticket and come back to Kerala with me. Yikes. If I’d never appreciate Tris and Mike before, I appreciated them last week!

Mrs L, meanwhile, sat in her chair looking like a cross between Toad of Toad Hall and a sinister Buddha, smoking pack after pack of filthy smelling local cigarettes and complaining about the police, the Hindus and the Russians. Can’t wait for our next visit…

Luckily, you don’t have to go far from Palolem to find beautiful, unspoiled and hassle-free beaches. Just ten minutes’ walk away is Patnem, less obviously gorgeous than Palolem but quieter with a good-natured atmosphere. Walk the half-mile stretch and past the rocks at the end and you arrive at the Rajbaga beach, surely one of the most tranquil places on earth (and certainly in India).

Rajbaga beach sees very few tourists, even though the extensive grounds of the huge Intercontinental Hotel back right on to it. The Intercontinental, though, is like a ghost town; on both occasions we’ve stayed in the south, we’ve walked through its grounds not seeing a soul other than the gardeners and golf green keepers. Maybe the residents prefer to stay in the comfort of their air-conditioned, £250 a night rooms, but that’s fine as it means the few tourists who walk that far can have beautiful Rajbaga to themselves.

At the end of the beach is a salt water lake, perfect swimming conditions for a coward like me because there are no waves, no speedboats, not even any other swimmers in sight. I’m typing this in my extremely hot and airless apartment back in Mavelikara and thinking longingly of being immersed in that cool salty water – wonderful.

Birthday celebrations

Rewind back to 11 February, and here we are at Jyothis School enjoying a HUGE and incredibly sweet birthday cake - my present to the kids before departing on holiday to Goa. Damian the monster child certainly enjoyed his piece, the bits he got in his mouth, that is. The other little girl is a real cutie, whose name I need to learn, and who was squealing in delight when I swung her round and round in the school hall, making us both v dizzy.




Three days later it was a far more dignified affair (well, as dignified as you get with Tris and Mike around, anyway) at my favourite restaurant in Goa: Fiesta. I wore my midnight blue sparkly saree, and was terribly proud of the fact that I managed to put it on without assistance, and using only two safety pins.