I woke at 10 am and read some more of the Mahabharata (I guess I must have started it the previous night). I'm not sure it really taught me anything other than the basic caste system was already in place by the time the book's events took place (assuming they ever did, of course). A strange sound turned out to be Ajeesh's mother grading peppercorns by shaking them in a flat-ish tray. The bigger corns don't move so much as their shaken: this and gravity concentrate them near the shaker. Ajeesh and his father (Gopalakrishna) loaded a sack of home-grown coffee beans and a sack of the graded pepper into an autorickshaw that had brought some visitors, then Gopalakrishna and the produce were taken to town. Jaya (Ajeesh's youngest sister) had cooked rice noodles and sambal containing jackfruit seeds.
I have to say that the best food I've eaten in India has been home-cooked. Small cafés make good masala dosas with sambal and chatni but Suriya's tomato bhaji (amongst other things) is delicious and Jaya has given me at least two food-gasms.
Ajeesh and I took an auto to town: the whole town's internet connection was down so that bullet point was postponed. I had a severe haircut and beard-trim and was persuaded to buy a dhoti and matching shirt. Apparently it's socially unacceptable for Brahmins to wear lunghis except when at home or doing manual work: dhotis appear to be the equivalent of a UK white-collar worker's suit. Also, apparently, I'm nearly a Brahmin because of my dietary choice, although I suspect my educational and (former) professional status may have something to do with it, as (I believe) will Ajeesh's family being Brahmin.
We met up with Gopalakrishna and Ajeesh's neighbour and drank yet more khardum chaya (Malayalam for 'black tea'). I bought a fine comb and raked my itching scalp: I badly wanted the shower I'd been persuaded to postpone until after my haircut. Meanwhile Radio Random Bozo was playing Kate Bush's Cloudbusting. The video to this song has always moved me to tears. I just wish today I could have echoed her feeling that
Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen.
And I don't know when,
But just saying it could even make it happen
Ajeesh took me to see a Malayalam film at Nedumkandam's other, posher cinema. It was a police/political intrigue/action movie full of interchangeable fat gits with moustaches hitting each other for good and not-so-good reasons. (Male Malayalam film-stars, despite being slimmer than their Tamil counterparts, appear to all be fat gits who pack punches like mules.)
© (except the blatantly ripped-off bits) Random Bozo 2006